Yeah lose your hearing like a real man !!!! But seriously IEMs are great for cutting out the crap you don’t want (the audience) and mixing in the shit you do want much quieter.
My previous band used electronics and samples and our whole set is clicked and I use in-ear monitors. We still played everything, instrument wise, organically. So when people saw us live it all sounded exactly as it does on the record. Which, I believe, fans appreciate very greatly.
That's a nonsense argument. It's just "It's the current year!". We're not obliged to do things a certain way or believe certain things because of the era we live in. That sort of mandatory conformity would be a living hell, the stuff that your grandparents fought against.
They would have to be at a BMTH/Architects scale for that to happen in any meaningful capacity. But LS, just speaking honestly, peaked with To The Hellfire from a popularity perspective. It's unlikely they get any bigger unless start leaning into a more accessible sound.
@@jackthompson1544 By what metric? Any meaningful metric says that Pain Remains didn't do nearly as well. Maybe that's because it wasn't as flashy (breakdowns), or just didn't catch reactors/TikTok kids/clout chasers like To The Hellfire did. Either way, my larger point was that Lorna Shore will never pull in the numbers to play something like BMTH did. It's not even close.
In my opinion, the real failing was not having those “shows” backed up to a desktop (or better still iCloud) so that new laptops can be loaded with their show and fedexed or couriered to the gig location. A band this big should have had those spare laptops on deck and ready to get to where they need to be.
Agreed, what's more, real pro bands all have redundancy rigs to backup the main rig in case of a failure. Like a guitarist has 2 guitars or drummer has more than 1 pair of sticks. I think it's mostly sad he canceled rather than perform anyway without the laptop. I don't give a damn if the backing tracks are on, example, Rush played in Brazil for the first time, it rained and soaked their stage and all their gear and all the midi gear stopped working, Did Rush say fuck it I can't perform now?! No they went on and crushed it without all the fancy midi and V-kit stuff.
@@myopicautisticmetal9035 to be fair, they did have a backup laptop. Both of them were sent to the wrong place. It can be argued that your backup gear should always be kept separate from your main gear and this could have been avoided had they done that but shit happens sometimes and I bet from this point on EVERY band will have extra fail safes put in place. These guys were in a lose/lose situation though. Either they cancel the show and people bitch or they put on a completely different show than people thought they were getting when they bought their ticket (FIR is known for the production quality of their music and live shows) and people still bitch. I just know that as a photographer, if I screw up during a shoot and the quality of work isn't up to my usual standards, I won't just give the clients the subpar work and call it good. They paid for my usual standard of work and if I have to redo the shoot to give it to them, that's what I'll do.
@@ECMKAD - Yeah, I totally agree with this. I mean, I’d have had a great deal of respect for them if dude decided to put on a solo acoustic effort with the promise to return soon with the whole band. But honestly, “shows” these days aren’t just some guys with guitars and amps and their high-school buddy at the mixer and lights. This is especially true with bands that have fully immersed into this way of doing things and is more akin to asking them to all play out of tune: the show itself just wouldn’t be right and they have the right to not want to half-ass something just to stay on the bill. Better to leave more space for the other groups, especially those coming up, to really get to shine. Appreciate your analogy to your work.
@@BockwinkleB Jesus what a take. If carpenter loses their electronical tools that he is used to working with, he could still do his job with a basic saw and hammer but the quality isn't going to be the same
the comparison I usually make in these cases (and sometimes it even works) is with sewing machines: is using a sewing machine to sew some clothes "cheating" or those are "fake clothes" compared to hand-sewn ones? No because it still requires skills to do. You may put some already sewn clothes under an un-threaded machine and go through the moves of sewing (= playing the master file and lip synch) but that's a different thing than actually using a sewing machine (= using a laptop to aid during a show)
A friend of mines band supported Sebastian Bach at a show a few years ago. The show was delayed for over an hour because Sebastian Bach's road crew couldn't get the rented digital mixing board to work and they were unfamiliar with the older analog style board the venue had. If it wasn't for the sound engineer my mates band had hired who knew how to work the board its unlikely the show would've happened at all.
The masters of decrepitude don’t realize the Laptop is both Boards, and your friends Sound Engineer, all rolled into one. Only incapable of Food Poisoning or anything. Which is more predictable on average, even if this one time the backups failed. It’s literally the same as a damaged or stolen mixing board.
I want the people on stage play their instruments/do their vocals live. If they have songs with strings, synth, rap beats, etc of course I want them to use tracks live otherwise it wouldn't be the same song. I love Ronnie going off on Twitter. He's hilarious 😂😂😂 Greetings from Germany
I'm 53 and have been listening to music for a long time. I'm fucking old too, but I understand the need for a laptop. You'd be surprised how many bands including boomer bands use laptops and backing tracks.
I remember seeing Megadeth/Scorpions when they came through Toronto a few years back. Both bands had basically converted entirely over to digital processing for their amp sounds (Megadeth in particular uses Axe-Fx units last I remember, I think?) - no visible amps were ever on stage and they all used wireless units on their guitars - and they still sounded great. I'm sure both their techs and the FOH soundcrew appreciated being able to dial in the sound way more precisely than 4x12 cabs could ever produce.
At blue ridge a month ago Dayseeker had to switch to an acoustic set cause their laptop overheated. We live in a world with advanced technology that makes everyone’s lives easier. Watching this unfold has been hilarious.
@@kameronbailey4710 OK, so if you have all your effects changes programmed in with Midi, to a click, with all little intro bits, synths, sound effects, lights, ect ect, all on the laptop, you can't just play a show without the laptop. You can try, but you won't have time to reconfigure your entire rig for manually changing effects on the guitars, the bass and possibly vocals. Tap dancing on pedal boards is a major PITA and you have tons of points of failure. All it takes is one bad patch cable or one stuff up when stomping on a pedal while trying to sing, play and stay absolutely on with the performance, and you just screwed the performance. We've all seen it, and those of us who play also have experienced it. That's why they use laptops, because it's so much easier, more reliable and lets you focus on playing instead of worrying about pedals ect. Now of you suddenly don't have the laptop, you have to change your entire setup. You now need a midi switcher at your feet, and you need to program all the patch banks in an order that allows you to play the set without absolute chaos. That's a big undertaking. Depends on the type of music too. Some bands may only use one guitar sound most of the show, others might have all kinds of crazy stuff going on.
Queen played a tape track of the beginning overdubbed choir whenever they played "Bohemian Rhapsody" IN THE FREAKING 1970'S, so y'all can't tell me audio tracks during concerts is a recent thing, just saying... *sips tea*
I think the main thing that got into the boomer bonnet is they felt they couldn't perform without it, and to be honest I *kinda* get that (heavy emphasis on kinda). Part of me feels that the guys in Falling should have adapted, overcame, and gone out to play something at least. Hell, it would've been pretty cool in a "the show must go on" kinda way But at the end of the day, I'm not in that band, and I don't know the full extent of how integral what that laptop contained is to their performance.
Imagine, for example, Brand of Sacrifice going live and in addition to band members they would need several keyboardists, probably two mixer operators and full fkn orchestra to play their songs. Yeah, now THAT is a live performance
Are we going to mention the genre bending Ronnie does? Like “laptop isn’t rock” but there isn’t just rock in FIR’s catalogue? Would you tell Dr Dre he can’t use a laptop?
If I was in a band that heavily relied on backing tracks via laptop and for whatever reason said tracks were unavailable, personally I would just prefer to perform a stripped down version of the night's setlist after explaining the situation to those in attendance. Hell, it'd probably become a much talked about show...a rare once-in-a-blue-moon-when-the-stars-aligned type of deal 🤘
@@andybarker5687 so you can't be metal just because you don't play an instrument? What kinda gen z bullshit is that? And I know exactly who Eddie Trunk is.
@@randywissler9923 these people don’t know about Eddie’s legacy, too young to know about it. I think both his and Ronnie’s takes were too strong, they should’ve had a backup show or acoustic set instead of just straight cancelling
I also love how Nikki Sixx (of Motley Crue and Sixx:A.M.) publicly backed Ronnie up on this and he’s 64… 6 years older than Eddie Trunk (58) and a decade older than Sebastian Bach (54)… little ridiculous that these dudes are younger than he is and yet they’re the ones being the boomers 🤦♀️
Yeah its pretty much a war between them. I'm in a group on discord which is falling in reverse based and both ronnie and saraya does chat from time to time on what comes up, whether its shows, merchs, or in this case this situation. People may say they could perform without the laptops. The metaphor ronnie used may have been too far stretched on, but at the same time he makes a valid point. Of all their songs and performances, those laptops are what makes their performances pop more to what makes them Falling in Reverse. Even for quite some time now, old, current, and new bands now use laptops to enhance their music performances. Some may be able to adapt if worse case scenario occurs, but not everyone can and thats the problem with Eddie and sebastian. They think ronnie can adapt, but thats not the case because like I said before, not every band can adapt. To this day, laptops are used more frequently for live performances. We aren't in the old times anymore, this is 2022 and technology in the music industry evolves as time goes by.
