I am pretty sure it is mostly on him that they are doing the shorter sets. They did much longer ones when they started with Todd, and as Samsara said, he was VERY inconsistent and struggled quite a bit.
Good luck to anyone complaining. You can all go out and sing like Todd does and see if your voice holds up. No way in hell any of us could.
I absolutely cannot stand this type of response. Yes, not all of us are singers and can do what Todd does. Massive respect to him for having that voice. I certainly couldn't do it, and hearing him sing those old songs in 2013 was completely awesome. But I'm not being paid to do it every night, am I? Continuing Education is a part of many professional careers, and I'm required by law to keep my licenses up to date by educating myself every year. I don't see why a singer shouldn't continually work to develop their voice, despite being successful already. You can only get better, right?
Todd is paid to be the singer in Queensryche. He's loved by fans for singing those songs, and based on the last few years, fans want to hear MORE songs every night. The band could easily satisfy fans by playing longer shows, making room for more older and newer songs. And now they're stuck with this set length - it is glaringly obvious that the sets started getting smaller AFTER Todd joined.
This is exactly, 100% spot-on. The band is putting out a product. If that product is sub-par when compared to what similar bands are doing, the band has no one to blame but themselves if they do not work HARD to find a way to bring their product up to standards, and that is true of each and every member of the band.
Yes, people have individual limitations. When Rick Allen lost an arm, that severely limited him as a drummer, and by extension, limited Def Leppard as a band. He worked his butt off for years to find a work-around. He is still limited, and everybody knows it. But he got to a point where he could to a reasonable job, and the band could continue performing at a quality level with him, and a lot of the fans embraced it. Why? Because Rick and the band put in the work to still deliver a quality product, even if the new limitations may have caused the product to now be somewhat different.
If Todd's vocal limitations are causing the band to deliver sub-standard set time for the money being charged, that is 100% on Todd and the band to fix. If they choose not to, that's fine. But they have no one to blame if their ticket sales drop and they get criticized by their fans and lose fans as a result.
Todd himself claimed in an interview that he met with a vocal coach and the coach told him "hey, I have no advice for you, if your technique works for you, keep doing it." So I doubt Todd even thinks about working on his stamina, he believes he's just fine, and was "instructed" by someone that he was fine.
Wow. That is so irresponsible for a coach to say. I mean, it's one thing for a coach to say that
that particular coach may not have anything more to offer a particular singer. It's another thing entirely to suggest that nothing more can be offered whatsoever to improve or at least maintain. (which assumes that Todd's version is accurate and not a misunderstanding of the coach maybe saying the latter and not the former) And it is even more irresponsible of Todd to take that at face value and not have the drive and self-motivation to seek a second, third, fourth, etc. opinion until he finds someone who can help him improve/maintain.
I hate your response and here's why. Look at any singer who gets up in age. Even the great Paul Stanley cannot hit the notes he used to. Rush added more instrumentals and detuned to help Geddy. This is a fact of life. Your vocal chords cannot do what you did in your youth. Add the fact that Geoff's style of singing and what Todd is continuing does massage damage to vocal chords.
Change your expectations. It's on you. The older singers get, the more they have to baby their vocal chords.
Joe, you know I have complete respect for you, so please don't take this personally when I say this and am this blunt: That position is complete garbage. This isn't about Todd just being older. Bruce Dickinson has a couple of decades on LaTorre, and look at the mammoth set times Maiden
consistently offers their fans. It isn't about babying one's voice. Yes, a singer needs to take care of his/her instrument. That's one of my HUGE peeves with Geoff Tate. The man had phenomenal talent, and I will praise him all day long for not only his range and power, but also his ability to go out night after night, whether sick or healthy, whether motivated or not, and deliver night after night. But his abuse of his voice and his neglect and failure to take care of it are inexcusable. For different reasons, I have the same criticism of LaTorre. He and the band are selling a product. And the length of their sets on tour
because of his inability to sing a standard length set makes it an inferior product. And there are LOTS of singers his age
or much older who do not find it necessary to so severely cut their set length down and have taken great lengths to find ways to extend the set and deliver for the fans
while taking care of their voices. The things you mention are no excuse whatsoever for Todd and Queensryche to not find ways to do the same. None whatsoever. And for that reason, I am completely unapologetic in continuing to insist that, as long as they
choose to take that route, I refuse to give them any of my money for it.
It's not on the fans. It's on the band to help Todd. When Todd joined, it was constant bragging from both him and the band about his vocal abilities and that they didn't have to tune down like they did with Geoff. That's what they've done since, and their sets keep getting shorter. This year is the shortest by far (the Condition Human tour averaged 15-18 songs). Last night, Fates Warning got more time, but QR still played the same 15 songs.
So rather than the band adjusting their music to help Todd (like you are demonstrating that Rush did, which allowed them to continue to play 2-3 hour shows for their fans), they're cutting short the show and shortchanging fans.
Bingo. Grappler nails it again. If they need to tune some of the harder songs down, that's fine. If they need to "pad" the set a bit with some less challenging songs to give Todd a break, that's fine. If they need to take some other liberties to give him a break during the set, that's fine. Heck, sneak in a couple of covers or "alternate versions" of songs with Eddie or Parker singing, if that's what it takes. There are tons of options. Fans understand that. Fans don't feel ripped off when bands do that. When a band simply cuts the set down to a length far below what their peers are able to consistently find ways to deliver, a lot of fans do feel cheated and push back on that, and rightly so.
Topic: Official Queensryche thread: Kickstart the next album (Read 696178 times)
