As a singer, JLB has always and will continue to get the lion's share of the scrutiny, especially when he struggles, but the idea that he is basically a necessary evil to be endured when seeing DT live is a notion I do not subscribe to.
Yup, very well said.
That's not what we're talking about with JLB. We're talking about every single night not being able to sing any given song in tune from start to finish or pronounce the lyrics when your part is literally entirely diatonic eight, quarter and half notes. These are not difficult parts to sing. They aren't flurries of 16th notes, or scalar runs from the bottom of your range to the very top, or wide arpeggios, or even just a lot of notes in general. The DT vocal lines are pretty plain vanilla. Still, I do not expect him to nail every single note in every song. But the fans should be able to expect that the majority of the performances is solid, which currently it is not. The guitar equivalent of what is happening on the vocal side of the band is this at 5:15: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUA50ojVgPU
I think you are missing the point of WM's analogy altogether. And for many, many reasons, James' parts are far from "not difficult parts to sing" or "plain vanilla." I don't know how anyone could credibly argue otherwise, and I've heard plenty of pro and amateur singers, as well as vocal coaches, back up how difficult a lot of his vocal lines are. Look, you clearly have an ax to grind with LaBrie, and that's your right. But you couldn't be more off base on your arguments.
On a related note, I can't think of many metal singers of LaBrie's generation that sang anywhere near the difficulty of his parts that sound great nowadays. Yeah, there are some. But not many. Dickinson has been struggling for a LONG time now. Tate has been plain awful for close to 2 decades (although the difference with him is that he (1) willfully abused his voice and (2) doesn't even try). Dio has always been horrid live, even when he was young, IMO (although I will give you that his voice stayed pretty consistent even into his later years). Alder completely alters his vocal melodies (which often sounds great, by the way, so props to him for learning what his limits are and learning how to side-step them and play to his strengths, even if it changes the song up considerably). Bach has been awful for almost as long as Tate. And on and on we could go.
But more on topic, this isn't the "bash James" thread (as if that would be allowed anyway), so now that you've said your piece on that, I suggest we actually discuss the tour.
I just had a thought. Everyone seemed excited that Petrucci was back to singing and the backing tracks were gone. But maybe, with all of the technical issues James had with the mic, they just didn’t have the backing vocal tracks working for that show. I guess Spain will find out tonight.
Interesting point. To me, I think the best of both words is to keep JP's mic up
and keep the backing tracks (just at a slightly lower volume), so I hope that's what they are going for.
I remember the first time I heard them soundcheck instrumentally when using the backing track, and it was amazing to hear how low the backing vocals were in the mix, but then later hear how much texture they added underneath James's voice. It was similar to when I did a singing competition that Queenryche did years ago, and they sent me the backing track sans vocals, and there were parts that had backing vocals that were so low in the mix they were barely audible compared to the other instruments. And yet, when I recorded my lead vocal over the track, the parts with the backing tracks in the background had SO much more punch and texture to them, even though the backing vocals were buried in the mix. That, IMO, is closer to where I want the backing vocal tracks to be in DT's live show. They do add quite a bit, but they don't need to be so loud that they compete with the lead vocal, even if James is choosing to sing more of a harmony than a lead. I'm good with him doing alternate vocal lines. But I want to hear
him, with the vocal track being background support, and not the other way around. And JP's voice adds a different texture to the backing vocals, so notwithstanding him being self-conscious, I wish he would keep his volume up a bit more than he has on the most recent tours. It
can be a distraction when it
looks like he is just lip synching (even though he isn't) because we can't
hear what he is actually singing.
Topic: Top Of The World Tour 2023 (Read 76592 times)
