C/D: Bands performing albums in their entirety

Spiritualized, Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space. nuff said

would much rather see spiritualized play a set of new songs even half as good

I saw Husker Du on the Warehouse tour (at The Forum or Kilburn National or somewhere) and they played about W:S&S in the album order up to about halfway through, then threw in one off Zen Arcade (Standing By The Sea IIRC, or was it I'll Never Forget You?) with Greg Norton on vocals. I think they went back to the album order after that, but it's a long time ago!

Saw this tour in Pittsburgh, in the basement of the Syria Mosque. The non-Warehouse track was Flexible Flyer or Green Eyes. The show was pretty much a drag. I brought a friend who'd I recently converted with a mixtape- though the tape was all pre-Warehouse. I'd already gotten the album, so I could follow along, but he was totally lost. When the songs are pretty blurry to start with, when they've ditched playing fast, and you add in a basement PA it made for a long, mid-tempo slog. That wasn't an album that translated to live show pacing.

Funny, I saw that tour in Chicago and had the opposite reaction. It was a decent-sized theater (about 3000 seats), the sound was clear and punchy, and they just raged through the album (with "Everytime" and a slow, quiet "Flexible Flyer" in the middle). I loved the record, though.

I can't remember where I put my keys, but I remember that show like it happened yesterday. One of the best I've ever seen, by anyone.

Long ago, Chuck Eddy posted on ilx about going to his sister's wedding, where he finally met up again with a friend of the family from way, way back, who told him her son or nephew or etc. was in this band, so I guess he played this show.

SPOCK’S BEARD FEATURING NEAL MORSE
AND ALL MEMBERS PAST AND PRESENT
PERFORMANCE OF ‘SNOW’ IN ITS ENTIRETY
SET FOR RELEASE NOVEMBER 10
ON RADIANT/METAL BLADE RECORDS;

‘SNOW LIVE’ DVD PACKAGE SHOWCASES
FIRST-EVER PERFORMANCE OF CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED ALBUM
AT MORSEFEST 2016

September 12, 2017 -- At last year’s annual Morsefest in Nashville, the dream of every Spock’s Beard fan in attendance came true. The band’s original lineup, and current members, performed the critically acclaimed double-disc concept album, SNOW, in its entirety. It was a moment in time fans never thought they’d ever get a chance to see. SNOW was the last album that Neal Morse recorded with the band before quitting in 2002.

2 DVD/2CD Digipack, 3 LP Vinyl (available in four different colors), 2 Disc Blu-ray and as a 2 DVD/2 CD/2 Blu-ray pack complete with a 48-page Artbook, Radiant Records via Metal Blade Records/SONY in multiple formats: will be released November 10 on SNOW LIVENow it’s time for fans worldwide of Spock’s Beard and Neal Morse to experience that night for themselves. website. A trailer can be seen here. poster and postcards. Pre-orders for each edition are now available on Radiant Records’

The first 200 Artbook Bundles ordered will be signed by Neal Morse. Between September 12-14,orders over $80 will automatically receive an additional 15% off from Radiant Records. A free MP3 download of Journey’s "Separate Ways" performed by Spock's Beard and sung by Ted Leonard at the Morsefest Inner Circle jam will come with all pre-orders of any version of SNOW LIVE, only at Radiant Records.

Spock’s Beard features Neal Morse (lead vocals, piano, synths, electric and acoustic guitar), Alan Morse (electric guitars, vocals), Ted Leonard (electric and acoustic guitar, vocals), Jimmy Keegan (drums, percussion, vocals), Nick D'Virgilio (drums, percussion, vocals, acoustic guitars), Ryo Okumoto (keyboards--hammond organ, mellotron, jupiter 8, minimoog, vocoder), and Dave Meros (bass, vocals).

“It is difficult for me to know what to say about SNOW and Spock's Beard and this whole amazing event that happened in 2016,” says Neal Morse. “I guess what I would like to share from my perspective is that this is an album that meant a lot to many people. It touched the hearts and lives and had profound meaning to people all over the world and in a way, it was like the child that myself and the band bore and then put up for adoption. Since we never played it live and I quit the band right after the album was finished, we never got to experience what it meant to others. We never got to see how it lived out in the world. Until now. I think we always knew that we were going to get together and play it at some point. It just needed to happen. But, as you can imagine, there was a lot of pain associated with this album. So, while Nick (D'Virgilio) had brought it up several times over the years, there was always so much going on in our lives that we put it off and said we were too busy. It just never felt like the right time. Or that's the way it seemed anyway.”

Progreport.com called the Morsefest 2016, “...an event for the ages. For any Spock’s Beard and Neal Morse fan it was a wish come true but it also showed the power of this Prog community which continues to bring people from all corners of the world together to celebrate great music and make friends. If you were there, it will be a memory for a lifetime, if you weren’t, don’t miss the next one!”

Upon the initial release of SNOW, AllMusic.com praised: , a double-CD concept album, they go for broke...Spock’s Beard SNOW“Spock’s Beard are the quintessential American progressive rock band. Their music has consistently been brave, restless, and often visionary. On taken all of their strengths instrumentally, lyrically, and vocally, and concentrated them in this effort about an albino boy on a noble, if idiosyncratic, quest. While concept albums have been done on much loftier notions, they seem to falter under their own haveweight, or the light of actual history. Here, Neal and Alan Morse, and their bandmates, use a much more subjective fantasy story, and create a spiritual, physical, ideological, and emotional set of circumstances that follow their protagonist through 26 songs. Musically, SNOW is a wonder...Spock’s Beard has been pushing at their own boundaries for a while now, and with SNOW, they shatter them and enter into the very promise of what progressive rock is always supposed to deliver: discovering some heretofore unknown sonic territory via the individual and collective focus of creating through the applied effort of one's best musical efforts.”

As Neal Morse concludes, “Obviously, the stars aligned and many prayers were answered as we gathered to play the SNOW album in its entirety for the first time at Morsefest 2016. Some brilliant person had the idea to enlist the extreme talents of both Jimmy (Keegan) and Ted (Leonard) which brought a dazzle and musicality that is off the chart. Between that and Rich Mouser's astounding mix, not to mention Thad Kesten's team of amazing video people, this is one of the finest live concert packages of which I have ever been involved.”

www.nealmorse.com
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www.youtube.com/NealMorseMusic
www.radiantrecords.com


SNOW LIVE trailer (ok to post online):
http://youtu.be/iqE_wLW3dro

Was R.E.M. the first to do this with one of their classic albums? They played Murmur at the LEAF Benefit concert in 1989.

dud. either trying to sound like the record, which is boring, or if not, you're just doing a setlist that happens to be the same order as the album, but that's still kind of boring

Was R.E.M. the first to do this with one of their classic albums? They played Murmur at the LEAF Benefit concert in 1989.

― timellison

i don't know, how old does the record have to be before you're playing one of your "classic albums"? five years?

In '98, Cheap Trick did a bunch of three and four-night stands where they'd perform their first three albums (plus encores) and then, on the 4th night, the entire Budokan set list in its entirety.

how old does the record have to be

I don't know but it looks like the typical Green tour setlist contained 0-1 Murmur songs.

The R.E.M. story is great, though, because like I said, I don't think it was a thing that was really done at the time and the audience didn't know they were going to do it. It just became clear little by little after they came out and opened with "Radio Free Europe," then did "Pilgrimage," and then little by little it became clear to the audience. It was in Atlanta; Peter Buck said that people in the audience were howling.