SoundBard » Love It Live

All You Need Is LOVE: The Beatles’ Revolution Lives on at The Mirage in Las Vegas

Mike Mettler — Fri, 07 Feb 2014 05:25:34 +0000

BY MIKE METTLER

Peace and LOVE: The cast and The Fabs, all together now. Photo by Tomas Muscionico. Costumes by Philippe Guillotel.

“Love is all around you.” It’s a phrase that enveloped me in full during the climax of The Beatles — LOVE. My reaction? “Yeah yeah yeah!” The 7:00 p.m. performance on January 10, 2014 was my fifth time seeing this Cirque du Soleil extravaganza in its 7 years (and counting) at The Mirage in Las Vegas. I was perfectly positioned in Section 200 in Row M, Seat 13, for what was going to unfold here, there, and everywhere around me. And you really do need to attend LOVE multiple times to absorb all of the many nuances of its sensory-overloading A/V spectacle.

LOVE is a visual tour de force — a hallmark of all Cirque productions — tracing The Beatles’ WWII roots alongside the idealism and eventual denouement of the ’60s up through the present day. The custom-built theater houses (yes) 6,000 speakers, all in service of a spectacular surround-sound mix supervised by original Beatles producer Sir George Martin and his son Giles Martin. Giles told Sound & Vision in 2009, “For LOVE, I took the material and layered it deliberately. When you extract and separate elements too much, quite often they don’t gel as well as they used to.”

Sgt. Pepper carries that weight. Photo by Tomas Muscionico. Costumes by Philippe Guillotel.

There’s no better example of the proper gel than the carnival aesthetic of “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!” threading beautifully with the low-end crunch of “I Want You (She’s So Heavy),” the abject fury of “Helter Skelter,” and the cacophonous, all-encompassing buildup and release of “A Day in the Life.” And the show-ending “All You Need Is Love,” seen at the very toppermost of this post, is a full-channel wonder awash with horns, harpsichord, harmonies, and peace-sign-flashing singalong exuberance.

While I could go on and on… I’m sorry, but it’s getting very near the end. To borrow a line from a certain Johnny Rhythm, I think they passed the audition.

Can’t get to Vegas to see LOVE anytime soon but still want to partake in the 50th anniversary of The Fab Four hitting the U.S. shores? (Hey, tomorrow never knows.…) Your next best bet is to check out The Beatles LOVE — All Together Now, A Documentary Film (on DVD or via download), which chronicles Cirque du Soleil’s journey to put forth such a massive show. Sir Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Sir George Martin, Yoko Ono Lennon, and Olivia Harrison are all on hand to give in-person input to Cirque founder Guy Laliberté and director/writer/show concept creator Dominic Champagne as the show is in its gestation stages (no pressure!). Notes Sir George of the audio, “We’re stretching the sounds, bending them.” Adds his son and co-producing partner Giles Martin, “If he [his dad] thinks it’s good, then it’s good.” And Sir Paul wryly observes, “What a f—ing great band we were.” (He ain’t wrong, you know.) Yeah, it’s quite f—-ing great, alright: the DTS 5.1 surround mix is beautiful and enveloping, and the panoramic views of the production and its presentation while it’s being worked through will totally knock you out. Sir George summarizes it just right: “Each generation as it grows up find The Beatles for itself. And it will go on.” Onward, one and all: Until you make the necessary pilgrimage to the Mirage, All Together Now is a fab, fab, fab way to Re-Meet The Beatles. A splendid time is guaranteed for all.

Bonus Tracks — He Said, He Said Department: Okay, consider this the “Her Majesty” portion of the proceedings. That is, here’s a few more bits from Giles Martin concerning his philosophy of surround sound and The Beatles: “Music in surround can be amazing, but it needs to be done the right way. It has its place — and it’s fantastic if you have the right speakers. As I said on my blog, “My proudest achievement with LOVE is that it made people listen again.”

“The original recordings were made beautifully, but quite often they were made for radio. We opened things up more for [Rock Band]. On the original of “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” for example, Ringo’s drums are rather quiet and the vocals are upfront because it was a radio track. We’d do a mix and actually play it in the game, and we’d find out that you can’t really hear the kick drum. So we’d go back and increase the dynamics on Ringo’s drums.”

“Of course, the sound does change with the venue. Take the rooftop concert. At first, it just didn’t feel right. So we put a slight slap on everything, because I thought it would sound like that if you were there; you’d get a slap off the surrounding buildings. With Shea Stadium, it’s a bigger space, obviously, so it has to sound bigger. It was important to us to have that attention to detail.”

