A Tangerine Dream Live Question

Why they do it, or why others don't do it?

Tangerine Dream have a long tradition of playing unique material live. See also Encore, Ricochet and many bootlegs flying around (later often released by the band in a regular way). Much of it was improvised, but not everything. Logos was largely composed, I believe. They would also often start with some material live that then went into studio compositions (much of Tangram was played live in preliminary versions before the album came out; chances are they did this also with other material). They'd occasionally play material live that had already appeared on a studio album but at least until I lost interest in them around 1986 this was the exception rather than the rule. As a (then) fan of the band I would not go to their concerts to listen to the studio material let alone hits but would rather be excited about what new fruits of their creativity to expect. So to me it always made a lot of sense and I tend to be rather disappointed if bands are too keen live to just reproduce their studio material, how successful and good it may have been. Of course the price of this was that occasionally some things were drawn out for longer than would "artistically" have made sense - that's probably inevitable if you invent that much new music all the time (see also Buckethead).

Other bands did this too, at least to some extent, in the end 60s and early 70s at least. Much of Can's live recordings sounds nowhere near their studio material. But in fact you're right that most would source most of their live material from the studio albums, if throwing in the odd improvisation or yet unreleased material (or sometimes strongly changing their original material).

I know that Livemiles (from their subsquent period) is cobbled together from songs in the live set into two live pieces. Is that the case with Poland and Logos, because they are both great albums

I saw them live on the tour that led to Logos, and as far as I remember the album is quite true to how they played it, although it was obviously longer live.

The history of it is that in those days, synthesizers were not very good at remembering anything and a lot of the material had to be restarted/redone, to get going to come anywhere close to the original, and it wasn't until later, that they were able to get a handle on using some parts recorded so they did not have to re-start inventing the wheel on one piece or another.

One other concern, and it is in the TD book ... the weather ... and in some cases, it was a real pain and caused issues because some things sounded different when cold than they did when it was warm outside. And the Poland concert? A total nightmare, and a miracle that it came off and its recording is as good as it is, but it tells you something about the folks that played.

I think that by the time they toured STRATOSFEAR in the USA, they had a much better control of things and were able to do some of the earlier stuff, like Phaedra ... which, my guess is/was that it was impossible to do correctly/rightly before that.

And, btw, this was the main reason why so many of the early days bootlegs were so valuable ... every thing was different and it sounded great, even if the bootleg was recorded from inside your pants! The band, later, made sure that many of these old concerts were released to prevent the continuation of the bootlegs, and they largely succeeded in doing that.

The book, by EF is ... almost exclusively, about their experience playing live ... and let me tell you ... in those early days, Christopher Franke did not have a good time getting things done, in time, so the show could start, and many times he was still fixing things and the show had already started ... a very scary bit for any band out there! Somehow, TD made it all work, and you and I can't tell the difference ... and if that is not the mark of very special people and players, I don't know what is ... go ahead and kiss a stupid cardboard star!

Lewian wrote: ... Other bands did this too, at least to some extent, in the end 60s and early 70s at least. Much of Can's live recordings sounds nowhere near their studio material. But in fact you're right that most would source most of their live material from the studio albums, if throwing in the odd improvisation or yet unreleased material (or sometimes strongly changing their original material).

On a different post