Marcus Miller live

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OK, so I saw Marcus Miller live yesterday evening here in Copenhagen, as part of their (extensive) Laid Black Tour. The short summary: great music, awesome musicianship, flawlessly executed.

But…

I couldn’t understand why the organizers chose the (modern) Concert Hall for this gig. First, while it provides award-winning acoustics for classical concerts, it doesn’t work as well for music with heavily amplified instruments - the louder they played the more murky the sound got. Second, modern concert hall designs have seats all around the stage. As I had been late in getting tickets, our seats were behind the band; thus, I didn’t get to see much of Marcus Miller’s technique, i.e., what he did on the bass to get the sounds he produced. That was certainly both annoying and disappointing, but what really irked me was that Miller never even acknowledged that there were (lots of) people behind him. Not once did he turn around during the music and he didn’t even smile, nod or wave to us when receiving the final applause. That left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth, I have to admit…

The biggest take home message: everything he played on the bass, he played with absolute conviction! There was no hesitation and no doubt about that he played what he intended to play. Of course, he knows what he is doing… but it is still interesting to see it executed with such commitment and swagger. Compared to that, I often play the bass like I am afraid I could damage the strings… so, “play it like you mean it” is going to be my practice mantra for the next couple of months :grinning:

Otherwise: as I said, flawlessly executed songs from the recent album, two songs from the “Afrodeesiac” album and the acid trip of “Bitches’ Brew” and a re-worked version of “Tutu” from the Miles Davis period. All musicians played extremely well, but it still felt as if they were tired of touring and didn’t really enjoy themselves. Or maybe I am confusing this with “coolness”!? In any case, the venue certainly didn’t help much either in creating more “atmosphere”.

Soooooo, YouTube to the rescue… again! If you want to see in essence the same concert, check it out here:

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My son took me to see Primus at the 420 Festival here in Atlanta. Not as bad as what you described but not good either. The musicianship was great but Les never seemed to connect with the crowd and it felt like he was just going through the motions. It probably didn’t help that it was a festival and most of the people were either there for the 420 or for other bands but I was still fairly disappointed.

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I have to admit… I had to google both Primus and 420 Festival :laughing:

I guess it must be tough playing (almost) every night in a different place and still delivering the goods…

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Bummer about the venue @joergkutter! I’m gonna see Marcus next month at an outdoor venue, hopefully it goes better. I’m also hoping it’s not too “smooth,” it’s with a different band than you saw and I head some dangerously “smooth” bits from their new record… I hope going to the show doesn’t sand all my edges off. :stuck_out_tongue:

Cool video! Fun to hear Marcus playing with more effects (distortion and octaves, mostly) on the last few records.

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Ok my sacrilege for the day:

Les Claypool is in this large group of bassists for me where I think they are totally awesome, love their work, but don’t really get in to their band consistently enough to say I really love the band. Same with John Entwhistle, John Paul Jones (yes I managed to be a rocker/metalhead without actually really liking the Zep all that much), Toshiya (Dir en grey), Tetsuya (L’Arc-en-Ciel), Reita (The Gazette), etc.

I like some stuff all those bands did but not consistently for any of them.

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@howard, I get it. There are plenty of legendary bassists I don’t feel. I respect their musicianship and I try to stay open but I just don’t feel their music.

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