fire in cairo (tempo changes in live performances)

Started by cooky, June 05, 2008, 17:39:45

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cooky

been listening to old live recordings of the song and the pace of the old school encore has slowed down this year,81 and earliar so much faster i was lucky enough to get on board with the cure in the punk days ,and still love them to the present day

wondering if anybody feels the same about the old songs ?(we all slow down as we get older tho lol)

the older you get the more foolish and wiser you get at the same time as said on mood swings  :smth020

grinding halt,forest,do the hansa we used to pogo dance to these  :smth023

so all the oldies justed wondering what you think

robert smith and simon gallup and all the other members of the band that have come and gone are all legends   

japanesebaby

yes it's been noticed for sure. 'jumping..', 'primary', 'fire in cairo'... they are old and slow these days. ;) the differences in tempo are really huge!
in my opinion 'fire in cairo' seems to suffer the most... i don't see anything wrong in moving on and changing things as time goes by (tempos too), but sometimes i do miss it that they don't do really fast numbers anymore.
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine

Bloodflower

Honestly, I think performances of FiC from the early eighties are too fast. The way Robert used to sing it at that speed.... I don't know. And Other Voices definitely works as a slower song. It sounded pretty good last week. ;)
Another Curefan for The Dark Christmas album.

max

I think 10:15 saturday night and killing an arab
are played faster live than on the cd...

mint car

Fire In Cairo from Werchter Fest. 1981 is excellent. I love this one  :smth020
[i]...sleep sweet child the moon will change your mind...[/i]

KingOfSomeIsland

I actually think Primary sounds better slowed down. The alternate take on the Deluxe Edition of Faith actually had it played much slower. And all the live versions ive heard are slower than the studio take.

maluflower

Quote from: mint car on June 05, 2008, 22:13:14
Fire In Cairo from Werchter Fest. 1981 is excellent. I love this one  :smth020

I think this is my favorite as well.  :-D
A little bit faster than the studio version, but it definitely works!
The older songs do sound better at a faster tempo me thinks, even though it does sound as if they've sped up Killing an Arab for this tour... I think that one works better at the regular tempo.


japanesebaby

Quote from: KingOfSomeIsland on June 06, 2008, 03:58:55
I actually think Primary sounds better slowed down.

actually i was only talking about tempo of the live versions and different era performances compared to each other, not compared to the studio version. the studio version is fast.

anyway, concerning 'primary' here's a little composite test version i just made:

primary 1981-1985-1989-1996-2008

just note how all the previous performances tend to stick to pretty similar tempo. compared to that the change of speed lately IS quite huge. :!:


the sources used are:

0'00 - 0'44:  1981-07-27 los angeles (JC version)
0'44 - 1'17:  1985-12-04 offenbach (AO)  **)
1'17 - 1'58:  1989-07-24 london (DJ)  **)
1'58 - 2'32:  1996-10-14 orleans (GP)
2'32 - 3'30:  2008-03-12 paris (MH)

**) the circulating copies run in the wrong speed. some samples here have been speed-corrected to match the correct pitch, speed correction made based on the spectral analysis so it's as reliable as it can be.





Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine

japanesebaby

here's another one, '10:15 saturday night' from amsterdam '79 compared to a couple of later performances (1982 > 2008):

10:15 saturday night 1979 vs. 1982-2008

by the way they didn't play it a lot in 1992 and that performance included here (london 1992-11-27) must be the sloppiest that i came across(!). i wonder if they had even rehearsed it back then(?).

(being sliced like this inbetween all these slower performances the 1979 version starts to sound almost hysterical at times. :-P)

Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine

Freakshow

I have to admit that I really like the way they are playing the old songs nowadays - in my opinion they have improved them a lot. It has nothing to do with getting older and slower!!! It is the music which just works out better if played in a way that Robert really can sing it. When you do it to fast there's no chance of singing properly and that would be a waste of his beautiful voice.
Show me how you do that trick...

japanesebaby

by the way, after listening to the tempo comparisons in 'primary' (the link i posted above)  and how they slowed it down lately: i was just reminded that after all 'primary' used to be a slow song in the very beginning. just listen to 'cold colors' on the 'faith' deluxe edition.
just an observation.
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine