Is Brandon just set list fatigued?
Posted Sep 2, 2023, 11:03 AM UTC
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Considering in Edinburgh we didn't get Imploding at all and Mr. B as the opener then yes, I'd say he probably is. He did seem to relish singing Bling and Run for Cover and of course The Whole of the Moon gave him all the feels. I know he's not down a coal mine or cleaning offices for 12 hours a day but singing the same songs for 20 years must be totally exhausting on long tours.
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We did get Imploding, with Dying Breed and Caution back to back
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Sorry i meant to say we didnt get the song MOSW as the opener
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As that's what they've been opening with all tour
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This year they have a few different openers. They’ve opened with: MOSW, Sam’s town, Human and Mr. Brightside.
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When they came out to Mr Brightside I was floored. I liked that it was switched up. And I nearly died when they played Bling, that song really speaks to a specific time in my life and I wasn’t expecting it.
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Me too. When they said: ‘We’re ready for Bling’. I just couldn’t believe it! I love that song so much and it’s great live! I was really happy that they’ve made a kinda different setlist for Edinburgh. And the whole of the moon was such a treat.
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forever grateful I got to see them do whole of the moon 😭🫶
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Not wanting to make Hot Fuss in his 40s doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to sing Hot Fuss at his concerts. Look at any set list of a band or musician that are past their prime, 95% of it is old hit songs. The Foo Fighters play for 3 hrs and most of it is still their old work.
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Yah, Brandon is a showman and it’s all about putting on a good show. He knows he could get by without doing Mr Brightside but it would turn off a good portion of the fans that are there to hear it. Pearl Jam will always play Evenflow and Elderly Woman eventhough they have about 50 other great songs they could play
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I’ve been to the only concert ever without Mr Brightside and people were so pissed, they still talked about it at the next Amsterdam concert. But, it was sold out anyway so who cares. It didn’t have real impact
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Do you know why they didn't play it?
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Afterwards they say he was sick and i believe they even cancelled/postponed the show after. I genuinely believe he was pissed at this one dude who kept asking for mr brightside from the start of the concert, which Brandon called out and said “i can do it right now and then you can go home” or something. Then they finished the concert without encore, or saying anything. The sick statement came way later. We didn’t get a golden suit, either lol
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Foo’s always have two songs per album that show they are not a legacy act, they have older songs that have grown in reverence like Times Like These that keep the older songs going. the Killers had a dip but after imploding the mirage have gained a whole new audience. Maybe Brandon wants to capitalise on the creative upswing for mk2
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I remember when they used to do Walk and Wheels back to back. Terrible songs, also Congregation ain't great either.
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Um. The Foos are in their 50s so they are not comparable to the Killers in that regard. Talking about the Setlist, well they do play greatest hits but they are a rare case where they have hits out of each one of their albums and they still play new songs. They are not a legacy act by any means.
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Lol The foos are past their prime as are the Killers. As I said the 90% majority of the Foo set list is their greatest hits, Dave can go 3 hours and squeeze in a random deep cut because he doesn’t have the same voice as everyone else and never cared if he damaged it. Their music suits the screaming vs singing anyway.
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Not true at all. You can read it here: https://www.kshe95.com/real-rock-news/foo-fighters-hit-new-billboard-chart-milestone-with-under-you/
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Alternative airplay lol. You proved my point.
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WW and BB are my favourite albums. I wonder if it’s because I’ve seen them play the other stuff a lot (except for PM, which seems to get one track per gig) and it’s made me think of the songs from those two albums as almost like deep cuts?
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Wow WW and BB their two worst albums, with redeeming qualities at points..
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People always say that, but they’re not to me.
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They need a whole change up - this has been almost the same for how long now ? Not that I don’t love every minute - but I love them mixing it up - need new visuals- different “speeches “ I know Brandon is so type A and likes to have a script and moves planned out - but I also want more spontaneity.
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and seeing as that script caused a whole incident right before that interview, I can totally see that...
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To be fair I’m actually surprised to see that Pressure Machine songs have been played quite so much. Assuming 5 Hot Fuss songs a set which is normally the average, I’m guessing they’ve played around 100 shows this tour ands an average of 1 PM song per show is more than I would have expected.
I’m more surprised by the lack of Wonderful Wonderful, though I don’t think they have played anything other than RFC and The Man (excluding the Rut segue)?
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Technically they do a part of 'Rut' in almost every show, don't they? But I guess that doesn't count...
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I saw them on tour in the UK in 2017 - they played Run for Cover, The Man, Tyson Vs Douglas, Rut, and Out of My Mind at our show. I think they also played Wonderful Wonderful and The Calling at the other UK shows.
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Can only speak to the one show in my city I went too, but I have seen they consistently played "Pressure Machine" itself on our and snuck in a few Quiet Town here and there
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So many Killers songs are big loud and bombastic, playing the softer Pressure Machine songs in between makes sense because it gives the set list more variation. You appreciate the loud songs more because you've had a quiet song break.
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Most of it is "Runaway Horses" which says it was played 49 times during the tour. It was played as a quiet break in the middle of the setlist usually.
Then "Cody" has 19, "In the Car Outside" got 16, and the self-titled got 12.
Those 4 songs together make up 96 out of the 116 plays.
