jdw Posted January 10, 2013 Report Share Posted January 10, 2013 This obviously is the type of stuff that comes up in all the Flair threads. I thought it worthwhile to think outside of the box, look at other forms of entertainment and see if it's not common elsewhere. Well of course it is. Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe books all follow similar structures, have loads of similar shtick, have regular characters who nearly always are "in character" rather than evolving or changing massively. This isn't uncommon for the genre of detective / PI books. Even ones that "evolve" over time like the 87th Precinct live in stories that typically have the same general structure. They get tossed into different adventures, some times they're thrown into peril, some characters get killer off. But you're not going to find two 87th Precinct that are as different as Much Ado About Nothing and Hamlet are in the Bard's catalog. Of course even the Bard has structure and shtick that is common across plays... lots of it. Television? Castle, Mythbusters, Top Chef, No Reservations... these all have/had shtick and structure. Every show might not be the same, and in fact Top Chef tends to have different shtick that gets employed across a season. But there you go: every season you *are* going to get Restaurant Wars, and usually it will go down with the same type of results. Long running shows like Cheers might have characters come and go as actors leave, or small bit players are liked and turned into regulars. The characters might evolve slightly, but the format is pretty similar across a decade. Rock stars? Go back and look at set lists of Led Zep or the Beatles for a tour, or even someone like U2 more recently. They have their Ric Flair getting tossed off the top rope every night. Page might go 20+ minutes on Dazed & Confused one night and only 12 the next, but you generally know what you're going to get on the song: the bow is coming out, you get the non-bow solo afterwards, they time change back into the central riff... and on and on every night. This really isn't uncommon. (more) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted January 10, 2013 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2013 Okay, let's take a look at someone who is famous over the years of turning over his set list: Bruce Springsteen. He's also noted, like Flair, for being one of the hardest working, "best" live performers in history, for longevity both in individual concerts but also in career length, still grinding out long entertaining shows for his fans after the age of 60. He's pretty much an age and career comp for Flair relative to their businesses. Here are the set lists of his last four shows of the current leg of the current tour. Portland, OR1. Land of Hope and Dreams2. No Surrender3. Hungry Heart4. We Take Care of Our Own5. Wrecking Ball6. Death to My Hometown7. My City of Ruins8. Spirit in the Night9. Loose Ends10. Growin' Up11. Jack of All Trades12. Seeds13. Johnny 9914. Darlington County15. Shackled and Drawn16. Waitin' on a Sunny Day17. Drive All Night18. The Rising19. Badlands20. Thunder Road Encore21. If I Should Fall Behind (solo)22. Born to Run23. Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)24. Dancing in the Dark25. Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town26. Tenth Avenue Freeze-out Oakland, CA1. Land of Hope and Dreams2. Cover Me3. Adam Raised a Cain4. Something in the Night5. Hungry Heart6. We Take Care of Our Own7. Wrecking Ball8. Death to My Hometown9. My City of Ruins10. The E Street Shuffle11. Pay Me My Money Down12. The Ties That Bind13. I'm Goin' Down14. Devils & Dust15. Because the Night16. She's the One17. Shackled and Drawn18. Waitin' on a Sunny Day19. Raise Your Hand20. The Rising21. Badlands22. Thunder Road Encore23. Kitty's Back24. Born to Run25. Dancing in the Dark26. Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town27. Tenth Avenue Freeze-out Anaheim, CA1. Land of Hope and Dreams (Morello)2. Adam Raised a Cain3. Streets of Fire4. Hungry Heart5. We Take Care of Our Own6. Wrecking Ball7. Death to My Hometown (Morello)8. My City of Ruins9. Spirit in the Night10. The E Street Shuffle11. Long Time Coming (solo)12. Reason to Believe13. This Depression (Morello)14. Darkness on the Edge of Town15. Bad Luck (w/ Mike Ness)16. Because the Night17. Darlington County18. Shackled and Drawn19. Waitin' on a Sunny Day20. Raise Your Hand21. The Ghost of Tom Joad (Morello)22. Badlands (Morello)23. Thunder Road Encore24. Jungleland25. Born to Run26. Dancing in the Dark27. Santa Claus is Comin' to Town28. Tenth Avenue Freeze-out (Morello) Glendale, AZ1. Surprise, Surprise (solo)2. No Surrender3. I'm a Rocker4. Hungry Heart5. Prove It All Night ('78 intro)6. Trapped7. Lost in the Flood8. We Take Care of Our Own9. Wrecking Ball10. Death to My Hometown11. My City of Ruins12. Be True13. Light of Day14. Darlington County15. Shackled and Drawn16. Waitin' on a Sunny Day17. Apollo Medley (w/ Sam Moore)18. The Rising19. Badlands20. Thunder Road Encore21. Incident on 57th Street (solo piano)22. Born to Run23. Dancing in the Dark24. Santa Claus is Comin' to Town (w/ G. Jeffreys)25. Tenth Avenue Freeze-out (w/ Jared Clemons) Okay... that's a Song List Dump Of Doom, but bringing a little order to it... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted January 10, 2013 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2013 He played 106 songs on the four shows, 55 different songs. Though 12 of those songs were generally "locked in", so it's really 43, of which some were semi-fixtures during this period of the tour. So in a sense he does mix it up. But is there common structure, and certainly shtick. * Opening - Opener & Rockers Three of the shows opened with Land of Hope and Dreams to try to set the theme for the shows. The one that didn't was the tour finale, where he took a request from a guest backstage and opened solo with an obscure song off the Working on a Dream album. Admittedly, that is one of the interesting reasons for going to see Bruce: he will pull stuff out of left field. In turn, the opening song typically is followed with some rockers to pull the crowd into the show. Land of Hope and Dreams isn't one of his hits, nor one of his non-hit warhorses (like say the non-hit "Darkness on the Edge of Town"). So he quickly moved onto rockers and/or guitar songs: No Surrender, Cover Me, Adam Raised a Cain, Streets of Fire or I'm a Rocker. This segment would range from 1 song (in Portland) to two songs. The exception in this was in Oakland where he tagged on Something in the Night, which is a more downbeat song from the Darkness album. Again, performance subject to change depending on the mood and the setlist he's creating. * Hungry Heart & Crowd Surfing This early on every show, was common on the tour and by this point was locked into coming after the opening segment. In a sense, it was the climax to the opening segment: his first big hit, feel good song, going out physically into the crowd, etc. It was pure shtick, and fans who saw it a lot got bored with it. Yohe and I only went to one show, and we thought it was an entertaining spot that popped the crowd. Most of the crowd only goes to one show. * Newer Songs Theme Section It was always We Take Care of Our Own + Wrecking Ball + Death to My Hometown + My City of Ruins, in that order, pretty much after Hungry Heart. This was a "locked in" part of the set where there were no changes. He moves away from the warhorses and hits, and instead focused on the theme of looking at America. On the albums, I'm not a huge fan of these songs. Together in a show performed as he did, they work pretty well. People who'd been to a lot of shows got tired of the My City of Ruins performance, but seeing just one show, it's quite well done as the climax to the segment. The one exception of going straight from Hungry Heart to this segment was the finale where it looked like he called an audible, which from reports was among the highlights of the show. A great trio of songs that he performs the hell out of when I've seen them over the years. * Fan Selections Prior to this section and the prior one, he typically would toss in some songs, often playful ones. The E Street Shuffle and/or Spirit in the Night fit the bill on three shows. This Fan Selections section has been locked into concerts for a couple of tours: fans make signs of a song they want, Bruce looks around for ones he likes, and they do it. Some of them are solo songs, and others are full band songs. This is almost always where you get songs that aren't in the rotation of other "open" non-fixed slots on the tour. We got the obscure Long Time Coming, very well done solo. We then got the full band, wicked version of Reason to Believe which had been done semi-regularly on a prior recent tour, but not so much here. On the other hand, he had out of nowhere opened a show with it a couple of months back... so there are times he just pulls stuff out of the hat. 8 different songs on the four shows, so this section is one of the reasons that you get variety on his show: 20% of the 43 non-locked in songs game here. * Down Beat + Rockers Between the Fan Selection section and the next locked in section, he typically went with some down beat song or two followed by a rocker or two. The rockers here were Darlington County and She's the One, to a lesser degree the semi-moody Because the Night and the rockerish but clearly downbeat Johnny 99. He had mix of downbeat songs, and even a warhorse that is semi-downbeat and semi-rocker ("Darkness on the Edge of Town"). There were 13 songs played in this section, with 10 *different* songs being performed. There's structure, but flexibility on how to fill it. * Shackled and Drawn + Waitin' on a Sunny Day Locked in spot. * Pre-Main Set Closing Less variety here: 8 songs played, 5 different ones. I suspect that if I looked more closely at some additional playlists from this section of the tour, I would find the The Rising was semi-locked in and just replaced with The Ghost of Tom Joad because Morello was in town, was made such a big guest on the show, and Joad is a well known as a song that he and Bruce have re-envisioned to include Morello's sonic playing. * Main Set Closing Badlands and Thunder Road, always. He did the full band version of Thunder Road. * Encores Typical structure was Special Song + Born to Run + Dancing in the Dark + Frolicking Song + Tenth Avenue Freeze-out. Incident is well known by longtime fans among his older non-warhorse songs, so dusting it off popped the hardcores. We got Jungleland, which while a warhorse is also a Clemons song to