My favorite band has 2 guitar players but sometimes have 3 different guitars lines in a song and so they use a track live for the 3rd line. It didn't stop me from having the time of my life when I saw them live.
This reminds me of the days when people called synthesizers and drum machines in the 80s not real music, we're still there. Like man let me just record my local indie band with tape
Depending on the genre I am totally on board with people using technology to automate, simplify and reduce the cost of many aspects of their shows. Zero issues with that. But if I was in a band that did use a laptop in that way, I would have 20 extra laptops and turn everything I own into a USB stick with every file and software needed to turn a new laptop into a "show ready" laptop. My trousers, my wallet, the keys to my car, my car, my beard, everything would be a USB stick in disguise. My girlfriend would have a fingernail that is a USB stick.
Does Trunk realize that Falling In Reverse would go bankrupt if they hired a person to run everything? Every sound effect. Every effect change. The lights. Tickets would have to cost $1000 for the nose bleeds. What a fool
I’m just happy that people are still going to shows where there are actual instruments being played. Better than certain “DJs” that press a button and then mime fiddling with knobs on a mixer for 3 hours to a pre-programmed set. I just saw Roger Waters a month ago and just ONE of the mixing areas looked like a Best Buy retail outlet. Does he NEED a battalion of laptops? No. I’m sure he could play the show with an acoustic, a mic and a naked light bulb and it would be wonderful. Do I want to experience that for 3 hours? Probably not. Floyd was one of the first to tour with computers and that was what? 50 years ago? I see both sides on this. I guess it just comes down to buyer beware when shelling out money for concert tickets these days. Are you going to feel MORE like you got your money’s worth seeing a show that sounds “perfect” and pretty much like the recordings you’ve listened to a thousand times?Or a raw, possibly burnt out, winded performance with versions that are a struggle to get through? Is it a concert or is it a show? Is there a difference? Some artists can pull it off and others cannot. Either way, it’s not like you’re going to get a refund.
As long as it’s not used to fake (not actually singing or not actually playing instruments) a performance, I don’t care if bands use technology. I do question a little bit why Falling In Reverse didn’t have backups for such a critical piece of equipment.
Hot take. I did FOH for a country band that relied on a laptop for click tracks, backing tracks, and triggered lighting ques. Rarely there was an issue but when there was the band would just play without it. The lesson here is learn to adapt or have a backup plan.
That's fair, but how important the laptop is also depends on then band and the type of music they play. There is immense pressure for bands to sound like the album now, in the old days bands didn't even try to sound like the record, think Led Zep basically turning the show into one big jam session. That stuff isn't what is expected now except in certain genres like blues or jazz. Certainly not metal. Pretty much everyone here agrees though, they should have had a contingency plan, letting the fans down is not a great move.
and that's what it is is a lesson. it's just obnoxious for people to be like, mad that they made that mistake. like it devolved into threatening each other wtf
Tbf, a lot of FIRs stuff is production heavy. Tracks are more important to them than, like, punk bands that are more raw. It just depends on the music and how important technology is to the music
Last month in Denver Black Veil Brides equipment didn’t show up, they didn’t specify what equipment, so they didn’t play. They weren’t the headliner, so the show went on. They invited everyone at the event to another show 2 nights later. Not sure if FIR schedule would allow a make up show, but I bet next time they go to that city they’ll do something special. It is a band, they tour, they’ll be back.
To preface - I started using Acid Pro in like 2004. lol and I literally used to play out with a band that used a laptop for drums. Whole ass shows with no drummer. I also ran sound for 5 band touring packages 2/3 days a week for a little over a year. And quite honestly I still kinda sit on the fence about some of it. I totally get how it works regarding midi programming and fx changes and backing layers/tracks. But I grew up really admiring how bands like Pantera put on shows. It is kind of off-putting to think of how many bands are crippled by not having the rails that a laptop provides to guide them constantly. Though I have seen a few drummers use dedicated modules for clicks so that if everything else does die, the drums still have a click. I like to see live performances for what they are. Your favorite band is either going to sound 50% worse, or 10x better. And I'm not bothered if I don't hear a perfect recreation of the sonics on the album. I do think it would be cool if more bands were prepared to be like "laptop fried, we might be loose" but I'm not about to fight anybody about it.
Agree with y'all. Honestly, I find it weird that so many people want the live performance to sound identical to the recording. What's the point of that? I guess perhaps people assume "not the same=always worse".
Ironically the saddest part about this whole drama is that these guys who've been in the music biz for decades now apparently don't know basic shit about how live setups work. Even if you don't use modern setups yourself you should at least know how that crap works or that it even exists. It's really embarrassing.
Queensryche used them in the 80's for the Operation:Mindcrime tour and it was epic. Without them, the concert wouldn't have been as good because there was so much to recreate, so I don't get it. I don't remember that being a big deal back then, so I have no idea why it's an issue now, and I'm 52 years old. As long as they're really playing and singing, I could care less if they had backing music tracks, vocal tracks to fill in the blanks or click tracks. As long as it's a good concert and people get their moneys worth, who cares. With that being said, you need backup after backup after backup for your laptops so you don't have to cancel shows. 2 obviously is not enough.
I'd like to post this quote from the song Spirit of Radio by a little band called Rush: "All this machinery making modern music can still be open-hearted."
I understand the whole situation and have no problems with bands using laptops at their shows. But let's be real for a bit, first, you should have backup plans. A new laptop, an external drive, a cloud file, one drive, whatever. That's just poor organisation on behalf of the band. Secondly, you should still be able to play without your laptop. I find it hard to believe that their whole show could not have gone on with just them using their instruments. If you can't do that, prepare an acoustic set or whatever. There are countless solutions out of it. If none of that is possible, do what BVB did and offer a free show at a later date.
Me, playing in a symphonic metal band is laughing at this conversation. We have a keyboard player, wich is using VST instruments. So she needs a laptop anyhow. And yeah, it dose the vst changes, and some parts she couldn’t play because she only have two hands. It’s shocking, I know! But all the rest is playing live. So at least we are kinda worthy for Sebastian Bach.
Well, to be honest - as a band, I wouldn’t state something like our laptops got missing and we can’t play live. Like you said, upgrade your wooden processors to 2022, there’s external hard drives, cloud drives etc to store everything necessary for your live. If you have stored your files only on A laptop without any backups and it dies in between the shows or it falls, breaks, accindetally gets soaked - you’re fucked in the middle of the tour and it means you haven’t prepared well enough. There have been bands that lost their gear in fires or it just gets stolen - I get it, you physically can’t play, because it wouldn’t be the same with some random borrowed gear, I mean pre-production takes time, but if you lose your laptop or it gets stolen and you can’t play the show just because you don’t have backups - come on guys, that’s just lame in my eyes. 12 years ago my singer learned the hard way, that if you store EVERYTHING on your laptop but don’t have backups, you’re screwed. After his laptop got stolen by an ex-con, whom he met at a bar, dude backups EVERYTHING on cloud drives, external hard drives, so he wouldn’t lose any of his data or the losses would be minimal.
This just reverts to the debate about whether or not it's fine to use a laptop for live shows. That's not the issue here. It's not that the show is "fake"...but there may be an issue if you can't play your own songs w/o the laptop. FOH can give you a metronome...they can automate tempo changes...they can choreograph lights. All that shit was done before bands relied on laptops. It does make it easier and enhance the creative process, so I'm not against them being used, but if you didn't have a backup plan in case of a stolen or broken laptop, then just play the show without it. I would much rather a band come out and say "our laptop was stolen, so bare w us and we'll give you the best show we can" than just have them cancel.
Even some of us older metal heads know that in the day of plug ins, impulse responses and midi, you can have your rig on a laptop to front of house, no different than say an axe fx or quad cortex.
The way I see it is FIR definitely could’ve played the concert but knowing how Ronnie is he cancelled because he doesn’t want a half assed show. Ronnie is one of those guys that takes his craft so fucking serious that it makes sense to cancel instead of screwing over the fans.
