CHUD.com Community › Forums › MUSIC › Music › Best stage intros / show elements
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

Best stage intros / show elements

post #1 of 17
5/21/10 at 11:08pm
Thread Starter 
Many bands start their performances by directly going into a song, but there are others who like to add intros and certain special fx or costumes or gimmicks. What were your favourite intros and fx for live shows?

AC/DC - had a great intro on their last tour with an animated train going over a planetary railroad. The giant plastic fat lady and huge Rock N Roll train also looked awesome

Rammstein - the fire show is just a blast but there's more than that: taking a boat onto the audienc or cooking a guy in a giant pot plus the Buck dich sodomy sequence

Marilyn Manson - saw four really great openings. "Inauguration of the Mechanical Christ" from the Live album with the tv cross, a string quartett version of "Antichrist Superstar" going into "This is the new Shit" with Manson coming down on a huge throne, the best was a giant angel figure with an instrumental of "Count to Six" descrending into "Irresponsible Hate Anthem". Guy always has great stuff: pope costumes, laser Freddy claws, deranged twins

Metallica - Ecstasy of Gold of course is an amazing instrumental intro, but having seen them four times, I think the explosions on "One" are becoming boring

U2 - nuff said. Best stuff probably was the complete event shows that were Zooropa or Pop Mart, nothing to single out

Maiden - any incarnation of Eddy coming on stage

Pink Floyd - well, The Wall? what I love most is the silver thing coming down during "Comfortably Numb" during PULSE

KoRn - when I saw them a bunch of years ago, they had a horror video as an intro. A kid was chased by something Evil Dead like into a cabin, pretty cool stuff. Also, the Giger mic is great.

Godsmack - well, it's not exactly that much of a show act, but the double drum solo duel is absolutely great, also: the drum duels Collins did with Chester Thompson

I think the most weird but charming moment was seeing Peter Gabriel riding his bike while singing.
Reply
post #2 of 17
5/22/10 at 1:12am
Rush:
1. Neil's drum solo is always fantastic.
2. During the tour for VAPOR TRAILS, Alex got a little bit...wierd during the end of 'La Villa Strangiato'. On every stop on the tour, he'd ad-lib something for a couple of minutes into the microphone. During our tour in Minneapolis, he ad-libbed something about how the band was going in a new direction: Lebanese Jazz. It was pretty damned funny. If you see the 'Rush in Rio' dvd, you get to see what he did there.

Rush always has pretty good animation sequences/laser shows going, too. GREAT live act.
Reply
post #3 of 17
5/22/10 at 1:26am
Judas, I gotta get Rush in Rio soon. Heard great things about the DVD.
Reply
post #4 of 17
5/22/10 at 7:26pm
YOU WANTED THE BEST! YOU GOT THE BEST! THE HOTTEST BAND IN THE WORLD: KISS!!!
Reply
post #5 of 17
5/23/10 at 1:49pm
What I wouldn't give to have seen Parliament/Funkadelic during the 2nd part of the seventies: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCgthG5sL6M

Why isn't anyone doing shit like this anymore (& don't start on Lady Gaga)? It must be that awesomeness has gone out of style.
Reply
post #6 of 17
5/23/10 at 1:56pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Myers View Post
Godsmack - well, it's not exactly that much of a show act, but the double drum solo duel is absolutely great, also: the drum duels Collins did with Chester Thompson
Thank you for backing me up on this. I've been trying to convince people for years that band is amazing live.

I don't think this is every show, but the With Teeth tour where I saw Nine Inch Nails, they had a screen come down with images from nature during Eraser, Reptile, and Beside You In Time. The big climax in Beside You in Time, Trent smashed his mic stand into the screen, somehow creating the illusion that the screen shatters. It was a hell of an effect.
Reply
post #7 of 17
5/23/10 at 2:57pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Justin Clark View Post
I don't think this is every show, but the With Teeth tour where I saw Nine Inch Nails, they had a screen come down with images from nature during Eraser, Reptile, and Beside You In Time. The big climax in Beside You in Time, Trent smashed his mic stand into the screen, somehow creating the illusion that the screen shatters. It was a hell of an effect.
I don't think that happened at the show I was at, but that same screen slowly "filled with blood" over the course of a song until Trent was just a silhouette in front of the red, which was pretty awesome.
Reply
post #8 of 17
5/23/10 at 6:23pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chaz View Post
YOU WANTED THE BEST! YOU GOT THE BEST! THE HOTTEST BAND IN THE WORLD: KISS!!!
Yeah, between Gene's "God of Thunder" blood spitting sky high bass solo, and Ace shooting rockets out of his guitar, then the guitar flying up to the top of the stadium and exploding, KISS is built for this kind of thing. KISS, Genesis, and Alice Cooper kind of made all of the modern theatrical stuff possible.

