Alter Bridge - Live At The Royal Albert Hall

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MidnightToker
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Re: Alter Bridge - Live At The Royal Albert Hall

Post by MidnightToker »

I finally got my BluRay/DVD from Amazon. Really amazing performance. I have no complaints about the orchestra volume. I watch it on 5.1 and it sounded great. The orchestra accented the songs well without overpowering the band. I guess it depends on how you watch it and what your TV setup is, but it sounded fine to me.

Yes we all know Myles is not perfect live, but this is one of the best rock bands around these days. It's kind of sad that their own fans just sit around complaining about everything they put out. But I hope they know the whiners are always louder than those of us who enjoy their releases. If you don't like them anymore, find another band. It's constant complaining on this board. This is a great show and only AB fans would bitch about it. We're lucky to have this.

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Re: Alter Bridge - Live At The Royal Albert Hall

Post by Dolo »

I don't find this performance great and I'm open about it. What I actually find annoying, are the fans who swallow everything the band puts out without any word of criticism.
'This is one of the best rock bands' is a justification for Myles being sloppy? I think it's quite telling that long time fans express their dissatisfaction - it's much more valuable than people who listen to the band occasionally
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Re: Alter Bridge - Live At The Royal Albert Hall

Post by anguyen92 »

I'm a long-time fan (unless being a fan for 11 years doesn't quite count) and I enjoyed every bit of this DVD and whatever "flaws" happened in the DVD doesn't bother me one bit at all and I was running it on my crappy laptop and connected it to my two-year old TV (which is still decent). Does that mean that my thoughts about it is not as valuable as those that really criticize it?

Edit: I don't mind reading criticism at all, especially when it's justified (Mark's tone and Myles' aging voice), but I don't want the buzz and mood to be killed, when this is honestly a triumphant moment for the band, and I don't want to use the "you are killing Christmas for little Timmy" line.

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Blackbirddd
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Re: Alter Bridge - Live At The Royal Albert Hall

Post by Blackbirddd »

Myles only sounds nasally when he does the 'A' sound, must be difficult for him

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Re: Alter Bridge - Live At The Royal Albert Hall

Post by TenaciousBe »

I fancy myself a bit of a singer as well, and Myles is my main point of inspiration as far as how I aspire to sound. I will admit, going to a nasally register does make it easier (at least in my experience) to hit some of those high notes, but this is Myles. He shouldn't need that crutch. He's got the chops.

But all criticism aside, this really is a fantastic show and an incredible undertaking, and I don't want anyone to think I didn't enjoy it. I did. I found myself tearing up a few times (which is hard when you're in a break room at work surrounded by dudes), and wishing I could have been there. Looking forward to watching on the big screen this weekend and taking it in from another perspective. :)
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Re: Alter Bridge - Live At The Royal Albert Hall

Post by Andy92 »

Dolo wrote:I don't find this performance great and I'm open about it. What I actually find annoying, are the fans who swallow everything the band puts out without any word of criticism.
'This is one of the best rock bands' is a justification for Myles being sloppy? I think it's quite telling that long time fans express their dissatisfaction - it's much more valuable than people who listen to the band occasionally
Just because some long-time fans view this DVD in a negative light doesn’t mean we all do. I genuinely liked the performance. I may have some critiques about the show but I’m not rushing to the internet to share them with like 15 people here lol. Not everyone expresses their negative opinions as often as others do.
anguyen92 wrote:Oh well. Deal with it.

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Re: Alter Bridge - Live At The Royal Albert Hall

Post by TurningStones »

I love the idea of harder music juxtaposed with an orchestral backing. I think if the Parallax Orchestra were wanting another project like this, an orchestral version of Tremonti's A Dying Machine album would be astonishing. Songs like "A Dying Machine", "The First the Last", "Take You With Me", "Desolation", and "As the Silence Becomes Me" would only be enhanced with some violins and other strings.
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Re: Alter Bridge - Live At The Royal Albert Hall

Post by slasherbridge »

Blackbirddd wrote:PEOPLE, HE'S 50 YEARS OLD

This.

Y'all are too rough. Is it perfect? Fuck no. It's not supposed to be. If you want perfection, listen to the record.

Live performances aren't supposed to be perfect. In terms of live performances, I could sit here and nitpick every single performance you present me. That's not the point. The point is to enjoy the presentation. And overall, this is a great presentation.

