Mellotronists

Gee Andy, I guess following through on your thought, no band should 
ever do cover tunes, either, unless they're going to rearrange them. 
Have you considered that maybe TMB gave a bad performance the night you 
saw them?

I've seen TMB two times now and was impressed both times. Yes, they are 
giving a performance, but you might get more out of it if you think of 
it as a "play" rather than as a concert. Did you ever actually see 
Genesis perform when Gabriel was with them? I saw them do their Foxtrot 
show in Montreal (think it was in early '72) and I have to tell you 
that the performance was not all that good. There were two rather large 
gaffs and Banks and Hackett seemed particularly disinterested that 
night. I figured that they just weren't "on" that night, but didn't 
write them off out of hand, because several people whose opinion I 
respected had told me they were quite extraordinary.

Good bands can have bad nights. And yes, Andy, they do play all the 
stuff that's coming out of the sound system. If Pierre was online, he 
would tell you the same thing. As a matter of fact, he was rather 
insulted when I mentioned to him that you thought some of the playing 
was faked. I know flute playing (you mentioned at the time you saw them 
that you thought the guy was playing over a pre-recorded part) and he 
was fingering the correct notes. The only part left was blowing into 
the flute to make a sound. That's the easy part. Yes, he is a pretty 
appalling flute player, but then, so was Gabriel.

Sorry to sound off at you, but I believe you're being rather unfair. 
Peter Gabriel liked TMB when he saw them in London last year.

Just my two cents.

Rick

On Saturday, October 18, 2003, at 09:31 AM, Andy Thompson wrote:

>
> As I said recently (and as John has just said), it's a sampler mounted 
> in a
> Mellotron-shaped box. So you didn't think they gave a lifeless, 
> soulless
> 'performance'? More wooden than an M400 cabinet.
>
> Andy T.