Hearing an amazing live show always makes me question our hobby

[David Matz]

I heard an amazing live show last night. Not sure if anyone here has heard of Lurrie Bell, but he may be the best blues guitarist in Chicago.

Here's a sample clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5xRlHtRTPE
and another: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRveD2yXQYY

The club was small and had no acoustic treatments. There was a glass wall behind the band, partially covered with a curtain. The ceilings were tall, but the club had brick exposed on most surfaces. The bar had a lot of glass. Altogether, the bass was boomy and the highs were bright!

Nevertheless, it was one of the best shows I have ever heard. The band had amazing feeling and soul. People were dancing in the aisles.

The sad thing is that I know if I got a tape of the show it would not sound the same on my or anyone else's system. Live music sounds sounds so much better to me than anything I have heard on anyone's system. Yet we have these repeating conversations about amps, speakers, and even cables and vibration devices. Sure there are differences, but they are minute and never near to experiencing real live music.

I'm wondering if us audio addicts should really be going out to hear more live music and spending our $ that way.

 

[MiTT]

I've come to the point of accepting that they are two different things entirely and they shall never equate. Live music is live music with all of the energy and power and magic of a moment in time. Our systems are nothing more than a feeble attempt to replicate an artifact of the actual event. It's sort of like a Jackson ******* painting. ******* would say that the painting itself was nothing more than the record of the event of painting it, that the event itself was the artistic component. None the less, it doesn't diminsh the beauty of the artifact.

I engage in both live music and reproduced music, it's just that the latter is at my own beck and call. I can enjoy what I want when I want, whereas live music is at least temporally determined by the artist creating it.

 

[Bernard]

Don't forget that with live music, especially jazz/blues, the musicians seem to be enjoying themselves so much, and you get caught up in that enthusiasm. So you do not participate with only one sense.

 

[DrWily008]

Don't forget that with live music, especially jazz/blues, the musicians seem to be enjoying themselves so much, and you get caught up in that enthusiasm. So you do not participate with only one sense.

I agree, to add to that good concerts in my area are VERY infrequent. If I had a great music scene for jazz/blues like you do in Chicago, I probably would attend more shows!

 

[Satch]

I've played in a lot of places that are acoustical nightmares, but when the place fills up with people, especially on the dance floor, a lot of the harshness seems to dissipate. Then there's "the more you drink the better we sound" factor.

It's fun to be an acoustic sound trap.

Whadaya mean it's last call... I... just... got... heeerrrrre...

Satch

 

[Gordon]

I get enjoyment out of both! Will my home ever sound like the club up the street? Probably not but that is ok with me. At the only club in town that offers a small jazz quartet, they set up by the front door, poor acoustics, phone ringing and we have a great time while there. The emotion, ambience and atmosphere all come into play for me.

While at home, I sometimes listen to the gear and not the music and that's what gets in the way of enjoying what I have. Trying to make it sound like the club is not going to happen and can accept that.

Make lemonade when given lemons!

Gordon

 

[risabet]

We may strive to recreate the live experience in our homes but the two things are totally different, and the more I attend live the less I strive to recreate the entire experience. Tonally better systems are very close to the live experience, we can get horns to sound like horns and voices to sound like voices, etc.. IMO it is the acoustics and that "liveness" that let us down, recreating the acoustics and the live content of the music is what recreating music misses. When I listen at home I enjoy the "recreation" of music not the actual performance of it. A good high school choir has more emotional impact live than the Kings College Choir on a CD ever has. For me the two endeavors diverge and each is incredibly enjoyable in and of itself.

 

[FISH_MAN]

I heard an amazing live show last night. Not sure if anyone here has heard of Lurrie Bell, but he may be the best blues guitarist in Chicago.

Here's a sample clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5xRlHtRTPE
and another: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRveD2yXQYY

The club was small and had no acoustic treatments. There was a glass wall behind the band, partially covered with a curtain. The ceilings were tall, but the club had brick exposed on most surfaces. The bar had a lot of glass. Altogether, the bass was boomy and the highs were bright!

Nevertheless, it was one of the best shows I have ever heard. The band had amazing feeling and soul. People were dancing in the aisles.

The sad thing is that I know if I got a tape of the show it would not sound the same on my or anyone else's system. Live music sounds sounds so much better to me than anything I have heard on anyone's system. Yet we have these repeating conversations about amps, speakers, and even cables and vibration devices. Sure there are differences, but they are minute and never near to experiencing real live music.