Sharp Jammin’ Men: ZZ Top Grill Up Some Tasty Grooves at the State Theatre

Mike Mettler — Tue, 19 Nov 2013 17:20:00 +0000

Lookin’ sharp, and lookin’ for riffs: Hill and Gibbons get in the pocket. All photos by Krista Mettler.

BY MIKE METTLER

“Same three guys. Same three chords.” It’s a refrain that ZZ Top guitarist extraordinaire Billy Gibbons has been preaching from the stage for years, but it’s how this little ol’ band from Texas mixes up that deceptively basic formula with its own brand of down-home, blues-slathered gee-tar grease that keeps me coming back for more.

And they sure laid down the grooves during a tight 85-minute set at the State Theatre in New Brunswick, New Jersey on November 18, 2013. Over the years, I’ve seen the mighty Top play hockey arenas (Madison Square Garden in NYC on January 28, 1991 and June 6, 1994, and Meadowlands Arena in NJ on August 30, 1991) and mid-size venues (Radio City Music Hall in NYC on October 25, 1996, and the Beacon Theatre in NYC on November 10, 2005), and I definitely prefer them in the intimacy of the smaller setting. At the State Theatre, I took root in the center floor section — namely, Row J, Seat 105, about 15 rows back from the stage. My sightline found bassist Dusty Hill on my left and guitarist Gibbons on my right, with drummer Frank Beard just right of center. Not surprisingly, Gibbons’s guitar was at the forefront of the mix, always tasty and rarely distorted — except when he coaxed and then wrangled some necessary feedback during the back half of “Chartreuse,” a crunchy track from their underappreciated 2012 album, La Futura. Hill’s bottom end — fueled by the furious finger-pluckin’ style he’s dubbed “The Pleaser” — locked with Beard’s precision drumming to drop anchor for Gibbons to set off on his endless, blistering axeman explorations. Beard’s riveting snare accents were cannon-grade lethal on “Pincushion.” And Hill and Gibbons’s throaty vocals meshed quite well most of the night, muddling only during the choruses of “Flyin’ High.”

The set was sparse, with two six-foot-high screens flanking Beard’s super-sleek skull-laden drum kit. Scenes from an ongoing ZZ Top on-the-road movie — meshing segments of their classic vintage videoclips with new footage — created an ongoing storyline that I’m gonna call the Brisket Western. Before diving into another La Futura gem, “I Gotsta Get Paid,” Gibbons surveyed the clearly galvanized Jersey crowd, zeroing in on a woman down front waving the LP of 1983′s indelible Eliminator in the air. Gibbons took it from her, had his fellow bandmates sign the cover, and then asked the crowd, “Ok, we’ll start the bidding at $150…” (Don’t worry, she got it back intact.)

And Gibbons, of course, offered slab after slab of prime guitar soloing. My favorite Rev. Billy G jamola came during “Certified Blues,” a choice deep cut from ZZ Top’s First Album (1970), followed by an especially incendiary take on Jimi Hendrix’s “Fire,” which brought to mind the pyrotechnic sizzle of the version of that song I saw Gibbons blaze away on with the reunited Moving Sidewalks at B.B. King Blues Club & Grill in New York City back on March 31, 2013. (That was the first gig the Moving Sidewalks had played together in almost 44 years, and it’s a night I never thought I’d see — and one I’ll never forget.) Gibbons also wailed mightily during the crowd-pleasing one-two gut punches of set closers “Sharp Dressed Man” and “Legs.” When Gibbons went long during his extended solo passage on the first encore, “La Grange,” you could hear John Lee Hooker haw-haw-hawing his approval from the great beyond.

Same three guys and same three chords, but we continue to get endless variations on a theme from a trio that’s been intact and in sync for five decades and counting. As evidenced by the muscle on display in their brisk State Theatre set, ZZ Top knows how to keep it sharp.

Brick Layers: Ian Anderson Cements a Pair of Great-Sounding TAABs at the Beacon Theatre

Mike Mettler — Sat, 12 Oct 2013 14:53:41 +0000

Ian Anderson and axman Florian Opahle set the tone. Photo by Martin Webb.