So I used to be in the anti computer/tracks camp until I got hired by a church band that used a metronome and ableton. The tracks help and fill in sound, but they don’t play for you. The actual playing and singing is real, it just helps with tempos and lights. And that’s for a church band that played for like 100 people. It’d be almost impossible to do a show without that stuff, especially with the massive effects chains most bands deal with. Unless you’re AC/DC you need it
I get both sides of the arguement, as a guitarrist in his late 20's I get that most of modern metal shows are runned by laptops and it's not for backing vocal track... more like if you record a triple guitar harmony or something and youra 2 guitarrist band, but you don't wanna lose the strength of the rhythm track or whatever and I get that.... However I'm also a believer of that "the show must go on" they could've done a 30 minute acoustic set just to please the fans and give them something for the money they paid and promise to return once the issues are fixed like I'm sure he did.... To quote you "the show would be shitty" and it most likely would be, but IDK it's giving the fans something at least. PS: I don't agree with Trunk and Bachs point of view.
Not even just that they really should have at least a couple backup methods and one of them should be literally kept on hand and not shipped somewhere. That is basic shit when it comes to being a service that is expected to work/perform 24/7
If you were playing a live show and you are: - miming over a pre-recorded track - using Auto tune to fix your vocals - piping in pre-recorded crowd cheers through FOH Yeah, *beep* that. For everything else, the computer is just a tool to help you get the job done the best you can. Just like your effects chain, amp, and 10,000 lb of other gear that makes it a good show.
Even the auto tune thing is a bit boomer. Sometimes it's a stylistic thing, sometimes it's just to round off the vocals by a really narrow margin, and most vocalists don't exactly "crutch" on it the way the public seems to think. They're usually decent, and there's nothing really wrong with that little bit that's usually applied live.
I have been informed using anything other than instruments in their most basic forms isn’t real… Honestly if your show is good I’m in! Don’t care how old or new, just give me a great show I can cheer at! Everyone have a great weekend!
I don't mind bands using laptops. I'm a bit worried about their setup in regards to backups, as I would assume their important data is on cloud storage and it should be as simple as buying a new laptop in whatever town they are at and go perform.
I see this whole situation as just a reason for me to still do everything it takes to not rely on a laptop in order to be able to perform. Switching fx myself, using my drummer as my tempo guide and not a click, even using wedges instead of inears, that shit worked for 30 years and we got amazing results so there's no reason for that method to not work now. The less technology you rely on = the less stuff that can go wrong, it's simple. It's the reason why people still buy Toyota Land Cruisers and 4Runners. Not telling anyone to do what I do, but just consider that point
I as a fan am absolutely on FIR's side. BUT. I think if they cancelled a show near my place and I had to wait another couple of months or maybe years to see them, I'd rather have them play a "shit" show (which would still have been good I'm sure) and idk apologize in advance if people found it not that great. I think people might have enjoyed it anyways. A good example: Wage War played a fully acoustic gig because of a power shortage or something. Sure, they always played an acoustic set before their show for the VIPs, so it was not completely improvised, but I think real fans would have enjoyed even just half an hour Q&A on stage or something else by FIR :D
the band RED on their album Until We Have Faces used a live orchestra during the recording of the album, you think they will hire them for every live show? lol. This is nuts and Bach is seriously out of touch and needs to get with the times. I seriously think Bach thinks all their instruments are computer programmed and FIR is up there just pretend playing their instruments and Ronnie is lip syncing instead.
We don't use backing tracks or click track live with my band, and even then, there are still laptops around. ( and I do understand and respect bands that do use backing and such, as a band they're the one to decide what their show should be like).
This debacle is freaking hilarious, I've got to admit. FIR fucked up by not having any contingency plan, but c`mon man, it's easier to conduct an amazing show with modern technology and it doesn't diminish musicianship of people on stage if they aren't straight up miming, which happened back in the day too. Also synth music exists, fucking hell.
Every time I hear the name Sebastian Bach, I think of his appearances on Trailer Park Boys and he’s never been anything more to me than the meme he is in that show😂 didn’t realize he was an actual musician.
i understand that during the times we live in now everybody uses laptops i just went to the stadium 🏟 tour with Def Leppard and other 80’s metal bands and i’m sure they were using laptops with either backing tracks and metronome and for guitar tones,but what i think is the complaint is couldn’t falling in reverse or any other band play a show without all that and use just their instruments? and i understand that for a lot of them that’s not possible now and it’s nothing wrong to use technology to enhance your show and performance in the “old days” it was different but i think we’ve become a little too dependent on it just a 51 year old metal heads opinion 🤘🏼🎸
Pretty sure periphery said (probably misha or jake) that every single guitar tone change during a concert is on a macbook so they dont have to press pedals all the time and its done for them. Honestly, it's kinda efficient/consistent as long as the laptop works.
My only point to this, if you show relies on having a laptop for any purpose, you don't have a backup laptop with a copy of your setup in another back pack somewhere? Don't you have more than one mic or guitar in the event of a malfunction?
Lol one of the best bands I've seen live recently was Northlane and imagine seeing Northlane without their laptops, effects chains, synths, etc. You have to be so completely removed from the reality of modern live performances, not even just metal performances, to think losing your laptop wouldn't destroy the ability for almost any modern metal band to play their entire live set. But honestly, it doesn't surprise me that someone like Sebastian Bach, whose likely unaware entirely of what goes on to make even their own live shows work nowadays, would understand that given there's other people who do that for him so he forgets how performing live actually works... Also, Periphery's entire set RELIES on laptops to even just function but does that mean every single member of that band isn't playing their instruments on stage? Some of the best live metal bands I've ever seen are as good as they are BECAUSE of the layers that are only possible when you play as a whole band with backing tracks, effects, ambience, etc.
I've seen bands that have had malfunctions with their technology and still play. IF you can't play because you rely on technology that much, maybe practice some basic common sense. Have it all backed up to the cloud, another computer that goes with someone else on a different bus. Having your stuff on one machine when it is that mission critical is piss poor planning. I'd expect that from a beginning local band. Not a huge act that does this professionally. There should be no excuse for this to have happened. Period. Hope they learned a lesson and implement some changes to prevent this from happening again.
Dayseeker’s laptop was over heating at, Blue Ridge Rock festival in Virginia. So they had to play an acoustic set. Lots of new music has sounds and synths that are programmed. It adds to the music and it’s fine to have. It’s not the same as lip syncing.
Well. It's pretty common these days to use backing tracks. But with a band this size, I find it very surprising to not have a back-up plan. All of my bands are small and unknown and yet we've had enough gigging experience to understand the importance of having a backup plan B... C and D. For instance: no one REALLY needs multi-tracks for playback. Or even stereo tracks. It's nice and all, giving FOH more wiggle room. But as a back-up plan, it's pretty simple to just have a stereo track on a phone (& cloud backup of your fucking tracks!) with clicktracks + backing on one side and just the playback on the other. Doing automatic switching and shit? Then don't. Make sure you can still step through all of your sounds on the Kemper, QC and whatsnot manually. You can make it work if you plan for failure, as you always should. Especially as a professional touring musician. Hopefully they'll learn from that and come prepared next time.
The issue at question shouldn’t be that they rely on laptops to perform, but the fact they don’t have any fucking backups. That’s like a baseline level of being a professional touring band.
I understand the need, but fully understand the "boomer take" here. I remember seeing Tesserract with Ashe live a number of times (5 times) and at every clutch high note he would wimp out and hold the mic to the crowd to "sing along." Dan (and also Elliott for that matter) simply sang the part, like you would expect. I say this because while laptops are important and yadda yadda, if you're a metal band and you can't play your gig without a computer, I dunno man, something is wrong here imo. That said, Tesserract was also the first band I ever saw who simply did not run amps on stage because everything was DI'd through (probably) a laptop. Can't say I'm a fan of it. We need to Retvn to the old ways of playing on the floor, and only having a PA for the vocalist (and maybe some back up vocals) and a couple of poorly positioned SM58s on the drum kit that do nothing but cause feedback. lol But then again I'm a big proponent of only recording what you can duplicate live. I know there's a billion exceptions to this even among bands I really like, and while again, I get it, I do not see why your computer should prevent you from playing your gig. It shows a combination of poor planning or laziness/unpreparedness. Strap up and play? Nobody is going to care if you're uptempo (which is the case live, generally, for all but the tightest of bands), if anything it adds to the experience. Nobody is going to care if the lighting isn't perfect. Just say "hey, our laptops got stolen, so our options were to play or to cancel, and we're gonna do our best to fucking rock for you anyway."
Most fans don't play instruments or play live, so I'm not surprised people would take it as it being fake. Hopefully, this does show how much they rely on that gear, and how much they need to have a backup.
