Tom Moon of the Philadelphia Inquirer (also in Pittsburgh Post Gazette). A lot of the same stuff that's been in other interviews, and again he talks of realising he is an album, not a singles's artist and the tour. Rundgren says that the shows, with the band that backed him on the With a Twist Tour, will have its share of surprises. The musicians will plug their keyboards and guitars into tablet PCs to access sounds and effects, and the lighting will come from LED arrays, not traditional spotlights... He refuses to draw up a set list, and says he is in the process of rehearsing all of "Liars" and much of his catalog with the intention of playing a 2 1/2-hour show. "I have a lot more fun if we're trying something grandly conceptual, something that makes all of us think. ... When you play the same thing in the same order every night, you can look up after one song and realize the whole evening's already scripted, that you could do the whole thing on autopilot. That can take the wind out of your sails. It's much more fun to react to whatever's going on."
Whilst the Decemberists have been around for a number of years, and a friend of mine is a big fan, I have to confess - a few tunes aside - they have never really made much of a splash with me. With their fifth album - 'The Hazards of Love' - a 17-track concept album that sort of tells a story about a fair maiden ravished by a shape-shifting demon (no, really) - however, I am suddenly find myself surprisingly won over. On some levels - like most concept albums - it is utter tosh, but with its repeating musical motifs and reprises, making you quickly think that actually there are only about five actual songs on the album - a clever trick. Like with all good concept albums this makes listening on shuffle not the ideal way to digest this album - especially as their are short 'interlude' pieces joining all the songs too. Added to all this the fact that the band seem to have a love for early 70's British folk/prog/heavy metal and this walks right up my street - and will ...
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