The Absurd Logistics of Concert Tours

[astrotoy]

At the big venues for live rock concerts, are the sonics for the audience much better than listening to the album at home on a good system?  The cost is much higher.  For a classical music concert, the performance is normally to an attempt to reproduce the sound of an album.  Instead, the pieces played are very often ones that have never bee recorded by the artists, or often with different orchestras or conductors than the recordings that they have made.  They are also usually unamplified.  

 

Until COVID we went to a very large number of concerts, typically 60-70 a year, almost all classical.  The most recent pop concert was Joan Baez on her farewell concert tour at the Royal Albert Hall in London (a huge concert hall of over 5000 seats.  The seats were expensive (near the top of the range) but the sonics, all amplified, were mediocre.  Broadway or West End (London) musicals are all amplified and the sonics do not match the original cast recordings. Not as bad as a giant area, but nothing like a good seat in a good concert hall with unamplified classical music.  

 

Larry

 

Larry

[The Computer Audiophile]

6 minutes ago, astrotoy said:

At the big venues for live rock concerts, are the sonics for the audience much better than listening to the album at home on a good system?  The cost is much higher.  For a classical music concert, the performance is normally to an attempt to reproduce the sound of an album.  Instead, the pieces played are very often ones that have never bee recorded by the artists, or often with different orchestras or conductors than the recordings that they have made.  They are also usually unamplified.  

 

Until COVID we went to a very large number of concerts, typically 60-70 a year, almost all classical.  The most recent pop concert was Joan Baez on her farewell concert tour at the Royal Albert Hall in London (a huge concert hall of over 5000 seats.  The seats were expensive (near the top of the range) but the sonics, all amplified, were mediocre.  Broadway or West End (London) musicals are all amplified and the sonics do not match the original cast recordings. Not as bad as a giant area, but nothing like a good seat in a good concert hall with unamplified classical music.  

 

Larry

 

Larry

The sound at home is always much better than a big rock venue. 

[botrytis]

1 hour ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

The sound at home is always much better than a big rock venue. 

 

Yeah, but there is nothing like sitting front and center in front of Bryan Ferry and his band. It sounded like they were signing to me alone (I was 1st row).

[kumakuma]

18 minutes ago, botrytis said:

 

Yeah, but there is nothing like sitting front and center in front of Bryan Ferry and his band. It sounded like they were signing to me alone (I was 1st row).

 

Is that a typo or are you one of the "deaf audiophiles" that Frank is always mentioning? 👺

 

 

[AudioDoctor]

5 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

In sports, people pay the most money to see the most talented players. Perhaps because sports are more objective in that the players seek the same end result. 
 

Art is so different. 

 

That explains why they have to give away tickets to see the Vikings play...  ;-)

[botrytis]

50 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

Is that a typo or are you one of the "deaf audiophiles" that Frank is always mentioning? 👺

 

 

 

Both actually - signing and signing - a law in Cleveland....

[astrotoy]

16 hours ago, astrotoy said:

At the big venues for live rock concerts, are the sonics for the audience much better than listening to the album at home on a good system?  The cost is much higher.  For a classical music concert, the performance is normally to an attempt to reproduce the sound of an album.  Instead, the pieces played are very often ones that have never bee recorded by the artists, or often with different orchestras or conductors than the recordings that they have made.  They are also usually unamplified.  

 

Until COVID we went to a very large number of concerts, typically 60-70 a year, almost all classical.  The most recent pop concert was Joan Baez on her farewell concert tour at the Royal Albert Hall in London (a huge concert hall of over 5000 seats.  The seats were expensive (near the top of the range) but the sonics, all amplified, were mediocre.  Broadway or West End (London) musicals are all amplified and the sonics do not match the original cast recordings. Not as bad as a giant area, but nothing like a good seat in a good concert hall with unamplified classical music.  

 

Larry

 

Larry

Typo from me.  First paragraph third sentence.  Correction: "For a classical music concert, the performance is normally NOT to attempt to reproduce the sound of an album."

[StephenJK]

I found it interesting on how so much of the logistics involved was for packing, trucking and setting up the stage/PA to the next venue, and that compounded with limitations in how long the truckers can drive.  

 

I can only presume that the band in the example given was big, but not huge and either didn't want to or couldn't afford a double setup.  This video on what it takes to keep the band Rush on the road gives a lot of detail for anyone who would like exactly that.

 

 

 

[AnotherSpin]

What about Grateful Dead?