On a fun light note, I love the confetti cannon that explodes when They Might Be Giants plays "James K. Polk".
Reply
post #9 of 17
5/25/10 at 8:10am
On a lo-fi note, I like the Flaming Lips show.. constant confetti cannons, surfing the crowd in a translucent plastic ball, choir of aliens vs santas? Yes please.

And somewhat related: weirdest stage gimmick I've seen lately remains Beck and a whole concert played out with PUPPETS.
Reply
post #10 of 17
5/25/10 at 10:38am
What alternate universe am I living in where people are defending Godsmack on CHUD?
Reply
post #11 of 17
5/25/10 at 11:33am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kevin Macken View Post
What alternate universe am I living in where people are defending Godsmack on CHUD?
Oh shit, we're all dead, aren't we? I guess it's off to the non-specific church with the glowing white light and sappy reunions with our "constants" for the lot of us!
Reply
post #12 of 17
5/25/10 at 12:55pm
Don't know how people feel about the Flaming Lips, but Wayne landing on stage in a giant UFO and then rolling out on top of the crowd in a giant inflatable hamster ball was definitely the craziest intro to a concert I've ever seen.
Reply
post #13 of 17
5/28/10 at 9:47am
The two best show openings I saw were at Big Day Outs. One was The Jesus Lizard on one of the main stages, when David Yow started off at the back of the stage as the band kicked in, and has he sang the first verse he walked towards the front of the stage and without even a hint of hesitation just kept walking out onto the heads and hands of the crowd, and continued singing while they mandandled him around in a mad crowd surf for a minute or so. It was so hilarious the way he walked out and didn't flinch I still see it in my minds eye to this day.

The other was at the BDO when Rage Against The Machine played. They were at the peak of their powers and had the entire stadium jumping and singing along. Whichever band followed them was going to have the mother of all tasks trying to come on after that massive display of power riffs and hold their own. Then Shihad comes on and kicks into You Again, and it was like Rage who? They didn't only hold their own, they blew Rage off the stage.
Reply
post #14 of 17
6/8/10 at 11:10pm
Rob Zombie's got tons of awesome bits. The giant dancing robot in "More Human Than Human", the "Munsters" clip preceding "Dragula", the "Sawdust in the Blood" opening music. Heck, one time his opening music was the theme from "Halloween". As the film had yet to be released, it was really exciting and had me mega-amped for his no-doubt fantastic remake. Oy.

Mudvayne, back when they wore greasepaint and fake blood, opened their set to "Thus Spake Zarathustra", which was suitably epic.

Ozzy usually opens with a series of hilarious skit vids, followed by "Carmina Burana", which is killer.

Disturbed occasionally have cool intros, with singer David Draiman busting out of a crate/electric chair or being wheeled out ala Hannibal Lechter complete with straight-jacket and mask.

Slipknot: Joey's drum solo always kills.

Also, add me to the list of Godsmack concert fans. They're always incredible live.
Reply
post #15 of 17
6/8/10 at 11:28pm
Stop Making Sense. Pasted because I'm lazy!

Quote:
Lead singer David Byrne walks on to a bare stage (seen from the feet only initially) with a portable cassette tape player and an acoustic guitar. He introduces "Psycho Killer" by saying he wants to play a cassette tape, presumably from the boom box. In reality, the tick-tock drum machine was a Roland TR-808 played from the mixing board.

With each successive song, Byrne is cumulatively joined onstage by each core member of the band: first by Tina Weymouth for "Heaven" (with Lynn Mabry providing harmony vocals from backstage), second by Chris Frantz for "Thank You for Sending Me an Angel", and third by Jerry Harrison for "Found a Job". Performance equipment is gradually wheeled out and wired up to the bare stage between and throughout the performances, as Talking Heads continue to be augmented by several additional musicians...
Reply
post #16 of 17
6/8/10 at 11:35pm
Any concert that includes a Wall of Death is a good time.
Reply
post #17 of 17
6/8/10 at 11:38pm
On a much smaller note, when The Wrens play "Boys You Won't", the drummer, Jerry, jumps off stage, grabs four or five people from the audience, brings them up, and hands them auxiliary percussion instruments to jam out with the song. It's a fun touch to one of the best live bands I've ever seen.
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: Music
CHUD.com Community › Forums › MUSIC › Music › Best stage intros / show elements