I understand both sides of the story. I think it's been blown out of proportion. A band should atleast have a strong enough structured song based around instruments that they can still perform it live even if it is stripped down so saying its like a car without an engine is a massive exagerration. A band completely calling off a show for that kind of thing sucks, but I realise laptops are important for alot of things now. But at the same time back in the day I get it. Before laptops what did bands do? Bands like Maiden didn't go out with even a metronome and still kicked ass. A laptop shouldn't be a necessity to a band being good enough to put on a show, but music has evolved and changed over time and some of the old school mindset does need to change, certain type of music does need it and that isn't a band faking it either it's just there style of music and I understand a band that doesn't want to do it live if it doesn't do the actually song justice. Eddie trunk getting involved in the way he did is kind of lame, in an ideal world Ronnie makes the announcements fans think well that sucks and everyone moves on and gets on with there lives
I get the importance of the laptops, but I still think they should have just gone on stage and said “fuck it, we doing it the old ways”. Like the metronomes important but Slayer used to do 9/8 time signatures without laptops and nail it, you at least go up there and do a guitar heavy show and do what you can without the laptops instead of cancelling last minute.
What I genuinely don't understand is how that generation will literally say "we fought for you to have it easier" and then get mad when we refuse to go the easiest route. Who the hell is Eddie Trunks also? What band is he in? 😳
im totes on ronnies side, but the real question is, if your WHOLE fucking show is on your laptop, how could you let that go missing. id literally have that shit around me 24/7
Bands tend to get more dependent on that stuff, that the moment you take it away, they are basically nothing. I think that any old school band could still manage without it. Sure you wont have some backtracks, effects, or filters, or some light show, but you really can't make a show without all of that? Of course some stuff give that additional oomf, but how bad is it without it? Legit question by the way. Plus, I compare this to driving manual vs automatic in some way. If you learn to drive automatic, you can't drive manual, either because of law, or because you literally haven't learned to do that. So if you learn to drive manual, you can drive both. Isn't this the same basically? Relying too much on one thing can be dangerous, of course the chances are minimal nowadays for something to go that badly that you either have to improvise or cancel, or postpone, because of dependency on technology that much can lead to cancellation or postponing instead of improvisation. I consider a band having a talent, if they can improvise to deal with the issues. It will sound slightly differently, but they can still play. P.S. Nobody said that electricity is gone, just the laptops, so they can still play pretty much 80-90% of whatever they would require, if not dependent too much on all of that stuff that has been installed on computers. And electricity part was unnecessary, since the beginning of rock electricity was used, the first time electrical guitar came out, when Jimmy Hendrix played in 60's...so what's the point bringing that up? And nobody is talking about dubstep or DJ's. I think you are making wrong points here, talking about something that they didn't beefed about or the point that they tried to make.
Can't believe that in 2022, we're still having this debate. As long as it's not lip-syncing and pretend playing parts to a backing track (looking at you, Kiss), it's okay. If it's something that can't be recreated live, then a backing track is perfectly fine to use (the horn at the beginning of The Unforgiven by Metallica comes to mind). Something else just came to mind. When AC/DC played It's a Long Way to the Top when Bon Scott was still around, they'd sometimes use a backing track for the bagpipe parts, due to Bon not being an experienced piper. Even back in the 1970s, they were not afraid to use backing tracks. I believe it's also the same story with Hells Bells, with the tolling bell at the beginning being a recording. How about that, boomers? One of your most beloved bands from your youth, during your youth, used backing tracks when needed. (Just to be clear, I love AC/DC. Just wanted to poke fun at the boomers.)
As a metal gen x , they just using laptop instead of hiring a ton of backing vocals, etc I get it... Nobody can spend that $$; it's Like when I saw Ghost one time he had background choirs and stuff and its amazing but that was huge festival with huge ochetestra and they definitely spent the $$$ but they were playing for 120,000 people!.then I saw ghost at Newport Music, Hall.and scale d down show and all the extra goodies done via laptop and the show still.amazing and Papa\Cardinal Copia is so damn entertaining the show was still sick.and about $80 dollars cheaper and I didn't have to.go to.Germany lol! No Sacked Open.Air is fucking better than Woodstock for metal!.Sold merch for Sabaton and hung out.with.those amazing dudes!
you can bet Metallica would have a pretty basic show if their laptops got stolen too AV these days isn't analogue anymore - sure they can get up on stage and slay but everyone wouldn't get their moneys worth because there'd be no light show, no flames, no backing audio on enter sandman
Yeah, I don't think NIN wants to go back to the 90s live show work of needing to take pictures, for every different song, of the analog synth settings...
Playing without laptops is more like driving a car without power steering; most people haven't done it in years (if ever) so if they have to they're gonna suck at it.
I see both sides but honestly feel like a lot of newer bands rely a little too much on backing tracks and stuff like that now a days. It definitely has its place and uses especially for big tour packages and stuff like FIR. But it's kinda lame to have to cancel a set because of it. Also lame that there wasn't anything as a backup plan too. You can literally use a phone for backing tracks.
Some bands use virtual amplifiers connected to the venu’s sound system instead of physical gear. It’s much easier to tour with and is a lot cheaper if idk… it gets stollen vs the gear getting stolen.. plus it’s easier to mix live and you can capture the live performance in an isolated mix.
When Luke Holland (who is touring with FIR atm) was with The Word Alive, he’s said in a few interviews the only thing going in his in-ears is the metronome. I don’t think that wooden one would be able to be heard during a festival 😂
*What are your thoughts on bands using laptops live? Comment below*
IEMs are cheating. Put those monitors back on the stage
Yeah lose your hearing like a real man !!!!
But seriously IEMs are great for cutting out the crap you don’t want (the audience) and mixing in the shit you do want much quieter.
@@xx-----------xx873 100%. Fuck those "traditional" dumbasses
I think it's hilarious that Eddie trunk literally hosts a metal music festival "Rocklahoma" and doesn't know how live music works now a'days
I have to use a laptop. No one for a live band in my area. My drummer is in Australia!
"Bands use ELECTRICITY to play live. Wow! What a fucking SHOCK!" - Nik Nocturnal with the best accidental pun of 2022
@lolitmeg 😂🤣😂
Honestly, as long as they’re actually playing and singing their parts, that’s all that matters to me.
Exactly, if there doing what they can, nobody cares where the background effects and all of that come from
Couldn't agree more
100% true. Who gives a shit about a few effects, I wanna hear what you got!
Who cares if they’re even fully singing & playing their parts though, if they can pull off a good show, that’s good enough for most people
My previous band used electronics and samples and our whole set is clicked and I use in-ear monitors. We still played everything, instrument wise, organically. So when people saw us live it all sounded exactly as it does on the record. Which, I believe, fans appreciate very greatly.
As a 50 year old, I am so often embarrassed by people my age who refuse to check a calendar and see what century we're in.
Oh crap sorry, 69 likes turned to 70 now. Not nice :(
@@tourettesonfiree "70 is just 69 with a finger in your ass" George Carlin
hey bro youre BASICALLY gen x its okay
@@kaiserofkush Basically? Gen X begins with 1965, currently as old as 58.
That's a nonsense argument. It's just "It's the current year!". We're not obliged to do things a certain way or believe certain things because of the era we live in. That sort of mandatory conformity would be a living hell, the stuff that your grandparents fought against.
This got me thinking, we REALLY need to see Lorna do one of those live performances featuring an actual orchestra at some point, it will be glorious
I would simply pass away. It would be the best thing ever
They would have to be at a BMTH/Architects scale for that to happen in any meaningful capacity. But LS, just speaking honestly, peaked with To The Hellfire from a popularity perspective. It's unlikely they get any bigger unless start leaning into a more accessible sound.
A set like BMTH did at Royal Albert Hall....would be fire from LS
@@icanmakeeverythingilovedie9861 Uhh did you not see how well Pain Remains 1 did?
@@jackthompson1544 By what metric? Any meaningful metric says that Pain Remains didn't do nearly as well. Maybe that's because it wasn't as flashy (breakdowns), or just didn't catch reactors/TikTok kids/clout chasers like To The Hellfire did.
Either way, my larger point was that Lorna Shore will never pull in the numbers to play something like BMTH did. It's not even close.
In my opinion, the real failing was not having those “shows” backed up to a desktop (or better still iCloud) so that new laptops can be loaded with their show and fedexed or couriered to the gig location. A band this big should have had those spare laptops on deck and ready to get to where they need to be.
