BRING BACK A FLOCK OF SEAGULLS!

I was LUCKY enough to catch the Tour at the Wolf Trap outside of Washington D.C.

Let me be completely honest with you all:

A FLOCK OF SEAGULLS were, BY FAR, the BEST band at the gig.

They also were the ONLY REAL BAND!

All the other acts were OK.

ABC, thanks to Martin, were stellar.

But, the TRUTH IS: ONLY A Flock Of Seagulls played LIVE!

All the other acts used back tracking, which is pre-recorded music.


I have seen almost every line up AFOS has had since Mike started the band.

I LOVED all the others, but this is the BEST line up AFOS has ever had.

Besides Mike, Joe Rodriguez is the longest tenured member in the bands history. He is a fantastic guitarist, and the best the band has ever had. And I am a fan of Reno and Ed...but Joe is simply superior, and truly amazing. An innovator who is one of best guitarists I've ever heard live! A couple of years ago, they happened to be blessed to acquire the services of drummer Mike Brahm, and bassist Pando.

I happened upon the second show this lineup ever did in NYC.

I was BLOWN AWAY! These guys are incredible. Mike Brahm is one of the best drummers I ever have heard live , and that includes Neal Pert. Pando is also probably the best bassist the band has ever had, which says a lot because Frank Maudsley is a great artist.

Regeneration 2009 would be WISE to ask AFOS to join them next year.

IF they do, and the band is able, I suggest a MUCH LONGER set given to the band.

People go to concerts to hear LIVE music, not canned noise. We can buy CD's for that effect.

It was OBVIOUS that A Flock Of Seagulls were easily the best band at Wolf Trap.

Live music blows away recorded music, and with this being the tightest and most talented incarnation EVER on AFOS = IT IS A NO BRAINER!

BRING THEM BACK!



I also suggest to all people, who love good music, to catch A Flock Of Seagulls live at any opportunity as they tour the world. Their new material is fantastic! "Little White Bird" is one of the best songs the band has EVER done!



Mike Score is a BRILLIANT artist, and you should make every effort to go see the band.



Get your local venues to make EVERY effort to book them!

AFOS_RULES wrote:But, the TRUTH IS: ONLY A Flock Of Seagulls played LIVE!

All the other acts used back tracking, which is pre-recorded music.

Actually having been backstage and out at the soundboard for about 8 of the shows I can tell you this is totally untrue for Belinda, ABC and Naked Eyes. Regarding THL I'm not sure if anything was programmed in the laptop that was onstage but I know the majority of the music they played came from the players and instruments on stage. That's a totally ridiculous claim!

"ONLY REAL BAND!"


are you kidding ? if real band you mean only 1 original member left I thought they were the waek link on last years tour , that guitar player was not even playing the parts right ...
Anf as mentioned belindas band was live as were naked eyes & they were not amazing , Human league are an electronic band , always have been , they are based off keyboards & sequencers , flock of seagull use a lot of the same stuff .

The Mike Score band is barely passable for a die hard AFOS fan, which I am. I saw the all original version a few years past and it blew away the Mike Score/Joe Rodrigus version. I know Mike would not agree but its true. Current AFOS are not that great and everyone who sees numerous bands knows this. Give it a rest, I am starting to think you are with the band or something? To compare current AFOS to ABC (even with only Martin, a much better band), Human League, or Belinda is a total Joke!!

Just wait until the next state fair and they will be there, go away - JPW

Let’s put an end to this recorded music libel. THL do not use recorded music period. Some of the synths are set to play automatically on some tracks, this is needed when when there are more sound layers needed than the musicians can cope with, or it is a sound that cannot be generated on stage. This is called sequencing and is still classed as live. as the music is being generated on stage not played back from a recording. Let me elaborate further:

The Human League ‘per se’ is only Susan Sulley, Philip Oakey, and Joanne Catherall (the vocalists). The other four people on stage are their dedicated live band.
Specifically Neil Sutton is principal keyboards and has two flat keyboard decks on stage, Nic Burke is secondary/solo keyboards (Flat and Keytar) and electric guitar. Philip Oakey also plays incidental keyboards on some of the simpler tracks (as he is not that skilled a player). All electronic percussion is handled by Rob Barton.

The guy with the laptop (actually he has two for redundancy) is Dave Beevers THL's own studio engineer. Why have a studio engineer on stage? Because THL’s stage setup is essentially a mobile live studio. The laptop is a state of the art sequencing and engineering control system. The 2 big cabinets with the flashing lights are not for decoration, each one contains 8 rack mounted multi-channel synthesisers and a sequencer. All 16 are live at any one time, but are arranged into Group A and Group B for redundancy. The band can afford to fry an entire group and still stay on stage! The principal track layers are generated by the musicians on their instruments via Beever’s control system. Neil Sutton can handle track two layers at once and if Nick is on keyboards at the time then that is a third layer which is usually enough Synth to faithfully reproduce a song live, some of the more complicated tracks need some additional layers such a the lightning strikes on “life on your own” or the ‘cat’ sound on “love action” these are sequenced in as the band have run out of musicians, this means that the layer is being generated automatically by the synth under control of Beevers sequencing system, but this is still live being generated live and can be altered for tempo and mix as the track progresses, sequenced music can be altered in real time as it is generated recorded playback cannot.
The entire feed is then sent to the house engineers for them to mix for the house sound system. Expert ears will notice that the live versions sound nothing like the album versions which are much more complicated.

The vocals are the easy bit.

I believe THL’s entire live set up is insured for over half a million dollars.
Anyone who has seen THL live regularly will tell you, often one of the synths breaks down and you noticeably lose some layers to which Philip often jokes about them being old and creeky. Philip can often forget his lyrics, (or even fall off stage) so which Beevers has to alter the track to mark time, catch up or slow down on the go. or the musicians have to fill with instrumental work

The musician’s sound check and rehearse for about 3-4 hours the day of a gig with the vocalists only turning up for the last hour.
The musicians all get paid the same as Philip, Susan and Joanne for each gig, as they earn their money.