Just putting out a couple of points here, Tony began taking vocal lessons during the Winterheart's Guild or the Recoking Night days, I think (according to some interview). Before that, his voice live was pretty much hit-and-miss. The Songs of Silence CD contains some really mediocre vocal performances by him, and that's a shame considering that's the only place to find songs like The Power of One and Respect the Wilderness live. 
Well, nevermind. I think Tony's strengths as a vocalist lie in his expression. He's one of the most expressive vocalists I've ever heard and that's what got me hooked with SA either way, and I can forget his not-hitting-some-notes just with him being as expressive as he can. With the not-hitting-notes thing, I think it's kinda a shame because we'll never get to hear some Ecliptica songs live as they were originally concieved (I don't think Tony's ever hit the My Land high note...never take awAAAAAAAAAAAAAY! or Blank File in its original key) but hey, again as Mora said, that's my spoiled Dream Theater fan opinion (considering they've never transposed down their songs, which is a big compliment to LaBrie).
To Tony's defense, he had a cold during the Japanese tour in 2001. However, I have the South American edition of Successor (which is pretty rare!) with 7 live tracks from 2000 and he doesn't sound much better on those. He does hit the notes, but he has to push himself to the limit and it makes the tone of his voice pretty bad. Those recordings sound amateurish overall as the songs are played so fast, like some punk versions!
For example, Tommy starts My Land pretty fast, but he has to slow down in the parts with double bass to be able to play them.
I didn't know Tony took singing lessons, I remember hearing he was self-taught. He did get some advice with pronunciation before the recording of Unia, though, and that's a great thing - it was about time he improved it!
He still has a bit of an accent, but it's not as distinct as his Finglish in early songs like Shy and Unopened. Anyway, even if Tony hasn't taken any singing lessons, I agree that he controls his voice MUCH better than he did 10 years ago. He knows his limits and is wise enough to sing lower or have the band transpose the songs if he's unable to reach the original notes. He sounded much more comfortable singing the chorus of Fullmoon last week than he did on the previous 2 times I'd seen SA live, so lowering the key definitely helped.
On the subject of The Power of One, it hurts me that they won't play that live anymore. It's one of my absolute faves by SA, just behind White Pearl and The End of this Chapter (my favorite SA song).
Agreed, I would love to hear TPOO live. Both Henrik and Marko mention it as their favorite song on Silence on the official website, so I guess the band likes it, but thinks it's too long. They could at least bring back
the medley they played on Reckoning Night tour, which included snippets of TPOO, as well as other rarely played songs, like Destruction Preventer, Land of the Free and The Ruins of My Life.
Topic: Sonata Arctica thread (Read 127185 times)
