Neglected Live Material
Are there any musical artists whose material you feel has been neglected during live shows?
For me a few bands come to mind such as Kansas and Iron Maiden. Kansas released a new album in 2016 and do you think they played much off of it? No! Instead they toured playing all of their classic Leftoveture album throwing in about 3 or 4 songs from the new album. Sure the band played a lot of rarely played songs such as Chasing Shadows, Reason to Be, Lamplight Symphony and that’s great. However, there are only two original members left in the band with five of them joining the band during the late 80’s and beyond. You’d think the these members would be chomping at the bit to play material which they had a hand in recording, arranging and or writing. Bassist Bill Greer joined with the release of Power and has been in the band pretty much ever since yet you rarely hear anything from the albums he recorded. Violinist David Ragsdale recorded and co-wrote songs off of Freaks of Nature. With 4 out of the seven current members having recorded this album, you’d think it would be a prime candidate to be played live. But I guess not for the band.
Iron Maiden has done a great job of doing alternate tours. One tour of newer material from a current album, and than a tour of older material. However, very little of their 90’s material gets played which means that guitarist Janice Geers gets the short end of the stick when it comes to playing material which he recorded. I’d love to see a tour of 90’s material from No Prayer for the Dying through to Virtual XI. It may not be the most popular era of the band, but it would sure shake things up a bit.
During the Clockwork Angels tour with Rush, they shook things up by playing a large selection of their 80’s sythn era material. The songs sounded fresh and it was great to hear alternative songs as opposed to the material which they had been playing on endless rotation on previous tours.
Marillion have proved that playing albums which have NOT necessarily been fan favorites, if played well can breath life into these neglected albums and songs.