Not sure how many people here have ever watched music reaction videos, but it is a guilty pleasure of mine every few months for a week or so until I get over it again. Particularly the vocal coach ones can get a little grinding and of course they do indulge their audience. In the last week I have been enjoying watching American vocal coaches and reaction people lose their mind to hearing John Farnham sing live.
As a kid of the 80’s I have very clear memories of just how big Whispering Jack was, and I admit that I thought it was just the greatest thing around as well (I was 7 or so) but then of course, to me in the 90’s etc Farnham took on the daggy uncle thing and I just stopped paying attention despite my parents still listening to him. My long and winding point of this post is that is actually great just to reconnect via these reaction videos with how much of an amazing singer this bloke was, something that of course I knew but probably never gave the actual dues to just how good he was.
Yeah I like Drumeo as well - I saw a gospel version rip off recently that was actually ok (i.e. gospel drummers trying to play metal etc). Credit to those guys as they are upfront with being inspired by Drumeo.
Only ‘problem’ with Drumeo is believing that the drummers have never heard the song before - sometimes it makes sense, but that awesome Jess Bowen having not heard Bulls on Parade before seemed a little far-fetched…
The video for that was filmed across 2 shows in Sydney, Big Day Out ‘96 and headline show at an emptyish Hordern the following day. What a time to be a pimply teenager with a shit haircut.
I saw Prophets of Rage at the Hordern few years back and was so close to Morello it was quite crazy. B-Real leant into the crowd at one point and I had to actual move backwards for him not to fall on me. Good times.
I saw RATM at the old Ent. Centre as well as BDO. 100% up there with best gigs
I find it hard to believe that she’s never heard some of the stuff, but who knows how sheltered she was. She’s a trained and talented operatic singer. I think she’s just amazed that non-trained singers come be really fucking good and that they have a freedom that her training doesn’t permit.
I have seen some of her vids, she pulls these really stupid “surprised” looks on her face which grind my gears some what. She actually did a Kasey Chambers song recently so can forgive her I guess. but yeah, some of the stuff she hasn’t heard is like WTF, were you raised with the Amish or something?
Look I understand why someone wouldn’t have heard of Queensrÿche’s ‘Eyes of a Stranger’ but a 30 something not having heard ‘Smells like Teen Spirit’ is really hard to believe even if you were sheltered.
Besides that suspicion she’s great because it’s obvious that she knows her shit, but she’s also super enthusiastic and seems to game and open to listen to almost anything.
I watched a lot of her videos a while back and I was willing to suspend my disbelief that she’d not heard certain songs and focus more on the fact that she could:
a) instantly figure out the time signature of some very obscurely timed Tool songs (“I think this bit is 9/13, then it goes to 11/15 for two bars…”), which is obviously down to her musical training, and
b) point out lots of little things that I hadn’t picked up in songs I’ve listened to hundreds of times
It was a bit of a stretch when she was listening to Phil Collins “In the air tonight”, and just before the most iconic drum solo of all time she says “he almost sings like he’s a drummer” and then proceeds to have her mind blown 5 seconds later.
This was the most insane mosh I’ve ever been in - every surge the air would be sucked out of it. Was so intense. All my mates and I came out of there absolutely drenched and ruined.
That mosh looked amazing from the sides… almost moving as one mass. The opening of that set was so full of dynamite - including Zack taking a stack he was so into it
Flaming Lips are coming out. Last time I saw them was at Harvest (I think?) in parramatta. They were 40 odd minutes late to start their set, so I missed half of TV On The Radio’s set standing around waiting.
The 20 mins of TV On The Radio I saw were far fucking superior too. One of my all time gear grinds. Don’t think I’ve ever forgiven those cunts, so much so it has really made me think twice about getting tickets.
Really hoping for a Gaslight Anthem side show - given that the festival is three days in a row in different cities - wonder what the changes are though?
None unless it sells out pretty much, they aren’t in that sweet spot where they’re big enough to throw some weight around, but not too big where exclusivity is huge.