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Anyone any idea why ITM title track, When the Dreams Run Dry and Lightning Fields weren’t played on the ITM tour?
They don’t seem to be particularly difficult to play or anything from my understanding.
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WTDRD sounds like it takes a lot of vocal power. When he sang the verse live during the tour, he said it was too high.
Lightning Fields would only work if Dave sang the KD Lang parts whilst he and Brandon looked into each others eyes and then embraced on stage.
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😂😂😂 that would be something to see!!
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Yeah - 😂not sure if they even like being by each other off stage ???!
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I think they’re frenemy’s.
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Haha
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Lightning Fields could he because it has a feature, although surely one of the women on stage could handle it. I really think that song is in their worst 5 though so I’m not upset about it personally.
When the Dreams Run Dry would be awesome, it’s just apparently too hard on Brandon, which isn’t surprising. I think we tend to think things like “oh, he has an incredible voice and he did it once. Surely he could handle it” but could he do it night after night after night without wearing his voice out halfway through the tour? Probably not.
I was pretty upset with the lack of ITM. I saw them play battle born on the battle born tour, they opened with Wonderful Wonderful on the WW tour, I thought SURELY they’d play ITM. They did not. I remember in an interview when someone said they loved that song he said something like “that’s weird” lmao. Maybe he wanted to try some big theatrical song and didn’t end up liking it in the end? I’m not really sure. I think it’s a weird one, sure, but I really love that song. It’s just so dang fun. It puts me in a good mood every time.
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I think if that was the main reason it would be in his power to switch to a more balanced Setlist, and considering the extent of their repertoire it would still be enough to engage most people. It seems that it’s more a matter of inspiration for the creative part of his work.
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Besides the potential in wearing his voice, I also believe that the fact that he runs and jumps all the time during the show makes it harder have all the power required to sing something like WDRD. Although he does have an incredible physical condition to do everything he does on stage so terrifically! For me it’s already quite impressive. I think I read somewhere that they don’t like ITM so much and even thought about leaving it out of the album, but thought it would be weird to not have the song that named the album and that the song was important for the narrative of the album.
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I saw some live footage of him doing WTDRD and his voice was legit giving out. That must not happen often because he was laughing in frustration. It wasn’t on many set-lists before and it was on none after. I’ll try and find the footage and post it. The title track of ITM is another matter. It should have been in the set. Maybe we will get it in 2031.
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He starts WTDRD at 6:10
https://youtu.be/C2ffHaakut8?feature=shared
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After the break, in 2024, I expect we'll see a lot less 1,2, and 3 in future tours and less of its sound in future music.
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Besides the potential in wearing his voice, I also believe that the fact that he runs and jumps all the time during the show makes it harder have all the power required to sing something like WDRD. Although he does have an incredible physical condition to do everything he does on stage so terrifically! For me it’s already quite impressive. I think I read somewhere that they don’t like ITM so much and even thought about leaving it out of the album, but thought it would be weird to not have the song that named the album and that the song was important for the narrative of the album.
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Brandon has always had a reverence for the “life” that the band’s songs take on, so I really don’t think so. He knows Mr. B, ATTTID, WYWY, etc, are bigger than himself and has said so many times that he feels it’s his responsibility to play them and let them “live.” I don’t see that changing, based on his recent comments or really anything else.
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It’s a pattern at the end of tours they get a bit irritable in interviews and people doubt the future of the band or the sound of it.
I wouldn’t worry. They’ll rest and come back having done a new sound again
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I think people have got the wrong end of the stick about what he said. He didn’t say he didn’t want to tour. He didn’t say he didn’t want to do big shows. He said he wants to make music which doesn’t need stadiums. Quieter music. That is the crisis he is in. He is talking about wanting to make music which doesn’t suit what he loves, which is big crowds. Big events. He wants it all. And you cant have it all at the same time.
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Covers higher than an actual album they made haha.
Saying that they only seem to do 1-2 covers a gig now, I heard of a gig in New York they did 4 once.
I get it when they are at a festival they play the hits, I have no issue with that. However their own gigs they know a lot of us have seen them more than once, also more than once a tour so why not shake it up a bit? Brandon says he wants to give the people what they want, give us On Top, Bones, Battle Born, From Here On Out, just something different.
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What interview did Brandon mention scrapping new material?
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Sunday Times interview.
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The set list is getting tired. The same core 15 songs since battle born. Almost the exact same setlist from 2019 to now.
With so many songs to choose from, I don't know why more of them never see the light of day 😔
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I think it is more about what their albums will look like going forward than what their setlist will include. To my knowledge there are no songs that they have said they won't play anymore primarily for not liking the content be it Mr. Brightside talking about an ex cheating and hooking up with some other dude, or The River is Wild for using the B word.
I think it means that newer albums will likely sound like Pressure Machine or Battle Born and not the pop/synth sound of Hot Fuss or the rock and energy of Sam's Town.
The release of the song this week is probably because the scraped the album it was supposed to be part of and if they are making another Pressure Machine like album, the song really wouldn't fit the vibe. That leaves it as a single making the most sense.
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I think if that was the main reason it would be in his power to switch to a more balanced Setlist, and considering the extent of their repertoire it would still be enough to engage most people. It seems that it’s more a matter of inspiration for the creative part of his work.