Agreed, what's more, real pro bands all have redundancy rigs to backup the main rig in case of a failure. Like a guitarist has 2 guitars or drummer has more than 1 pair of sticks. I think it's mostly sad he canceled rather than perform anyway without the laptop. I don't give a damn if the backing tracks are on, example, Rush played in Brazil for the first time, it rained and soaked their stage and all their gear and all the midi gear stopped working, Did Rush say fuck it I can't perform now?! No they went on and crushed it without all the fancy midi and V-kit stuff.
@@myopicautisticmetal9035 to be fair, they did have a backup laptop. Both of them were sent to the wrong place. It can be argued that your backup gear should always be kept separate from your main gear and this could have been avoided had they done that but shit happens sometimes and I bet from this point on EVERY band will have extra fail safes put in place.
These guys were in a lose/lose situation though. Either they cancel the show and people bitch or they put on a completely different show than people thought they were getting when they bought their ticket (FIR is known for the production quality of their music and live shows) and people still bitch.
I just know that as a photographer, if I screw up during a shoot and the quality of work isn't up to my usual standards, I won't just give the clients the subpar work and call it good. They paid for my usual standard of work and if I have to redo the shoot to give it to them, that's what I'll do.
@@ECMKAD - Yeah, I totally agree with this. I mean, I’d have had a great deal of respect for them if dude decided to put on a solo acoustic effort with the promise to return soon with the whole band. But honestly, “shows” these days aren’t just some guys with guitars and amps and their high-school buddy at the mixer and lights. This is especially true with bands that have fully immersed into this way of doing things and is more akin to asking them to all play out of tune: the show itself just wouldn’t be right and they have the right to not want to half-ass something just to stay on the bill. Better to leave more space for the other groups, especially those coming up, to really get to shine. Appreciate your analogy to your work.
Well, if they aren't good enough to play live, why would we assume they are smart enough to back up a computer.
@@BockwinkleB Jesus what a take. If carpenter loses their electronical tools that he is used to working with, he could still do his job with a basic saw and hammer but the quality isn't going to be the same
the comparison I usually make in these cases (and sometimes it even works) is with sewing machines: is using a sewing machine to sew some clothes "cheating" or those are "fake clothes" compared to hand-sewn ones? No because it still requires skills to do. You may put some already sewn clothes under an un-threaded machine and go through the moves of sewing (= playing the master file and lip synch) but that's a different thing than actually using a sewing machine (= using a laptop to aid during a show)
This whole thing is literally like saying Electric Guitars are cheating and only Acoustics are legit.
As long as it enhances the performance, not taking away from it, it should be fine
It’s took away the entire performance. So not fine.
@@csdarlington86 this is a 1/100,000 occurrence I don’t know who isn’t taking those odds
What I mean is musicians still playing the instruments, but using clicks and orchestral tracks
A friend of mines band supported Sebastian Bach at a show a few years ago. The show was delayed for over an hour because Sebastian Bach's road crew couldn't get the rented digital mixing board to work and they were unfamiliar with the older analog style board the venue had. If it wasn't for the sound engineer my mates band had hired who knew how to work the board its unlikely the show would've happened at all.
YO 😂
The masters of decrepitude don’t realize the Laptop is both Boards, and your friends Sound Engineer, all rolled into one. Only incapable of Food Poisoning or anything. Which is more predictable on average, even if this one time the backups failed. It’s literally the same as a damaged or stolen mixing board.
I want the people on stage play their instruments/do their vocals live. If they have songs with strings, synth, rap beats, etc of course I want them to use tracks live otherwise it wouldn't be the same song.
I love Ronnie going off on Twitter. He's hilarious 😂😂😂
Greetings from Germany
I'm 53 and have been listening to music for a long time. I'm fucking old too, but I understand the need for a laptop. You'd be surprised how many bands including boomer bands use laptops and backing tracks.
Yup. And KISS - who both Sebastian Bach and Eddie Trunk are huge personal fans of - has been caught actually lipsyncing and miming a whole concert
However the ppl starting shit don't seem to realize this and have the "things were better in the olden days"
I remember seeing Megadeth/Scorpions when they came through Toronto a few years back. Both bands had basically converted entirely over to digital processing for their amp sounds (Megadeth in particular uses Axe-Fx units last I remember, I think?) - no visible amps were ever on stage and they all used wireless units on their guitars - and they still sounded great. I'm sure both their techs and the FOH soundcrew appreciated being able to dial in the sound way more precisely than 4x12 cabs could ever produce.
@@BirdmanDeuce26 Kiko uses Quad Cortex. Dave probably does too
At blue ridge a month ago Dayseeker had to switch to an acoustic set cause their laptop overheated. We live in a world with advanced technology that makes everyone’s lives easier. Watching this unfold has been hilarious.
That must have been awesome to be apart of. I'm so happy I get to see them in two months!
I was there too and it was still awesome show!
It’s really been a month huh
This is a great reason why missing a laptop shouldn't stop a show in my opinion. Lacking a laptop shouldn't be a reason to not play a show
@@kameronbailey4710 OK, so if you have all your effects changes programmed in with Midi, to a click, with all little intro bits, synths, sound effects, lights, ect ect, all on the laptop, you can't just play a show without the laptop. You can try, but you won't have time to reconfigure your entire rig for manually changing effects on the guitars, the bass and possibly vocals. Tap dancing on pedal boards is a major PITA and you have tons of points of failure. All it takes is one bad patch cable or one stuff up when stomping on a pedal while trying to sing, play and stay absolutely on with the performance, and you just screwed the performance. We've all seen it, and those of us who play also have experienced it. That's why they use laptops, because it's so much easier, more reliable and lets you focus on playing instead of worrying about pedals ect. Now of you suddenly don't have the laptop, you have to change your entire setup. You now need a midi switcher at your feet, and you need to program all the patch banks in an order that allows you to play the set without absolute chaos. That's a big undertaking. Depends on the type of music too. Some bands may only use one guitar sound most of the show, others might have all kinds of crazy stuff going on.
Queen played a tape track of the beginning overdubbed choir whenever they played "Bohemian Rhapsody" IN THE FREAKING 1970'S, so y'all can't tell me audio tracks during concerts is a recent thing, just saying... *sips tea*
I know a lot of people don’t like Ronnie and that’s fine but c’mon he’s actually hilarious 😂
I don't like Ronnie but I have to side with him on his one.
he can be hilairious sometimes but i side with him here.
Tbf this is like, the easiest win ever and hating on dumbass boomers will be funny no matter who’s doing it.
He lost his way again through the storm, through the wind.
Nah he's definitely a scumbag
“Bands use electricity to play live, wow… what a f**king shock.”
I see what you did there Nik haha.
I think the main thing that got into the boomer bonnet is they felt they couldn't perform without it, and to be honest I *kinda* get that (heavy emphasis on kinda). Part of me feels that the guys in Falling should have adapted, overcame, and gone out to play something at least. Hell, it would've been pretty cool in a "the show must go on" kinda way But at the end of the day, I'm not in that band, and I don't know the full extent of how integral what that laptop contained is to their performance.
Imagine, for example, Brand of Sacrifice going live and in addition to band members they would need several keyboardists, probably two mixer operators and full fkn orchestra to play their songs. Yeah, now THAT is a live performance
Awesome band
Are we going to mention the genre bending Ronnie does? Like “laptop isn’t rock” but there isn’t just rock in FIR’s catalogue? Would you tell Dr Dre he can’t use a laptop?
If I was in a band that heavily relied on backing tracks via laptop and for whatever reason said tracks were unavailable, personally I would just prefer to perform a stripped down version of the night's setlist after explaining the situation to those in attendance. Hell, it'd probably become a much talked about show...a rare once-in-a-blue-moon-when-the-stars-aligned type of deal 🤘
Kinda depends on the music though. Stripped down rock would be nice, but stripped down death metal... eh, I'd pass.
i watched ronnie put everything on his instagram stories and i just couldn't stop laughing, he fucking went ham on them and it's fucking hilarious
hahaha I knew Nic was going to react to this hahaha Eddie Trunk is by definition the most Metal Boomer of all metal Boomers XD
I wouldn't call him Metal
@@andybarker5687 oh Eddie is most definitely metal.
@@randywissler9923 he plays no instruments in no bands
He's a radio host
@@andybarker5687 so you can't be metal just because you don't play an instrument? What kinda gen z bullshit is that? And I know exactly who Eddie Trunk is.
@@randywissler9923 these people don’t know about Eddie’s legacy, too young to know about it. I think both his and Ronnie’s takes were too strong, they should’ve had a backup show or acoustic set instead of just straight cancelling
I also love how Nikki Sixx (of Motley Crue and Sixx:A.M.) publicly backed Ronnie up on this and he’s 64… 6 years older than Eddie Trunk (58) and a decade older than Sebastian Bach (54)… little ridiculous that these dudes are younger than he is and yet they’re the ones being the boomers 🤦♀️
Not always the biggest fan of Ronnie as a person but totally behind him on this one.