make it a bit special here... I love the fuck out of it. If I Should Fall Behind was a small song that became a key encore song on the Reunion Tour, so pretty well known by fans when it's dusted off now in the encores. Kitty's Back is another old song from the second album. Four different songs on four shows, pretty cool to see the mix. The frolicking song in this part of the tour was Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town, which he's been doing in the Fall/Winter for decades now. If you go back prior to that on the tour, you'll find a songs like Glory Days or Ramrod or Detroit Medley or Light of Day or Rosilita in the mid-late encore slot around Dancing in the Dark and 10th Ave. In fact, Rosie came out on the first of these for shows between Born To Run and Dancing In the Dark. So... There's a lot of different "spots", but there's a lot of similar structure, and some of it flat out locked in. There were parts of the tour where you'd get either Because the Night or Prove It All Night (with the 1978 intro) in the "Nils gets his monster solo" slot. The one set list I saw where they both were on, Stevie got the solo on one song while Nils got it on the other. Bruce had some key locked in things that he wanted to get in, usually in the same spot. But even those could change. Our opener (Land of Hope and Dreams) was a Main Set Closer on at least one show a month or so back. So working a similar match night after night against the same opponent isn't exactly unusual relative to other forms of entertainment. Heck, someone playing Hamlet on stage for five months is generally doing the same damn thing every night. On the other hand, where someone like Flair might lack is this: Ghost of Tom Joad Tour (1995-97) Reunion Tour (1999-2000) Rising Tour (2002-03) Devils & Dust Tour (2005) Seeger Sessions Band Tour (2006) Magic Tour (2007-08) Working on a Dream Tour (2009) Wrecking Ball Tour (2012) Those are Bruce's tours in the past 15 years. Joad and Devils & Dust where essentially solo accoustic tours. Seeger Sessions Band was with a full, non-E Street band of players. The other 5 were E Street backed. You could argue this is the difference between working Face and Heel. That depends on the worker. Those solo acoustic tours were radically different than the E Street ones, not just musically but also in turning in the Stadiums & Arenas for Small Halls. It might not be the equiv. On the other hand, working in Much Ado About Nothing and then working in Hamlet might be the equiv of working face for a while and then going heel. (more) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted January 10, 2013 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2013 One item I intentionally mentioned was the difference between seeing Bruce once on a tour and seeing him 5-10 times on a tour. The more you see him, the more clear the structure is. When you see him across different tours, you also will see similar "changed arrangements" like Reason To Believe that wouldn't be so radical to you of you only saw one of the tours. As a lot of us have said, you were unlikely to see Flair "once on a tour". TV and PPV are the obvious ones to point to, but also old school house shows: if you went to six JCP shows a year, it's like seeing six Bruce shows. The toss off the top rope is fresh the first time like the body surfing, but eventually it's not a surprise. You may still find it cool / fun / entertaining, but it's not fresh anymore. Other elements of Shtick and Structure are there to see, if you care to look for them. If the structure of someone who tries hard to change things up like Bruce is obvious when you look for it, then what does it say for Flair? We've all said that Flair has been as exposed of a "great" as there ever had been up to that point. It means more of his stuff was there for us to see, and even more of it now that we go looking for it. That's great if you love his work. I for one did, and loved whenever something of his was available to see. But that also started in 1986... 26 years ago... it's a lot. I don't think I want to see the band version of Reason To Beleive six times a year, let alone a dozen. The song came out four years before I started watching wrestling. I've seen it in it's original acoustic form a number of times, and of course have heard it that way for three decades. I've even seen the Bruce+Morello version of it on video. But... I don't want to see it live a load of times. I want to hold onto the feeling I had when they went off into, quickly realizing what it was, and just popping. With Flair, that's pretty hard. Ric is Born To Run, Badlands, Thunder Road, Promised Land.... those you've seen live a dozen times over the near-30 years you've been going to his shows. Some of them, like Born To Run, you'd just as soon not have to hear every time... but it's in the set list and the crowd is popping. Others like Thunder Road are one of your favorites, and the hell with all the people who are tired of hearing it... YOU want Bruce to roll that one out every time you're in the building. What you want out of them is for him to be solid, entertaining, not make you feel like he's going through the motions on this one even thought he's been playing it live longer than you've been going to the shows. Ric is Jungleland when he's rambling on and