Its just passed 11.00pm Sunday night Feb 3rd 2013 and I have returned home from seeing Dead Can Dance performing Anastasis at the Sydney Opera House in front of 2600 people.
The concert began on time without introduction or small talk .with six performers on stage including one drummer and another percussionist as well as two synthesisers.
During the evening, sometimes three synthesisers were employed.
Two banks of speakers hung from the ceiling whilst another two banks of speakers sat on either side of the stage, facing the performers and not the audience.
These were not the standard floor-box speakers often required for the performers to hear themselves but were twelve foot high monsters capable of filling the hall with sound?
I was centre stage in the tenth row of stalls and initially I was transfixed at how identical the sound mix matched what I heard on the vinyl release in my living room?
Every nuance was exactly as I knew it .the balance was identical the mix was identical ..the re-verb on the voices .the shimmer of the cymbals ..the depth of the synth-created bass notes.
But what really shook me was the timing?
The timing of every track from Anastasis was a clone of the album.
This is normally just not possible in my experience .as small timing variations are simply a fact of life from performance to performance.
I was rolling my head and tapping my feet in exact syncopation with (and anticipation of) the musical beat .just as I do from my listening chair at home.
How good is my system .I thought to myself?
This is the closest I have ever come to accepting that I was finally re-creating the live sound in my own home?
Strangely though .when they performed a track from their earlier album Into The Labyrinth .the mix, the balance and the timing were entirely different and poorer than .the recording I have?
By the first encore .I was becoming uneasy.
Lisa Gerrard was singing back-up into a mike at stage front and then stepping back whilst Brendan Perry sang the lead. Strangely ..as she played the zills (finger cymbals) ..there was no mike when she stepped back, yet they sounded crystal clear and floated effortlessly over the dense instrumental melange filling the hall?
I then watched the drummer and percussionist and couldnt really hear their contribution apart from the shimmering cymbals. Yet the shimmering cymbals began either before the percussionist brushed them or after? .and the under 30 Hz dominant throb was certainly not being produced by the drum?
For the final of three encores .a solo from Lisa .I carefully watched only her lips .and gasped at the subtle (yet visible) slip betwixt sight and sound?
As I walked from the Concert Hall amongst the adoring throng .I felt sickened at the realisation that we had all just paid to gather together to listen to a recording?
The concert began on time without introduction or small talk .with six performers on stage including one drummer and another percussionist as well as two synthesisers.
During the evening, sometimes three synthesisers were employed.
Two banks of speakers hung from the ceiling whilst another two banks of speakers sat on either side of the stage, facing the performers and not the audience.
These were not the standard floor-box speakers often required for the performers to hear themselves but were twelve foot high monsters capable of filling the hall with sound?
I was centre stage in the tenth row of stalls and initially I was transfixed at how identical the sound mix matched what I heard on the vinyl release in my living room?
Every nuance was exactly as I knew it .the balance was identical the mix was identical ..the re-verb on the voices .the shimmer of the cymbals ..the depth of the synth-created bass notes.
But what really shook me was the timing?
The timing of every track from Anastasis was a clone of the album.
This is normally just not possible in my experience .as small timing variations are simply a fact of life from performance to performance.
I was rolling my head and tapping my feet in exact syncopation with (and anticipation of) the musical beat .just as I do from my listening chair at home.
How good is my system .I thought to myself?
This is the closest I have ever come to accepting that I was finally re-creating the live sound in my own home?
Strangely though .when they performed a track from their earlier album Into The Labyrinth .the mix, the balance and the timing were entirely different and poorer than .the recording I have?
By the first encore .I was becoming uneasy.
Lisa Gerrard was singing back-up into a mike at stage front and then stepping back whilst Brendan Perry sang the lead. Strangely ..as she played the zills (finger cymbals) ..there was no mike when she stepped back, yet they sounded crystal clear and floated effortlessly over the dense instrumental melange filling the hall?
I then watched the drummer and percussionist and couldnt really hear their contribution apart from the shimmering cymbals. Yet the shimmering cymbals began either before the percussionist brushed them or after? .and the under 30 Hz dominant throb was certainly not being produced by the drum?
For the final of three encores .a solo from Lisa .I carefully watched only her lips .and gasped at the subtle (yet visible) slip betwixt sight and sound?
As I walked from the Concert Hall amongst the adoring throng .I felt sickened at the realisation that we had all just paid to gather together to listen to a recording?