2023-08-01 11:05:02
A few days ago the musician and singer Andres Calamaro He said this in an interview: “I am a musician and I dedicate myself to this. I like the tour and the stage. I continue because there are many people who want to hear me sing and play instruments.” It’s good for an artist of Calamaro’s category to remember what a concert has consisted of, at least until now: a certain number of human beings on a stage playing their instruments and, sometimes, singing. This statement would have been a truism until recently. Now not so much.
The Argentine, who spends a good part of his concerts singing and playing the keyboard at the same time, wanted, perhaps, claim live performance as the essence of a musical show, something that is increasingly in question. It’s not uncommon these days to go to a festival and see one of the artists on the bill base his performance on singing over his pre-recorded songs, not unlike karaoke. A year ago a video of how the reggaeton and trap singer went viral Quevedo he gave up singing his hit Stay and let the audience sing the whole song. “Quevedo, watching a concert with many people singing,” reads the most celebrated comment on that video on YouTube with a sneer.
The phenomenon is not confined exclusively to the urban music Not to any specific genre. The truth is that more and more artists choose to replace the instrumentalists with one or two DJs. And in musical shows you see more and more dancers and almost no musicians playing drums, guitars, basses or keyboards. Madonna, Taylor Swift y Rosalía are clear examples. The exceptions are found in other stars such as Alejandro Sanz –author of the album La música no se toca– or Stingwho usually surround themselves with renowned musicians from jazz or conservatory.
many decades ago pop and rock groups include instrumental parts and even canned choirs in their concerts, thus breaking the taboo of pre-recorded music in live shows. from the missing The Police until U2 y Coldplay It is accepted that, for logistical and scenography reasons, we hear a part of what is played because someone at the sound desk has pressed a button to start a recording or a sequencer.
The Who
It all started in the early 70s. The famous theme Baba O’Riley, from The Who, which came back into fashion a few years ago as the opening theme of the series CSI: New York, begins with an organ sound. Live performances of the song feature The Who’s drummer, the charismatic Keith Moon, with huge headphones to match the rhythm of his drums with that audio track. The use of almost invisible headphones –called in ear monitors, monitors in the ear– began to become widespread in rock groups from the 90s and today many artists listen to a click track on stage, an audio track that dictates the rhythm and changes of the song, as well as the sound mix of the other instruments.
In addition to those click tracks that drive the beat, many bands use backing tracks (accompaniment tracks or support) with pre-recorded sounds, such as orchestral arrangements or additional guitars. If the computer crashes and these pre-recorded sequences cannot be played, the group is often forced to cancel their performance. It happened to the American group Falling in Reverse and its leader, Ronnie Radke, had to explain the situation and apologize for it. American music broadcaster Eddie Trunk criticized this trend: “The epidemic of faking bands must stop. A live rock show should be live! What an insult to bands that actually do it live and fans that pay top dollar for a live show!”
Guitarist Wolfgang Van Halen, son of the great Eddie Van Halenissued a similar opinion: “Everyone their own line regarding what tracks [pregrabadas] they’re acceptable or not, but if you’re playing the lead guitar riff, the lead vocal, and the actual fucking drums—when that drums are prerecorded—that’s a problem. You should be able to play your own shit”he said in a conversation with fellow guitarist Ola Englund.
It’s not uncommon to go to a festival and see how one of the artists on the bill bases his performance on singing over his pre-recorded songs, something not unlike karaoke.
electronics
In electronic music the temptation to use pre-recorded material is much older. Audiences have no way of knowing whether a Chemical Brothers performance – for example – is mixing tracks when seen turning knobs on a table, or simply gesticulating and gesturing as a pre-made playlist plays.
It is easy to imagine the economic and logistical facilities that substituting musicians for pre-recorded tracks has. But it is one thing to place canned audio promptly and quite another to pre-recorded music covers the entire showwhich is no longer based on live musical performance and instead consists of the mere reproduction of music, the same thing that happens in a disco.
It seems that, for more and more public, the incentive of a concert or a festival lies to coincide at the same point, in time and space, with the admired artist. And, with a bit of luck, sing or, at least, vocalize. Concerts in which the public pays to see and listen to virtuoso performances like the ones that brought fame to Eric Clapton, Pat Metheny o Steve Vai –to give three examples of great guitarists- who are never identical from one concert to another, because they use improvisation to express themselves.
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