Question for musicians: Why do bands play so much faster live in concert?

[Populist_Prole]

Sometimes playing a bit faster jazzes up the song, but sometimes they're played so fast it ruins the song too.

Is it to try to just hurry through the set?

Is it that they themselves actually like the uptempo sound?

Is it that the speed could possibly make less than stellar muscianship less obvious?

Finally asking after 30 somewhat years of wondering.

[dogknob]

1. Drummer mood?

When I saw Eric Clapton at the LA Forum in 1988, Phil Collins was the drummer. My date, also a drummer, said "Phil's having a good time... he's pushing tempo."

[Demoiselle]

2. Live performance adrenalin rush? Just a thought.

I've never noticed this, though, but I don't go to a lot of live performances...

[olddots]

3. Adreniline , nerves and circumstances

It also depends on what kind of bands you go see plus what the key audience is about.

[MrSlayer]

4. Adrenaline mostly.

You're never really trying to speed through the set, you're just excited. We always have on our setlists "SLOW THE FUCK DOWN!" but we never really do. Everyone likes the energy, it's why you're there.

[Spike89]

5. Because live is interactive

A slow ballad may move the crowd, but more tempo makes the crowd move and that can be a feedback loop.

You'll also note that the best rock drummers hit the cymbals much more often live than they do in the studio. More crashes=more excitement, but if they hit the cymbals as much on a recording, it just sounds bad.

[SomethingFishy]

6. Actually that is changing quite a bit..

I'm a roadie (I play guitar too) so I have some experience with this issue.. In the past all of this could be laid at the drummers feet. He is the "timekeeper"... Most hard rock and heavy metal is already aggressive and calls for a bit of adrenaline to play.. hence the urgency it is played with... However these days with the advent of "in-ear monitor" systems many bands are using a "click track" which is basically a metronome played through the ears, to keep time. You will see this on shows with especially heavy sync'ed up video and lighting. I'm not positive about this but I believe this was first done on Pink Floyd's The Wall where video and animations were sync'ed up with the bands performance. Now it's a regular thing. The current tour I am on has a number of "guests" that appear via video screens and in order for it all to work together the click track is actually on the video so the band stays in time with the guest singer..

With the advent of digital music things have changed a lot. Recordings are really terrible. They are compressed to the point where there is no nuance anymore. All the instruments are up and in your face and the tempo of the song can be speeded up or slowed down digitally. What you hear live, is what the band really is. What is on record is a digital manipulation of the band.

[dogknob]

8. The "Loudness War"

That's why recording with all of the digital goodies, but having no intent whatsoever of being played on mainstream radio (no interest in adding whatever % hip-hop the demographics for your "genre" dictate, no payola budget (payola never stopped, the "scandal" was used to shut down Alan Freed for playing black artists), etc...) is such a blast... because you don't have to "compete" with Gwen Stefani and Kid Rock. This allows you to include old-fart things like "dynamic range" and "nuance" in your music -- because you do not have to participate in the Loudness War.

Nobody who is interested in recording music for music's sake gives a damn about the loudness war, but once you cross that line into the MSM, everything down to the LFO shakers better be stapled at 0db or the trained zombies (who can't even make it through songs they claim to "love&quot will be riding that "next" button.

[mainer]

7. I'm just a soloist but i speed up in performance too

It's adrenalin. I always have to whisper to myself SLOW DOWN.

[LeftOfSelf-Centered]

9. Pretty much what SomehingFishy said

It's usually a mixture of nerves, adrenalin and wanting to transmit your energy to the crowd.

I've always been adamant with my drummers that, when in doubt, to always err on the side of playing too fast; there's nothing worse than playing too slowly live, to me it really deflates a song. Even when the drummer was working with a click track, I always made the click track slightly faster than the studio version. Just speeding a song up by a few BPM (beats per minute) can make all the difference in energy and intensity; inversely going slightly too slow can make a song fall flat on its face.

When I was a kid, the first Iron Maiden album I listened to was a live album "Live After Death". Later when I heard to the studio versions I was surprised by how slow and sluggish they seemed.

Of course there are also bands that play much faster live by design, like the Ramones and a lot of other punk bands.

[olddots]

10. I saw Ray Charles once where everything was slowed down .

those days of taste and restraint sometimes had to do with heroine but wow what a night.

[mulsh]

11. a famous coronet player once advised my high school jazz band

" don't go to the bathroom before you perform, it adds urgency to your set." words to live by. Cracked our band instructor up that one.

[pipi_k]

12. It's like this, see...

since sound travels more slowly than light, the band plays faster to catch up with the movements from the band so everything matches for the people in the nosebleed section.

Uh...yeah.

That's it.

[nomorenomore08]

13. Some do it better than others. Case in point, The Ramones:

[Tom Ripley]

14. Drummers speed up during songs

[Bonx]

15. Prescient thread - Spent Sunday band rehearsal SLOWING down songs

It's so easy to end up 'off to the races'. Especially the first couple songs in the setlist.

[Populist_Prole]

16. Well, very interesting answers indeed. Seems I was too cynical

I know there are other factors in the live vs studio comparision of sound, but I can agree with some band's songs sounding better speeded up live vs studio. Cheap Trick is a good example. Queen as well. The Ramones I have mixed feelings on. I like Metallica in studio vs seeing them live in concert. The Aerosmith album 'Live Bootleg' did clearly show how how songs can be ruined by playing too fast though: Some were played so fast and sloppy I couldn't even tell what song it was till 20 to 30 seconds into it!

[Tom Ripley]

17. It was a rite of passage for teens in the 70s to walk out on Aerosmith in concert...

"Man, I love Toys in the Attic and Rocks, but they suck live! Pass that bong"