Plus, he's fucking 50 years old :)

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Nicklord
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Re: Alter Bridge - Live At The Royal Albert Hall

Post by Nicklord »

To be fair I never cared about being sloppy live unless it's really bad. I mean, my favorite band of all time is RHCP and they pretty much improvise through songs except for the key elements
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Re: Alter Bridge - Live At The Royal Albert Hall

Post by riemslag1 »

Well, perhaps a little self-reflection over here doesn’t hurt. Nothing wrong with a little critisism, after all this is not the polit-buro of Pyong Yang, but in my honest opinion the critisism lost its brakes now and then over here and this band does not deserve that, especially not on what is supposed to be a fan-website. This is one of the greatest rockbands around at the moment and I never left a show of them feeling bad the last years. And I feel a little negatively surprised that one of the probably best releases of 2018 is pulled down as being a failure over here. Troubles with the sound and orchestra-mix ? Buy a decent sound-system. I get the feeling that in this digital and streaming age the quality of playing-gear is getting worse and worse and people are expecting compensation for that in mixing and production.

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Re: Alter Bridge - Live At The Royal Albert Hall

Post by Dolo »

riemslag1 wrote:Troubles with the sound and orchestra-mix ? Buy a decent sound-system. I get the feeling that in this digital and streaming age the quality of playing-gear is getting worse and worse and people are expecting compensation for that in mixing and production.
I listen to S&M by Metallica on Spotify and I can hear every single instrument in the orchestra as well as every guitar, bass and drums quite clearly, and that was done almost 20 years ago in 1999, so how come AB's DVD from 2018 sounds nowhere as good with surely better technologies in mixing and sound engineering? And besides - as somebody already mentioned it in this thread - if they release it on Spotify, why don't they make it sounds good on there as well?
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Trenthetfield
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Re: Alter Bridge - Live At The Royal Albert Hall

Post by Trenthetfield »

Have played most of this a couple of times now on a reasonably good 5.1 system. I have found that to get the best out of it, I am having to mess with my regular settings, in particular with regard to hearing Brian's bass - and he really stands out for me on this (bass player myself, so my ear automatically goes there, but many great lines during the show). Also found the rear speakers (where the Orchestra is) need to be turned up quite a bit to really distinguish what they are playing. But the performance, setlist, setting, audience reaction and filming of this show means this is one of the best concert videos I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot in my 35 years of being an 'active' music fan. I'm a relative newcomer to the band (4-5 years), and as such am gutted that I wasn't keen enough to know about this show - as it's only a couple of hours from home...rest assured, should they tour again in the future I will defo be making an effort to see them!

Interestingly, my wife, who's never really heard them before also said she likes the music, but not Myles voice...I'm a fan of it myself, but it does seem to be marmite...!

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Re: Alter Bridge - Live At The Royal Albert Hall

Post by mikeyd23 »

Dolo wrote:
riemslag1 wrote:Troubles with the sound and orchestra-mix ? Buy a decent sound-system. I get the feeling that in this digital and streaming age the quality of playing-gear is getting worse and worse and people are expecting compensation for that in mixing and production.
I listen to S&M by Metallica on Spotify and I can hear every single instrument in the orchestra as well as every guitar, bass and drums quite clearly, and that was done almost 20 years ago in 1999, so how come AB's DVD from 2018 sounds nowhere as good with surely better technologies in mixing and sound engineering? And besides - as somebody already mentioned it in this thread - if they release it on Spotify, why don't they make it sounds good on there as well?
Because Bob Rock.

I get what people are saying with Myles on this one, to me, his performance is good, and I'm okay with it. He clearly switches the vowel sounds on higher notes to make those notes easier to sing - which results in the aaaa sound. I get it, singing a show that demanding twice in a row - makes sense to me.

I'm more upset with Mark's lack of clean tone. It literally makes songs with those classic Tremonti cleans sound bad when he tries to just roll his gain channel back. That's something that is easily fixed, just use the clean channel on your amp.

Overall though, this is a really good live release for AB and despite the flaws, it is clearly a highlight of the band's career.

Andy92
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Re: Alter Bridge - Live At The Royal Albert Hall

Post by Andy92 »

AB doesn’t exactly have Metallica’s budget...
anguyen92 wrote:Oh well. Deal with it.

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Re: Alter Bridge - Live At The Royal Albert Hall

Post by Troops4Tremonti »

Dolo wrote:What I actually find annoying, are the fans who swallow everything the band puts out without any word of criticism.
^^^Yeah this. And, predictably, these same fans pretend that you're the crazy one for pointing it out. AB, Tremonti, or (dare I say) Creed is at serious risk of only marginal improvement (at best) if people just slobber all over everything they release without objective evaluation. These guys aren't gods, they're regular human beings. Don't you think they want to be held to a higher standard? If my boss at work didn't care about what I did, do you think I would improve? Maybe, but it would be a lot harder. AB could release a full on disco/rap/techno record and people would think the world of it and talk about how it made them bawl their eyes out.

