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Good morning dear Psychonauts!
I hope to find you healthy and safe, during this awful period.
I like to meet your ideas about the project of this Topic: I am mad about this album but it is impossible that our dear band play it live.
Why? What do you think?
Did anyone listen live to concerts with some music from DDU or know if there is live concert where is possible to listen to?
Please Bent and Snah, do some music in next concerts!
Your friend from Italy.
Andrea.
It's one of my favourite albums as well.
I saw them play it live at the Opera in Oslo back then with full orchestra.
It was really cool, just the crystal clearness of the vocals were a little downer since they didn't sang soooo very well. But old topic, discussed million times.
The experience in general was grand and worth the trip for sure!
I had a Unicorn overdose back then, saw 7 or 8 shows on that tour, at least 6 too many. Hope they'll not play it again! :lol:
To repeat the history: Since it was a very focused project for a certain point in time and not or rather more than another additional record, I'm not surprised they haven't played those songs live since then. For one thing there's the orchestration, which means the songs would have to be rearranged for a rock outfit. Then they did just that for one TDDU themed tour only with the help of Stale Storlokken. All these criteria deny the possibility and maybe even the necessity to dig out this music for concerts outside of that framework.
But of course I'd looooove to hear Mutiny or Through The Veil once again live. They should be doable I'd say… especially with a fourth bandmember helping out. Time will tell.
one of my top 5 ever albums btw. Just listened to it a few days ago, and I'm still in awe of its perfection. "Rock meets classic" done as it should be done. It's all organic, interwoven, synergetic. Though it jumps from rock to avantgarde to jazz, it doesn't feel like jumping or being messy at all. Every second makes perfect sense. It's over the top but never feels like too much. How do you do that? What amount of taste, sensibility and brainpower is mandatory for something like this? Forget Sgt Pepper and Tommy and even The Wall. This album belongs onto the vessel we send to outer space to represent human potential.
I consider DDU as a special kind of Motorpsychedelic joke, a kind of comic book "Eric the viking" delivered rock-opera-wise by a version of toolified Crimson, supported by "Piece-of Mind"-derived posters, the fake "Iron-Butterfly"-programme, a cheap punk-version/fake Roger Dean-stage art and Storlokken with a white Wakeman cape, occasionally impersonating Jon Lord during the encores. Probably just to avoid any possible comparison to the classic rock opera stuff mentioned above beforehand. So please don't – comparing the Unicorn to Tommy or The Wall is just ridiculous.
Musically lacking a little lightness but still a good record, it suffered a lot live – the density of musical motives, the onslaught of riffing and loudness, sometimes hardly distinguishable in unfittingly small and bad sounding surroundings without any chance for a relaxing breather between songs made the whole thing quite hard to endure. Probably the still not released Oslo Opera version with orchestra will teach me better…
Anyway – I'd love to hear Through The Veil live again, as well as one or two compositions from "Folk Flest" – the Lykkepilgrim riff comes to my mind now…
I agree there seems to be a sort of tongue-in-cheek attitude around the thing. But its execution is dead serious with a huge perfectionist working attitude. We don't know what really went through their minds. To say it was just a joke… hmmm I don't think they would agree.
Why is it ridiculous to compare it to other concept albums? TDDU is one of them. Which one who ever prefers or how any of them differs from another one doesn't matter in that regard. It's a "genre" and I wanted to point out that I find TDDU way better than those famous and celebrated and landmarkey and whatnot ones, and I DO like and respect those.
Rather than comparing it to, how about comparing it with?
"To compare to is to point out or imply resemblances between objects regarded as essentially of a different order; to compare with is mainly to point out differences between objects regarded as essentially of the same order."
Sorry – just being a smartass about a grammatical point I always get wrong.
@Punj Lizard: Could you name your source of that definition? I've never heard that before. You as a native English speaker, could you guess how many people get that wrong or apply it correctly in everyday speech?
Ah, DDU in the Opera. Johnny Heartfield’s notes on the cheap stage props and «costumes» reminds me what a shame it was they didn’t take the Spinal Tap potential to the max by having a miniature model ship lowered onto the stage. That alone would have made the show worthy of a DVD release in my book.
@Great King Rat – I knew about this distinction but I personally never apply it because I always forget about it. I imagine the majority of native English speakers (I am one) have no idea about it. Anyway, that source came from a quick Google search "compare to vs compare with" which threw up this link:
As I said, I was just being a smartass because of the discussion of whether comparisons should be made or not. It was meant in jest (hence the winking smiley). I had no intention to make anybody look bad, or myself look good. The standard of English on display on the forum is outstanding in my humble opinion. And English people like myself should be the last to point fingers, given most of us speak/read/write only one language (and that generally poorly).
Thanks, Punj. I didn't think it was rude to mention that. I am just interested in those things. And I agree, the English of the forum members is exceptionally good.
@ supernaut: You're right – the execution is dead serious. That's probably why they try to balance it with all the tongue in cheek stuff. It's exactly that attitude that I love in Motorpsycho.
@ PL: And that is it what makes the Unicorn so different from the overall pompous concept album stuff mentioned – so I used the preposition "to" quite correctly in my sentence above, not being smartassed by any other smartass, although of course completely unaware of any special significance, not being a native English speaker/writer ,-)
Btw: I do not consider the Unicorn as a rock opera like "The Wall", "Tommy" or "Quadrophenia" – just a great concept album. The difference is in the use of musical themes and leitmotifs, the use of different characters singing the songs etc. Therefore I do not sniff too much pretential artistry in our beloved single-horned double vinyl. I might be wrong, of course.
Then the Unicorn is just another excellent concept album by a rather unknown cult band almost without any artistic or whatsoever relevance for most of the people. This may hurt the common Motorpsychedelic believer (It sure hurts me), but that's the way it is with these latter-day heroes of Rock Music in a world of consumer-friendly programmed acoustic slime. Whereas "The Wall" or "Tommy" probably represented their respective eras like no other musical product of the times, oozing Zeitgeist from every inch of double vinyl. It is just that point that ridicules any comparison for me.
I hasten to add that my Psychonautic self sees Motorpsycho as the mirror image of the Beatles themselves! MP reunite and combine all those musical threads going out from the Liverpool Big Bang of Four – Pop, Psychedelia, (Heavy) Rock, Folk Rock, and whatever discipline you name. Rock Music ends with Motorpsycho! Beyond there is nothing (or sea-monsters, if you remain in the Unicorn mythology).
Having let my smartass hang out way too long, I quickly pull up my pants and leave the arena…
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