Toph wrote:Boomchild wrote:masque wrote:#2) Everyone keeps slamming Tommy's comment about wanting to rock instead of doing ballads and they continuously point out songs like Boat, She Cares, Sing for the Day and things like that.....I dont know how many of you are musicians and have ever played live before, but if you have then you will understand how truly different it FEELS to sing and play a song like Sing for the Day VS, a song like Babe or First Time. A song sing fro the day is a fun song to play and because of the non 4/4 time signature is an interesting thing to do.......however, songs like Babe and First Time are songs that truly do enter into the Barry Manalow/Air Supply territory and as a musician the only thing I would ever enjoy about playing those songs live would be the money entering into my bank account. I think Tommy was scared to death after the success of Babe that First Time would become their second Air Supply major hit and then all of a sudden those types of songs would become the centerpiece of what they would be known for and the centerpiece of their live performances instead of songs like Renegade, BCM and Come Sail Away. I have never understood why people dont understand this.....and the only thing I can figure is that many who dont recognize the difference have spent no or very little time on a stage playing live music.
As to what type of song is fun or not fun to play is based on personal taste. It's seems to me you are painting with broad brush with this example. I highly doubt this apples to all musicians that play live. It doesn't take into account the personal feelings a musician may have about the material being played.
Again, I would also point out that Mick Jones, Neil Schon, and Gary Richrath certainly played those songs as well. I still cannot understand why Styx gets slammed for ballads but Foreigner, Journey, and REO get a pass.
toph, you are 100% correct, those bands did play those kinds of songs as well......however, the only one that I would say got a "pass" was journey.....I think the cheesy ballads were the ultimate demise of foreigner beginning with "i want to know what love is".
and there is no doubt that the ballads also de-railed REO......I have always found it funny that Kevin Cronin actually complains about the ballads....yet, he was the writer of the ballads but blames record company and fan pressure on it. In fact, Richrath left the band because of their lack of "rocking". I'm sure for other reasons as well....but in interviews he mostly blamed the direction of the band as the primary reason.
in the case of foreigner, mick was the chief writer while also being the lead guitar player......so, whether for the money or simply because he truly loved them, he mostly wrote those ballads, so what's tom complain about as the lead guitar player when it's your song.....and dont forget, he was also a keyboard player and played keyboards live on their ballads.......which by the way, was the main instrument on those songs, providing him the most attention. thats important.
going back to tommy and JY......when you are coming off an album like POE and you are still playing songs like midnight ride live and you had no hand in writing a song like babe or first time, I can EASILY see why they wanted no part of it. it's apples to oranges for these guys compared to the other bands......i think you can say richrath was in a similar situation to shaw an JY, except he wrote less than shaw, so he was probably closer to being like JY in this situation.
But, I do think it's bullshit that Journey for the most part got a pass on these ballads but Styx, Foreigner and REO really didn't.