If, by all accounts, someone genuinely enjoyed MOST of this release and found very few issues with it then I am happy for you. However, mixing critique isn't really subjective - it was either mixed correctly or is wasn't. If you enjoyed the mix then you may very well be biased. You can't tell me that Mark is playing a ukulele the whole time just because you really want to believe it.
Because Bob Rock
That's not a good enough excuse. I can mix a record on my iPhone better than RAH was mixed. These are paid professionals with, seemingly, sufficient education hearing capabilities. They should have gotten it right the first time and it's high time some people take the blinders off and start holding these guys accountable.

I may be bit harsh, but I know what AB is and who they were and they are not the same. And not in a good way imho.

:peace

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Re: Alter Bridge - Live At The Royal Albert Hall

Post by anguyen92 »

Andy92 wrote:AB doesn’t exactly have Metallica’s budget...
In all honesty, Andy, I think I read somewhere in an article that Torsten posted that Tim Tournier stated that they spend in a six figure amount to produce these two shows.

I will once again state that I was able to hear everything as clear as it can be through my TV and I was surprisingly able to hear Brian's bass a fair amount of times (don't think that happened too often in their prior DVDs, including Amsterdam). I will agree that listening through stereo headphones will not get the most out of this show. I probably wouldn't change much from this show from a recording perspective, but then again, I claim my ears aren't the greatest, but I'm ok with that since I can really enjoy the show more than some in light of its "flaws."

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Re: Alter Bridge - Live At The Royal Albert Hall

Post by mikeyd23 »

Troops4Tremonti wrote:
Because Bob Rock
That's not a good enough excuse. I can mix a record on my iPhone better than RAH was mixed. These are paid professionals with, seemingly, sufficient education hearing capabilities. They should have gotten it right the first time and it's high time some people take the blinders off and start holding these guys accountable.

I may be bit harsh, but I know what AB is and who they were and they are not the same. And not in a good way imho.

:peace
Don't get me wrong, I'm not blindly saying this record sounds killer - I think it's average sounding at best. But the biggest asset a band can pull in for a project like this is a killer audio engineer/producer. Bob Rock was that for Metallica, I only brought it up because the direct comparison between this AB release and S&M was being drawn. Not an excuse at all, it's a vital component of the process.

I don't think if you had the raw tracks you'd be able to mix something better on your iPhone :lol

Couple other things to take into account with the S&M comparison (beyond the fact that Bob Rock is a far better audio engineer and producer which is very important to note) - Metallica re-recorded a good bit of James' vocals after the fact in the studio, and the vocals they didn't re-record were auto-tuned highly. The guitars were probably far easier to work with because Metallica (in that era) had cabinets off stage in iso-boxes all mic'd up. I don't think budget is really a factor here though, although I'm sure Metallica had a bigger production budget for the mixing of S&M, the costs of that work have dropped so dramatically since the late 90's that even with a much smaller budget, the AB team should have been able to knock this out of the park.

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Re: what if I get 4 more bose speakers and sing along for the .1?

Post by zazthespaz »

Trenthetfield wrote:Have played most of this a couple of times now on a reasonably good 5.1 system. I have found that to get the best out of it, I am having to mess with my regular settings, in particular with regard to hearing Brian's bass - and he really stands out for me on this (bass player myself, so my ear automatically goes there, but many great lines during the show). Also found the rear speakers (where the Orchestra is) need to be turned up quite a bit to really distinguish what they are playing. But the performance, setlist, setting, audience reaction and filming of this show means this is one of the best concert videos I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot in my 35 years of being an 'active' music fan. I'm a relative newcomer to the band (4-5 years), and as such am gutted that I wasn't keen enough to know about this show - as it's only a couple of hours from home...rest assured, should they tour again in the future I will defo be making an effort to see them!

Interestingly, my wife, who's never really heard them before also said she likes the music, but not Myles voice...I'm a fan of it myself, but it does seem to be marmite...!
Are you playing the album or the DVD on the 5.1 system? I’ve only played the album in my car or through headphones and have been disappointed with the mix (among other things already mentioned here). Wondering if there’s any hope for the album, not that I have a 5.1 system... think a Bose wireless speaker might help? :lol
anguyen92 wrote:
Oh well. Deal with it.
gbruin wrote:
Go reread what zaz says

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Re: Alter Bridge - Live At The Royal Albert Hall

Post by mirko.volpon »

Best dvd of Alter bridge for me

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Re: what if I get 4 more bose speakers and sing along for the .1?

Post by Trenthetfield »

zazthespaz wrote:Are you playing the album or the DVD on the 5.1 system? I’ve only played the album in my car or through headphones and have been disappointed with the mix (among other things already mentioned here). Wondering if there’s any hope for the album, not that I have a 5.1 system... think a Bose wireless speaker might help? :lol
It's the Blu-Ray. Not sure on the speaker - presumably that's going to still only knock it out in stereo at best? I listened to the stereo mix briefly, orchestra was pretty down in the mix there tbh. Disappointing, as it puts me off listening to it on Spotify/CD in the car.

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