Yeah its pretty much a war between them. I'm in a group on discord which is falling in reverse based and both ronnie and saraya does chat from time to time on what comes up, whether its shows, merchs, or in this case this situation. People may say they could perform without the laptops. The metaphor ronnie used may have been too far stretched on, but at the same time he makes a valid point. Of all their songs and performances, those laptops are what makes their performances pop more to what makes them Falling in Reverse. Even for quite some time now, old, current, and new bands now use laptops to enhance their music performances. Some may be able to adapt if worse case scenario occurs, but not everyone can and thats the problem with Eddie and sebastian. They think ronnie can adapt, but thats not the case because like I said before, not every band can adapt. To this day, laptops are used more frequently for live performances. We aren't in the old times anymore, this is 2022 and technology in the music industry evolves as time goes by.
My favorite band has 2 guitar players but sometimes have 3 different guitars lines in a song and so they use a track live for the 3rd line.
It didn't stop me from having the time of my life when I saw them live.
I didn't expect to laugh this hard.
This reminds me of the days when people called synthesizers and drum machines in the 80s not real music, we're still there. Like man let me just record my local indie band with tape
The first time I’ve ever sided with Radke on something lol
Depending on the genre I am totally on board with people using technology to automate, simplify and reduce the cost of many aspects of their shows. Zero issues with that. But if I was in a band that did use a laptop in that way, I would have 20 extra laptops and turn everything I own into a USB stick with every file and software needed to turn a new laptop into a "show ready" laptop. My trousers, my wallet, the keys to my car, my car, my beard, everything would be a USB stick in disguise. My girlfriend would have a fingernail that is a USB stick.
Does Trunk realize that Falling In Reverse would go bankrupt if they hired a person to run everything? Every sound effect. Every effect change. The lights. Tickets would have to cost $1000 for the nose bleeds. What a fool
Even if you don't like him, you can't say that Ronnie was not made for the internet, he is funny as hell.
I’m just happy that people are still going to shows where there are actual instruments being played. Better than certain “DJs” that press a button and then mime fiddling with knobs on a mixer for 3 hours to a pre-programmed set. I just saw Roger Waters a month ago and just ONE of the mixing areas looked like a Best Buy retail outlet. Does he NEED a battalion of laptops? No. I’m sure he could play the show with an acoustic, a mic and a naked light bulb and it would be wonderful. Do I want to experience that for 3 hours? Probably not. Floyd was one of the first to tour with computers and that was what? 50 years ago? I see both sides on this. I guess it just comes down to buyer beware when shelling out money for concert tickets these days. Are you going to feel MORE like you got your money’s worth seeing a show that sounds “perfect” and pretty much like the recordings you’ve listened to a thousand times?Or a raw, possibly burnt out, winded performance with versions that are a struggle to get through? Is it a concert or is it a show? Is there a difference? Some artists can pull it off and others cannot. Either way, it’s not like you’re going to get a refund.
As long as it’s not used to fake (not actually singing or not actually playing instruments) a performance, I don’t care if bands use technology. I do question a little bit why Falling In Reverse didn’t have backups for such a critical piece of equipment.
Hot take. I did FOH for a country band that relied on a laptop for click tracks, backing tracks, and triggered lighting ques. Rarely there was an issue but when there was the band would just play without it. The lesson here is learn to adapt or have a backup plan.
That's fair, but how important the laptop is also depends on then band and the type of music they play. There is immense pressure for bands to sound like the album now, in the old days bands didn't even try to sound like the record, think Led Zep basically turning the show into one big jam session. That stuff isn't what is expected now except in certain genres like blues or jazz. Certainly not metal.
Pretty much everyone here agrees though, they should have had a contingency plan, letting the fans down is not a great move.
and that's what it is is a lesson. it's just obnoxious for people to be like, mad that they made that mistake. like it devolved into threatening each other wtf
Tbf, a lot of FIRs stuff is production heavy. Tracks are more important to them than, like, punk bands that are more raw. It just depends on the music and how important technology is to the music
Last month in Denver Black Veil Brides equipment didn’t show up, they didn’t specify what equipment, so they didn’t play. They weren’t the headliner, so the show went on. They invited everyone at the event to another show 2 nights later. Not sure if FIR schedule would allow a make up show, but I bet next time they go to that city they’ll do something special. It is a band, they tour, they’ll be back.
exactly
Imagine Devin Townsend playing without his pedal board.
Lmao just realized Radke is 38, I am pretty sure he knew times before virtual reality lmao
Ok here's the thing though.
We were doing shows before laptops
If somehow your entire show hinges on that laptop..maybe have a back up plan.
To preface - I started using Acid Pro in like 2004. lol and I literally used to play out with a band that used a laptop for drums. Whole ass shows with no drummer. I also ran sound for 5 band touring packages 2/3 days a week for a little over a year.
And quite honestly I still kinda sit on the fence about some of it.
I totally get how it works regarding midi programming and fx changes and backing layers/tracks.
But I grew up really admiring how bands like Pantera put on shows.
It is kind of off-putting to think of how many bands are crippled by not having the rails that a laptop provides to guide them constantly. Though I have seen a few drummers use dedicated modules for clicks so that if everything else does die, the drums still have a click.
I like to see live performances for what they are. Your favorite band is either going to sound 50% worse, or 10x better.
And I'm not bothered if I don't hear a perfect recreation of the sonics on the album.
I do think it would be cool if more bands were prepared to be like "laptop fried, we might be loose"
but I'm not about to fight anybody about it.
Agree with y'all. Honestly, I find it weird that so many people want the live performance to sound identical to the recording. What's the point of that? I guess perhaps people assume "not the same=always worse".
symphonic and power metal bands pretty much need to have computers on stage for their music.
Ironically the saddest part about this whole drama is that these guys who've been in the music biz for decades now apparently don't know basic shit about how live setups work. Even if you don't use modern setups yourself you should at least know how that crap works or that it even exists. It's really embarrassing.
imagine if the former members of Daft Punk ran across this beef. i feel like they'd be having a laughing fest to Eddie and Sebastian...
Ronnie Radke being on the right side of a controversy is enough of a win as it is, but man he dunked on them hard lmaoooo 😂
Queensryche used them in the 80's for the Operation:Mindcrime tour and it was epic. Without them, the concert wouldn't have been as good because there was so much to recreate, so I don't get it. I don't remember that being a big deal back then, so I have no idea why it's an issue now, and I'm 52 years old. As long as they're really playing and singing, I could care less if they had backing music tracks, vocal tracks to fill in the blanks or click tracks. As long as it's a good concert and people get their moneys worth, who cares. With that being said, you need backup after backup after backup for your laptops so you don't have to cancel shows. 2 obviously is not enough.
"I remember" - Operation mindcrime, 1988. Lol
I'd like to post this quote from the song Spirit of Radio by a little band called Rush: "All this machinery making modern music
can still be open-hearted."
I understand the whole situation and have no problems with bands using laptops at their shows. But let's be real for a bit, first, you should have backup plans. A new laptop, an external drive, a cloud file, one drive, whatever. That's just poor organisation on behalf of the band. Secondly, you should still be able to play without your laptop. I find it hard to believe that their whole show could not have gone on with just them using their instruments. If you can't do that, prepare an acoustic set or whatever. There are countless solutions out of it. If none of that is possible, do what BVB did and offer a free show at a later date.
Tankthetech breaks this down beautifully lol totally agree with you Nik 👊🏻
Me, playing in a symphonic metal band is laughing at this conversation. We have a keyboard player, wich is using VST instruments. So she needs a laptop anyhow. And yeah, it dose the vst changes, and some parts she couldn’t play because she only have two hands.
It’s shocking, I know! But all the rest is playing live. So at least we are kinda worthy for Sebastian Bach.
Well, to be honest - as a band, I wouldn’t state something like our laptops got missing and we can’t play live.
Like you said, upgrade your wooden processors to 2022, there’s external hard drives, cloud drives etc to store everything necessary for your live.
If you have stored your files only on A laptop without any backups and it dies in between the shows or it falls, breaks, accindetally gets soaked - you’re fucked in the middle of the tour and it means you haven’t prepared well enough.
There have been bands that lost their gear in fires or it just gets stolen - I get it, you physically can’t play, because it wouldn’t be the same with some random borrowed gear, I mean pre-production takes time, but if you lose your laptop or it gets stolen and you can’t play the show just because you don’t have backups - come on guys, that’s just lame in my eyes.