BY MIKE METTLER

“No way to slow down.” Though it’s a line from the night’s lone encore (more on that later), it also aptly describes Ian Anderson’s energetic 128-minute set at the Beacon Theatre in New York City on October 10. As billed, Anderson and his ace six-piece band ran through Thick as a Brick 1 & 2 in a pair of stellar sets with a refreshing sense of verve and vitality. Long cited as a pioneer of progressive rock thanks to his 4-decades-plus of fronting Jethro Tull, Anderson and his whirling-dervish cavalcade of TAAB1&2 cronies inspired me to coin a new hybrid term for what he (and they) do onstage: jig-gressive rock.

Most important for these audiophile ears, the sonics were stellar all night long. Since its 2009 renovation and restoration, the Beacon Theatre has been a bastion for great sound, and front-of-house engineer Michael Downs took full advantage of what the room had to offer. And my vantage point for it all was quite fantastic: Orchestra Right Center, Row F, Seat 18, which translated to about 10 rows from the front and essentially in line with Scott Hammond’s drum kit at stage left, and with a clear sightline whenever Anderson ensconced himself behind his center-stage/mid-band mic stand most of the night. Well, make that some of the night — Anderson moved quite fluidly across the stage when taking his many flute solos, often concurrently showing how a 66-year-old has retained mastery of his patented one-legged pirouette, putting men half his age to shame in the process.

Make your animal deals: Ryan O’Donnell wields his own bad-ass flute. Photo by Martin Webb.

After a filmed intro (major audio-geek kudos to Ian for portraying a doctor named “Maximilian Quad“), Anderson opened the show in front of a mic stand placed on our side at stage left, strumming his 3/4-size parlour guitar and singing the well-known intro line, “Really don’t mind if you sit this one out.” As the do-ragged, vest-clad Anderson moved center stage, I was concerned that I’d be faced with a percussion-centric mix because of my seat. Those worries were allayed quickly, as John O’Hara’s left-side (i.e., stage-right) Roland and Hammond keyboards were instantly, and properly, balanced with the impact of the aforementioned right-side (stage-left) Hammond’s drumming. Florian Opahle’s cutting Les Paul guitar lines added all the right textures, and David Goodier’s Fender and Fodera bass lines held down the low-end fort without any notable over-rumbling. The night’s most enjoyable revelations belonged to stage-savvy co-ceremony-master Ryan O’Donnell, who often traded lead vocals and/or flute lines with Anderson and added the right sense of theatricality to the proceedings, whether donning a trenchcoat and bowler or wheeling out a stool to perch on and read an issue of Prog magazine with Anderson on the cover.

No, really, they *can* be merry, honest… Photo by Martin Webb/Carsten Bergman.

A clever use of Anderson’s cell phone through the P.A. and a preordained Skype call-in enabled violinist Anna Phoebe to join the mix 20 minutes into it (in the segment I believe is also known by the name “Edit 4″). The best use of live channel separation came close to the end of Brick 1, around 52 minutes into the show as soundman Downs hard-panned a duel of sorts between keyboardist O’Hara and drummer Hammond. The rest of the band, now entrenched between the two dueling musicians, swayed from one side to the other, their collective lean dependent on which hard-pan was in effect (left: lean toward O’Hara; right: lean toward Hammond). Quite a nice effect, once repeated before the final “We’ll have Superman or president/let Robin save the day” segment led the audience to the denouement to join Anderson in unison to speak-sing the set’s final word, “Brick.”

Catching angels as they fall: Anderson takes a final “Breath.” iPhone photo by Mike Mettler.

After a 28-minute break, the band broke vigorously into TAAB2, with Anderson again opening things at the mic at stage left with his parlour guitar. The band gelled quite naturally on songs like “Gerald the Chorister” (“Give till it hurts!” both Anderson and O’Donnell intoned, the latter during a brief, witty video segment) and the vigorous closer, “What-Ifs, Maybes, Might-Have-Beens.” Throughout the second set, both flute and organ fills and flute and guitar lines dexterously wove around and played off each other; sometimes doubling, sometimes leading. That’s the mark of keen intuitive interplay — and sharp live mixing. And the audience chimed in quite boisterously to mouth the set’s final two words along with Anderson (both onstage and via his posh-gent onscreen persona): “Brick 2.”

The earlier mentioned singular encore, a 9-minute gallop through the Aqualung classic “Locomotive Breath,” kept the audience on its feet all the way through. Anderson and Opahle came together near center stage and played off of each other masterfully in sync to the very end, completing one damn fine Bricktastic night. No way to slow down indeed.

Ian Anderson and his band of merry TAAB2 men are on tour in North America through the end of October, and then they hit the planks again in Europe through early 2014. See the tour dates here.