Jump to content

Holy Cow- The Beatles Revisited at Cirque Du Soleil


steveg

Recommended Posts

  • Members

I took an unplanned trip to Vegas over the weekend to meet up with my siblings. We waited "standby" to get into the Beatles Love show and at the last minute got pretty much the best seats in the house.

 

Holy Cow!!

 

Hearing the remixes in surround type sound and how the show was basically a medley of great songs, isolated tracks and re-mixes was awesome.

 

It stimulated the same excitement as hearing this music originally in stereo. My feelings about the Beatles have gone kind of flat, probably through familiarity and the age of the material.

 

Now hearing it revitalized in a modern context, you realize fully how great the were- highly recommended.

 

By the way, a lot of very interesting production approaches were done in these remixes like isolating the string section, or hearing familiar songs with different parts emphasized or sent into the surround environment. For example the mix of "Day in the life" was at first mostly what seemed to be a scratch acoustic guitar track and just strings. You hear the familiar song and performance with a twist to the parts and the mix and it really hits you in a whole new way! They played isolated vocal parts backwards and cut and paste things onto each other. Also the fidelity was incredible, I have never heard this music on a truly world class, full range system and songs like Taxman, for example, totally rocked, more than I knew they could!!

 

Overall, it was great and a wonderful way to re-stimulate interest in this great music....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

"Magic Alex"...LOL. Is that guy still living? Maybe this time around somebody was just stoned enough-- and rich enough-- to buy his ideas. :lol:

 

"The Sixties were a great time for trying things." Sir Paul has said recently. ;)

 

Ever stop to realize that a teen today seeing a a show of Beatles music would be like a 1970's teen being dragged to a Glenn Miller show? :eek: "Eh, shunny, now THEM'SH were the Good-Ol'-DAYZH!"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

"Magic Alex"...LOL. Is that guy still living?

Ever stop to realize that a teen today seeing a a show of Beatles music would be like a 1970's teen being dragged to a Glenn Miller show?
:eek:
"Eh, shunny, now THEM'SH were the Good-Ol'-DAYZH!"

 

This is chronologically true, but sumthin happened, and the Bealtes and Doors and Pink Floyd remain solidly among the favorite bands of youth--not dominant, but ubiquitous still, and a hell of more visible than Tommy Dorsey was in my youth. I think it has nothing to do with organic relevance, per se, but more with the infantile unwillingness of 60s generation to relinquish the reigns of hip and cool. And as they moved out of youth and into their era of worldly power, as generations do, the people of '60s have done everything possible to continue the unabated glorification and materialization of the '60s...

 

As Tom Frank has observed, the 60s was also--even primarily--a revolutionary time in the development of marketing. So the marketing tool kit was in place, alongside the cultural tool kit, to ensure that a generation of peter pans never grows old and dies...huh? Or at least never let their myth of rebellion and cultural reinvention flag from public consciousness. Hell, the music of the '60s today is CURRICULUM...

 

Erm, the last time I heard the name Magic Alex come up in a music forum, somebody suggested that he has gone on to becomce the kingpin of the Greek heroin trade. I can't vouch for the source.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

 

This is chronologically true, but sumthin happened, and the Bealtes and Doors and Pink Floyd remain solidly among the favorite bands of youth--not dominant, but ubiquitous still, and a hell of more visible than Tommy Dorsey was in my youth. I think it has nothing to do with organic relevance, per se, but more with the infantile unwillingness of 60s generation to relinquish the reigns of hip and cool. And as they moved out of youth and into their era of worldly power, as generations do, the people of '60s have done everything possible to continue the unabated glorification and materialization of the '60s...


As Tom Frank has observed, the 60s was also--even primarily--a revolutionary time in the development of marketing. So the marketing tool kit was in place, alongside the cultural tool kit, to ensure that a generation of peter pans never grows old and dies...huh? Or at least never let their myth of rebellion and cultural reinvention flag from public consciousness. Hell, the music of the '60s today is CURRICULUM...

 

 

 

Perfectly astute summation.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

 

This is chronologically true, but sumthin happened, and the Bealtes and Doors and Pink Floyd remain solidly among the favorite bands of youth--not dominant, but ubiquitous still, and a hell of more visible than Tommy Dorsey was in my youth. I think it has nothing to do with organic relevance, per se, but more with
the infantile unwillingness of 60s generation to relinquish the reigns of hip and cool
. And as they moved out of youth and into their era of worldly power, as generations do, the people of '60s have done everything possible to continue the unabated glorification and materialization of the '60s...


As Tom Frank has observed, the 60s was also--even primarily--a revolutionary time in the development of marketing. So the marketing tool kit was in place, alongside the cultural tool kit, to ensure that a generation of peter pans never grows old and dies...huh? Or at least never let their myth of rebellion and cultural reinvention flag from public consciousness. Hell, the music of the '60s today is CURRICULUM...


Erm, the last time I heard the name Magic Alex come up in a music forum, somebody suggested that he has gone on to becomce the kingpin of the Greek heroin trade. I can't vouch for the source.

 

[emphasis added]

 

There may well be some truth to the notion that some of us are unwilling to "relinquish" our hipness -- but you don't maintain hipness by sitting around listening to music you were sick of 30 years ago.

 

And, for that matter... I've always thought it was rather pathetic how some of the "younger folks" wouldn't let go of the music I'd gotten sick to death in the 60s and 70s...

 

Of course, I can't speak for everyone in my generation -- but I can guarantee you, when I go to my contemporaries' houses, we do not sit around and play Beatles or Rolling Stones (and for SURE we don't play the "new" stuff from old faves like the Stones... eeyikes.)

 

Mind you, it might be anything from Duke Ellington's workouts in the 20's to the latest Japanese girl bands (not my thing, mind you, but I have this one friend) or Iron and Wine but we definitely are not sitting around listening to stuff most of us were sick of by the time we were half out of college.

 

And we're definitely not sitting around listening to Maroon 5 and Nickleback.

 

 

I will say that in recent years when I'm looking for cool production techniques or inspiration I will go back and listen to 60s pop -- including stuff I wouldn't have been caught dead listening to then.

 

Why?

 

Because back then people strove to be different and innovative -- instead of trying to sound like everyone else.

 

In my more or less adult life there've been 3 major periods of creativity and innovation that were important to me: the 60s, from the folk "revival" through the early stages of the progressive rock era at the end of the decade but before the pretentious neo-classicists had drained it of life and energy; the mid-late 70s and very early 80s, the punk/new music/early electronica scene; and the mid-late 90s when some of the more interesting strains of the 80s like dub and electronica hybridized with pop and hip hop.

 

 

But, yeah, sure, every now and then I mix a little Jimi Hendrix in with my Louis Armstrong, Louvin Brothers, Portishead, and Blackalicious. I like my oldies pretty scrambled... and that guy Jimi really could play guitar.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...