12 years ago my singer learned the hard way, that if you store EVERYTHING on your laptop but don’t have backups, you’re screwed.
After his laptop got stolen by an ex-con, whom he met at a bar, dude backups EVERYTHING on cloud drives, external hard drives, so he wouldn’t lose any of his data or the losses would be minimal.
Our first show our laptop dropped and got annihilated, with the help of staf we set up a new one (inhouse) and played a set.
This just reverts to the debate about whether or not it's fine to use a laptop for live shows. That's not the issue here. It's not that the show is "fake"...but there may be an issue if you can't play your own songs w/o the laptop. FOH can give you a metronome...they can automate tempo changes...they can choreograph lights. All that shit was done before bands relied on laptops. It does make it easier and enhance the creative process, so I'm not against them being used, but if you didn't have a backup plan in case of a stolen or broken laptop, then just play the show without it. I would much rather a band come out and say "our laptop was stolen, so bare w us and we'll give you the best show we can" than just have them cancel.
Even some of us older metal heads know that in the day of plug ins, impulse responses and midi, you can have your rig on a laptop to front of house, no different than say an axe fx or quad cortex.
The way I see it is FIR definitely could’ve played the concert but knowing how Ronnie is he cancelled because he doesn’t want a half assed show. Ronnie is one of those guys that takes his craft so fucking serious that it makes sense to cancel instead of screwing over the fans.
So I used to be in the anti computer/tracks camp until I got hired by a church band that used a metronome and ableton. The tracks help and fill in sound, but they don’t play for you. The actual playing and singing is real, it just helps with tempos and lights. And that’s for a church band that played for like 100 people. It’d be almost impossible to do a show without that stuff, especially with the massive effects chains most bands deal with. Unless you’re AC/DC you need it
Ronnie with the straight heat the whole way through lmao
I get both sides of the arguement, as a guitarrist in his late 20's I get that most of modern metal shows are runned by laptops and it's not for backing vocal track... more like if you record a triple guitar harmony or something and youra 2 guitarrist band, but you don't wanna lose the strength of the rhythm track or whatever and I get that....
However I'm also a believer of that "the show must go on" they could've done a 30 minute acoustic set just to please the fans and give them something for the money they paid and promise to return once the issues are fixed like I'm sure he did....
To quote you "the show would be shitty" and it most likely would be, but IDK it's giving the fans something at least.
PS: I don't agree with Trunk and Bachs point of view.
Not even just that they really should have at least a couple backup methods and one of them should be literally kept on hand and not shipped somewhere. That is basic shit when it comes to being a service that is expected to work/perform 24/7
There is just one thing i blame Falling in Reverse for : they had everything on just one laptop ???? No backup ???
they said their main AND their backup got stolen. 2 of them
If you were playing a live show and you are:
- miming over a pre-recorded track
- using Auto tune to fix your vocals
- piping in pre-recorded crowd cheers through FOH
Yeah, *beep* that. For everything else, the computer is just a tool to help you get the job done the best you can. Just like your effects chain, amp, and 10,000 lb of other gear that makes it a good show.
Even the auto tune thing is a bit boomer. Sometimes it's a stylistic thing, sometimes it's just to round off the vocals by a really narrow margin, and most vocalists don't exactly "crutch" on it the way the public seems to think. They're usually decent, and there's nothing really wrong with that little bit that's usually applied live.
backing tracks, click, drum triggers, all of it makes the show experience better! simply put.
You need laptops to switch your effects nowadays. Metal boomers gonna gatekeep cuz that what they do
All you need is your foot to change effects.
@@BockwinkleB but what if I don‘t wanna use my foot, I got really sensitive feet
@@BockwinkleB what if the stage is small (like the size of Eddie's brain)? You hardly have any space with 4 other band members
I have been informed using anything other than instruments in their most basic forms isn’t real…
Honestly if your show is good I’m in! Don’t care how old or new, just give me a great show I can cheer at! Everyone have a great weekend!
Trunk was an ex-host of 'That Metal Show' that ran until 2015
I don't mind bands using laptops. I'm a bit worried about their setup in regards to backups, as I would assume their important data is on cloud storage and it should be as simple as buying a new laptop in whatever town they are at and go perform.
I hope Ronnie brings a metronome the next time they perform on stage just for the fun of it
I see this whole situation as just a reason for me to still do everything it takes to not rely on a laptop in order to be able to perform.
Switching fx myself, using my drummer as my tempo guide and not a click, even using wedges instead of inears, that shit worked for 30 years and we got amazing results so there's no reason for that method to not work now.
The less technology you rely on = the less stuff that can go wrong, it's simple. It's the reason why people still buy Toyota Land Cruisers and 4Runners.
Not telling anyone to do what I do, but just consider that point
I as a fan am absolutely on FIR's side. BUT. I think if they cancelled a show near my place and I had to wait another couple of months or maybe years to see them, I'd rather have them play a "shit" show (which would still have been good I'm sure) and idk apologize in advance if people found it not that great. I think people might have enjoyed it anyways. A good example: Wage War played a fully acoustic gig because of a power shortage or something. Sure, they always played an acoustic set before their show for the VIPs, so it was not completely improvised, but I think real fans would have enjoyed even just half an hour Q&A on stage or something else by FIR :D
the band RED on their album Until We Have Faces used a live orchestra during the recording of the album, you think they will hire them for every live show? lol. This is nuts and Bach is seriously out of touch and needs to get with the times. I seriously think Bach thinks all their instruments are computer programmed and FIR is up there just pretend playing their instruments and Ronnie is lip syncing instead.
We don't use backing tracks or click track live with my band, and even then, there are still laptops around. ( and I do understand and respect bands that do use backing and such, as a band they're the one to decide what their show should be like).
This debacle is freaking hilarious, I've got to admit.
FIR fucked up by not having any contingency plan, but c`mon man, it's easier to conduct an amazing show with modern technology and it doesn't diminish musicianship of people on stage if they aren't straight up miming, which happened back in the day too.
Also synth music exists, fucking hell.
Every time I hear the name Sebastian Bach, I think of his appearances on Trailer Park Boys and he’s never been anything more to me than the meme he is in that show😂 didn’t realize he was an actual musician.
i understand that during the times we live in now everybody uses laptops i just went to the stadium 🏟 tour with Def Leppard and other 80’s metal bands and i’m sure they were using laptops with either backing tracks and metronome and for guitar tones,but what i think is the complaint is couldn’t falling in reverse or any other band play a show without all that and use just their instruments? and i understand that for a lot of them that’s not possible now and it’s nothing wrong to use technology to enhance your show and performance in the “old days” it was different but i think we’ve become a little too dependent on it just a 51 year old metal heads opinion 🤘🏼🎸
Pretty sure periphery said (probably misha or jake) that every single guitar tone change during a concert is on a macbook so they dont have to press pedals all the time and its done for them. Honestly, it's kinda efficient/consistent as long as the laptop works.
Imagine wanting to go head to head with Ronnie on media
And imagine, being a hypocrite, loses the battle and still throwing angry spit.
FIR played yesterday at aftershock and joked about the laptop situation by singing the intro to popular monster acapella
My only point to this, if you show relies on having a laptop for any purpose, you don't have a backup laptop with a copy of your setup in another back pack somewhere? Don't you have more than one mic or guitar in the event of a malfunction?
Lol one of the best bands I've seen live recently was Northlane and imagine seeing Northlane without their laptops, effects chains, synths, etc. You have to be so completely removed from the reality of modern live performances, not even just metal performances, to think losing your laptop wouldn't destroy the ability for almost any modern metal band to play their entire live set. But honestly, it doesn't surprise me that someone like Sebastian Bach, whose likely unaware entirely of what goes on to make even their own live shows work nowadays, would understand that given there's other people who do that for him so he forgets how performing live actually works...
Also, Periphery's entire set RELIES on laptops to even just function but does that mean every single member of that band isn't playing their instruments on stage? Some of the best live metal bands I've ever seen are as good as they are BECAUSE of the layers that are only possible when you play as a whole band with backing tracks, effects, ambience, etc.
I've seen bands that have had malfunctions with their technology and still play. IF you can't play because you rely on technology that much, maybe practice some basic common sense. Have it all backed up to the cloud, another computer that goes with someone else on a different bus. Having your stuff on one machine when it is that mission critical is piss poor planning. I'd expect that from a beginning local band. Not a huge act that does this professionally. There should be no excuse for this to have happened. Period. Hope they learned a lesson and implement some changes to prevent this from happening again.