I'm wondering if us audio addicts should really be going out to hear more live music and spending our $ that way.

unfortunately many of my favorite artists are dead! yeah live is better but not always some of the music I like actually most of it sounds better reproduced on a high quality system.when it comes to orchestra or horn musicians well then live is really the only way to go. I use to hang out at this small cigar lounge (until the communist *******s in this state outlawed smoking in doors) and drink scotch while listening to some live blues well I must say my logans can't compete with that but hey what can you do.

 

[Burke]

Live Jazz in Chicago

I agree with the rest. Hard to compare the two as equals, I love live music and I love listening to my system but they are very different animals and experiences.

For the Chicago crowd, we are meeting up at the Green Mill Jazz Club in two weeks Monday April 27th to hear Patricia Barber, join us
http://www.martinloganowners.com/~tdacquis/forum/showthread.php?t=8571

 

[JonFo]

Live is great, but it can also be a total disappointment.

My system is now at the point I rather prefer to listen to well recorded music on it than go to a live event.

Best example was the last Dead can dance concert in 2006. We flew to Boston to hear them (nobody we find worth listening to ever makes it to Atlanta). They played in a lousy theater, and the acoustics were horrid, the mixing bad and the playing sub-par.

Listening to the DCD remastered SACD on my system is close to a religious experience …

Frankly, I rather watch movies and listen to recorded albums in my rig than to spend the hundreds of dollars on ‘live’ disappointments.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the ‘energy’ and excitement of a live performance, I just no longer expect it to be the pinnacle of auditory experience.

The only exception to the above would be a classical music concert, played by a top orchestra in a great hall. But since I mostly listen to studio-produced progressive rock, my system is the reference for my preference.

 

[tonepub]

I agree with JonFo on this one...

I go to about 75 live shows per year, with a pretty good mix between types of music (amplified and acoustic) and I rarely hear live sound "sound" that good. The recent Madeleine Peyroux show was definitely up on my "good sound" list and a few of the minimally amplified shows at the recent Portland Jazz Festival were also quite good.

Fortunately the MP show was not loud at all and when we got home from the show, it was actually my wife that suggested we go listen to one of her records on LP to compare. Even she said "wow, this sounds like what we just heard..."

So I think it depends on the system and the show.

And a lot with the room. Having heard a couple of systems in fairly good sized rooms (30 x 40) really has me convinced that's a big part of it as well. When at Chad Kassem's blues fest a year ago, I got to hear some of his masters at the Acoustic Sounds showroom on an excellent system in a big room and it was incredibly convincing because the spatial relationships were correct. When we listened to the same music at Chad's house in an 18 x 24 room, everything sounded the same tonally (Avalon Sentinels vs. Avalon Eideolons at home), but that sense of realism was gone.

I'm convinced a lot of it is the room. When you go to even a small club, the room is really big compared to your listening room.

Just something to think about....

 

[JonFo]

Jeff, totally agree, so much is in the room size and how it’s treated, that many other factors are secondary.

We’re finally entering a phase in audio where people are beginning to pay a lot more attention to the spatial properties of the reproduction process. But it’s still a rather hopeless mess.

I find this great quote by Blesser and Salter [2007], to sum up the whole performance / recording / reproduction chain rather well:

Acoustic engineers determine the physical properties of the recording environment; design engineers develop the recording and reproduction equipment; recording engineers place the microphones, mixing engineers prepare the final musical product for distribution; interior decorators select furnishings for the listeners’ acoustic space; and listeners position themselves and the loudspeakers within that space. Often acting independently, these individuals are members of an informal and unrecognized committee of aural architects who do not communicate with each other. With their divided responsibility for the outcome, they often create the spatial equivalent of a camel: a horse designed by committee.

 

[jfm]

Mostly I like jazz music. In that context, I have enjoyed live music a lot, where no audio system can replicate the sound, never mind the energy. But I have also been disappointed a lot, maybe even more times, both by the sound and the performance, not even including the hassle of attending.

Besides, sometimes I want to hear Miles and Coltrane...

But for classical music I would say that, in my experience, the overall difference weighs in favor of live.

 

[tonepub]

Yeah, it's pretty hard to stuff a symphony into your living room!