Dayseeker’s laptop was over heating at, Blue Ridge Rock festival in Virginia. So they had to play an acoustic set. Lots of new music has sounds and synths that are programmed. It adds to the music and it’s fine to have. It’s not the same as lip syncing.
Well. It's pretty common these days to use backing tracks. But with a band this size, I find it very surprising to not have a back-up plan. All of my bands are small and unknown and yet we've had enough gigging experience to understand the importance of having a backup plan B... C and D. For instance: no one REALLY needs multi-tracks for playback. Or even stereo tracks. It's nice and all, giving FOH more wiggle room. But as a back-up plan, it's pretty simple to just have a stereo track on a phone (& cloud backup of your fucking tracks!) with clicktracks + backing on one side and just the playback on the other. Doing automatic switching and shit? Then don't. Make sure you can still step through all of your sounds on the Kemper, QC and whatsnot manually. You can make it work if you plan for failure, as you always should. Especially as a professional touring musician. Hopefully they'll learn from that and come prepared next time.
The issue at question shouldn’t be that they rely on laptops to perform, but the fact they don’t have any fucking backups. That’s like a baseline level of being a professional touring band.
Love how Ronnie totally trolls Bach in his new video/song watch the world burn
I understand the need, but fully understand the "boomer take" here.
I remember seeing Tesserract with Ashe live a number of times (5 times) and at every clutch high note he would wimp out and hold the mic to the crowd to "sing along." Dan (and also Elliott for that matter) simply sang the part, like you would expect. I say this because while laptops are important and yadda yadda, if you're a metal band and you can't play your gig without a computer, I dunno man, something is wrong here imo. That said, Tesserract was also the first band I ever saw who simply did not run amps on stage because everything was DI'd through (probably) a laptop. Can't say I'm a fan of it.
We need to Retvn to the old ways of playing on the floor, and only having a PA for the vocalist (and maybe some back up vocals) and a couple of poorly positioned SM58s on the drum kit that do nothing but cause feedback. lol
But then again I'm a big proponent of only recording what you can duplicate live. I know there's a billion exceptions to this even among bands I really like, and while again, I get it, I do not see why your computer should prevent you from playing your gig. It shows a combination of poor planning or laziness/unpreparedness. Strap up and play? Nobody is going to care if you're uptempo (which is the case live, generally, for all but the tightest of bands), if anything it adds to the experience. Nobody is going to care if the lighting isn't perfect. Just say "hey, our laptops got stolen, so our options were to play or to cancel, and we're gonna do our best to fucking rock for you anyway."
Most fans don't play instruments or play live, so I'm not surprised people would take it as it being fake. Hopefully, this does show how much they rely on that gear, and how much they need to have a backup.
I understand both sides of the story. I think it's been blown out of proportion. A band should atleast have a strong enough structured song based around instruments that they can still perform it live even if it is stripped down so saying its like a car without an engine is a massive exagerration. A band completely calling off a show for that kind of thing sucks, but I realise laptops are important for alot of things now. But at the same time back in the day I get it. Before laptops what did bands do? Bands like Maiden didn't go out with even a metronome and still kicked ass. A laptop shouldn't be a necessity to a band being good enough to put on a show, but music has evolved and changed over time and some of the old school mindset does need to change, certain type of music does need it and that isn't a band faking it either it's just there style of music and I understand a band that doesn't want to do it live if it doesn't do the actually song justice. Eddie trunk getting involved in the way he did is kind of lame, in an ideal world Ronnie makes the announcements fans think well that sucks and everyone moves on and gets on with there lives
I get the importance of the laptops, but I still think they should have just gone on stage and said “fuck it, we doing it the old ways”. Like the metronomes important but Slayer used to do 9/8 time signatures without laptops and nail it, you at least go up there and do a guitar heavy show and do what you can without the laptops instead of cancelling last minute.
What I genuinely don't understand is how that generation will literally say "we fought for you to have it easier" and then get mad when we refuse to go the easiest route. Who the hell is Eddie Trunks also? What band is he in? 😳
im totes on ronnies side, but the real question is, if your WHOLE fucking show is on your laptop, how could you let that go missing. id literally have that shit around me 24/7
Bands tend to get more dependent on that stuff, that the moment you take it away, they are basically nothing. I think that any old school band could still manage without it. Sure you wont have some backtracks, effects, or filters, or some light show, but you really can't make a show without all of that? Of course some stuff give that additional oomf, but how bad is it without it?
Legit question by the way.
Plus, I compare this to driving manual vs automatic in some way. If you learn to drive automatic, you can't drive manual, either because of law, or because you literally haven't learned to do that. So if you learn to drive manual, you can drive both. Isn't this the same basically? Relying too much on one thing can be dangerous, of course the chances are minimal nowadays for something to go that badly that you either have to improvise or cancel, or postpone, because of dependency on technology that much can lead to cancellation or postponing instead of improvisation.
I consider a band having a talent, if they can improvise to deal with the issues. It will sound slightly differently, but they can still play. P.S. Nobody said that electricity is gone, just the laptops, so they can still play pretty much 80-90% of whatever they would require, if not dependent too much on all of that stuff that has been installed on computers.
And electricity part was unnecessary, since the beginning of rock electricity was used, the first time electrical guitar came out, when Jimmy Hendrix played in 60's...so what's the point bringing that up?
And nobody is talking about dubstep or DJ's.
I think you are making wrong points here, talking about something that they didn't beefed about or the point that they tried to make.
Ngl, I’d pay to see 40 dudes in 1 stage trying to play 1 metal song.
Satyricon has done full orchestra shows, their line up is only 2 dudes but they have played live with an actual orchestra.
So Metallica’s S&M
Can't believe that in 2022, we're still having this debate. As long as it's not lip-syncing and pretend playing parts to a backing track (looking at you, Kiss), it's okay. If it's something that can't be recreated live, then a backing track is perfectly fine to use (the horn at the beginning of The Unforgiven by Metallica comes to mind).
Something else just came to mind. When AC/DC played It's a Long Way to the Top when Bon Scott was still around, they'd sometimes use a backing track for the bagpipe parts, due to Bon not being an experienced piper. Even back in the 1970s, they were not afraid to use backing tracks. I believe it's also the same story with Hells Bells, with the tolling bell at the beginning being a recording.
How about that, boomers? One of your most beloved bands from your youth, during your youth, used backing tracks when needed.
(Just to be clear, I love AC/DC. Just wanted to poke fun at the boomers.)
As a metal gen x , they just using laptop instead of hiring a ton of backing vocals, etc I get it... Nobody can spend that $$; it's
Like when I saw Ghost one time he had background choirs and stuff and its amazing but that was huge festival with huge ochetestra and they definitely spent the $$$ but they were playing for 120,000 people!.then I saw ghost at Newport Music, Hall.and scale d down show and all the extra goodies done via laptop and the show still.amazing and Papa\Cardinal Copia is so damn entertaining the show was still sick.and about $80 dollars cheaper and I didn't have to.go to.Germany lol! No Sacked Open.Air is fucking better than Woodstock for metal!.Sold merch for Sabaton and hung out.with.those amazing dudes!
you can bet Metallica would have a pretty basic show if their laptops got stolen too
AV these days isn't analogue anymore - sure they can get up on stage and slay but everyone wouldn't get their moneys worth because there'd be no light show, no flames, no backing audio on enter sandman
Yeah, I don't think NIN wants to go back to the 90s live show work of needing to take pictures, for every different song, of the analog synth settings...
Playing without laptops is more like driving a car without power steering; most people haven't done it in years (if ever) so if they have to they're gonna suck at it.
I see both sides but honestly feel like a lot of newer bands rely a little too much on backing tracks and stuff like that now a days. It definitely has its place and uses especially for big tour packages and stuff like FIR. But it's kinda lame to have to cancel a set because of it.
Also lame that there wasn't anything as a backup plan too. You can literally use a phone for backing tracks.
You know what else works for a backing track?
A drummer
And a bass player.
Some bands use virtual amplifiers connected to the venu’s sound system instead of physical gear. It’s much easier to tour with and is a lot cheaper if idk… it gets stollen vs the gear getting stolen.. plus it’s easier to mix live and you can capture the live performance in an isolated mix.
Only thing I disagree with is that you HAVE to have a computer as a metronome their are plenty of bands who don’t play to a click
Chester was the engine of Linkin Park and yet Mike still managed to do a show that turned out incredible.
I'll bet he used laptops lol
@@zaczimmerman7780 yeah?
When Luke Holland (who is touring with FIR atm) was with The Word Alive, he’s said in a few interviews the only thing going in his in-ears is the metronome. I don’t think that wooden one would be able to be heard during a festival 😂