on in a long match. He done all these spots before. Sometimes he's really feeling it and giving everything he's got into it... and the thing is, he's such a Performer that you haven't got a freaking clue if he's really feeling it, or if he just a Pro in making you think that. Ric is Dancing in the Dark in a throw away match that you know isn't all that good when you're watching it, but Flair's busting his ass to make it work and *is* connecting with the crowd. Ric's a whole set list of that. There is no Reason To Believe because Ric wouldn't make an acoustic album type of a match to being with, then come across the right opponent, take that match, and turn it into a full band version of it. Ric is full band all the time because that's what works for him. Ric couldn't do Wrestling Hamlet if his life depended on it, probably not because he didn't have the ability to do it if he started studying back in the 70s... but because Much Ado About Nothing and it's type of plays have worked for him, he did them to big numbers and response, and who needs Hamlet because this pro wrestling shit ain't highbrow. Or something like that... John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cross Face Chicken Wing Posted January 10, 2013 Report Share Posted January 10, 2013 How about stand-up comedy? Most comedians come up with about an hour of material and do that same hour every night of a tour, sometimes twice per night in the same town. Some of them even have catch phrases or another type of schtick that is all over the mainstream and known by most people, whether they're fans of comedy or not. Yet when the comedian busts out the catch phrase or schtick during his/her live act, the auidence eats it up, even if most of them have basically heard it before. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted January 10, 2013 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2013 Yep. If you see a comic several times on the comic equiv of a "tour", especially a leg of a tour since topical things can change over the course of several months, you're going to get a lot of similar/identical jokes. Where they've changed, you'll likely find something similar sliding into it's slot for pacing and arc purposes. If the comic happens to get taped for a special (movie in the olden days), you'll likely see stuff that you also say... in nearly the exact some way. Comic are pretty similar to song performers. They have their bits. Some work with the crowd, and are kept. Ones that don't are tossed. Comics probably turn over their performances more often then song performers, though. If we were to look at Bruce over the course of different E Street tours since the Reunion, you're going to find some key songs or cluster of songs that are almost always going to be played. He's stuck playing Born To Run, and usually Thunder Road. There's always going to be two or more songs from Darkness (most likely from the warhorses of Badlands, The Promised Land, & Darkness on the Edge of Town and bust also often from slightly deeper with Prove It All Night, Streets of Fire, Candy's Room, Adam Raised a Cain, etc.). Where as a comic will often toss out everything from last year's show once it's run it's course, and come up with new material for this year... or next year. They might do a similar story, say on fucking or marriage, but different in content and punchlines, etc. The other similarity about old school comics is that you could pop on their albums, here the same bit, and enjoy it like songs. I don't know how many times I played my old vinyl Richard Pryors albums but it was a shitload. I knew the bits by heart, but the still cracked me up. This is similar to knowing all of Promised Land and not being surprised by anything in it, but digging it still after the 100th listening or hearing it in concert more than a dozen times. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ricky Jackson Posted January 10, 2013 Report Share Posted January 10, 2013 I've always felt "he did the same things in every match" was a pretty weak smark criticism anyway. Why wouldn't you do the same things if they popped the crowd every night? Just to please the hardcores and sheet writers? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted January 10, 2013 Report Share Posted January 10, 2013 Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares 1. Gordon arrives at a struggling restaurant, the food is shit, the place is empty, the kitchen struggles to make 3 covers without melting down. 2. He eats the food and thinks it is shit. He inspects the kitchen swears a lot and is disgusted by the lack of hygene. 3. He looks at the menu and says there are two many items on it. 4. He designs a new menu with just 6 items on it. The important thing is LOCAL produce for RUSTIC food. 5. He teaches the new menu to the chef and kitchen staff while shouting and calling them rude names. 6. The restaurant gets a make over with new modern decor. 7. They have a big re-opening with all sorts of people from the local town, the kitchen struggles initially but eventually come over the odds to make a success of it. 8. Gordon has saved the day, but warns that if they don't stick to his methods they'll go to shit again. Credits Rinse/ Repeat for 10 seasons. Every single "expert" show on TV follows this formula. Super Nanny being the one that most readily springs to mind. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted January 10, 2013 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2013 I've always felt "he did the same things in every match" was a pretty weak smark criticism anyway. Why wouldn't you do the same things if they popped the crowd every night? Just to please the hardcores and sheet writers? I see both sides of it being a valid / not valid criticism. If Al Pacino only played Michael Corleone in movie after movie after movie from 1972 through 2012 in largely the same fashion, would we think: * Al's limited as an actor * after 20-40 movies, that Michael Corleone character might just be a bit boring... more than a bit That would be valid if someone felt that. "Ric Flair" is in the sense a "series character", similar to James Bond or J.R. Ewing or Zatoichi. Of course other wrestlers are as well. Some vary or evolve over time, even of performances that are close together. Others don't. Flair to me in his "prime" (not just in terms of work but as a running character) is probably pretty close to Stout's primary Nero Wolfe series characters: Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. After feeling his way around in fully developing the traits, voice, tone, etc of the characters over the first four books, Stout finally fully realizes everything in the 5th and 6th books (which is rather ironic given the settings of the books which fall outside of the oft repeated "norms" of the books... but that's another post). Wolfe and Goodwin then remain "fixed" in character from 1938-1975 in close to 70 novels and novellas. It's effective. The books sold well. Stout didn't write the twistiest of detective novels, nor the most creative, nor mine the depth of the human psyche as others did. But he was and is generally well respected within the genre, his books are still enjoyed, etc. Ric at some point became "locked in" as a character in his prime. It could flip if he was face, but he didn't face a lot after becoming the World Champ, and seems to have admitted to much rather play the heel. I think that does lend itself to, over time, being able to be bored and/or critical of Ric. I haven't gotten bored of Stout over the years because they hit the spot for me, but there are other similar characters that have. Reacher and Bosch for example are examples of low end main stream fictional characters that I found to be like pulling the last few books I read. Lord knows there have been plenty of TV shows that I've gotten bored with over the years, or annoyed with, because it's the same shit being stretched out week after week, year after year. I think we need accept that it is valid for someone to look at Ric and think that, and *not* be wrong. In turn, it's just as valid that someone could look at Ric and not be bored out of their skull by the same old shit all the fucking time for 20 years. After all... I like Goodwin and Wolfe, and they were doing largely the same old shit all the fucking time for *40* years and would have kept on doing it if the author hadn't dropped dead. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted January 10, 2013 Report Share Posted January 10, 2013 Good stuff, John. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NintendoLogic Posted January 10, 2013 Report Share Posted January 10, 2013 This discussion speaks to the inherent tension between the performance art aspects of wrestling and the sport aspects. But even from a performance art standpoint, compare the career of someone like George Carlin to the career of someone like Gallagher. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnny Sorrow Posted January 11, 2013 Report Share Posted January 11, 2013 This discussion speaks to the inherent tension between the performance art aspects of wrestling and the sport aspects. But even from a performance art standpoint, compare the career of someone like George Carlin to the career of someone like Gallagher. Actually, Gallagher was never as "one note" as people think. Each of his specials were full of completely different material, a lot of it really good and intelligent/ subversive. He just knew that the audience wanted the Sledge-O-Matic bit at the end and he'd deliver it. But even that he'd change and adapt for each special. And the whole Gallagher 2 deal with his brother was some pretty subversive shit at heart. With Carlin, you can trace the entire evolution of his act over the years from 60's nightclub comic, to gentle hippie who still challenged the establishment with the "Seven Words" bit, (and he would fall back on that bit and adapt it over the years), to cokehead who did nothing but wordplay jokes that lacked any heart that his early stuff had. Then as he got older, he got progressively angrier, and when his wife died he said "Fuck it I'm gonna speak nothing but the truth no matter how much it may upset people." I'm wondering what wrestler one would compare with The Grateful Dead in the way John did Flair and Bruce. Given that the Dead never repeated a performance. No two shows since circa 1969 had the same set list, but certain songs would disappear for awhile, then come back, new ones would come and some would go, and improv was key. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted January 11, 2013 Author Report Share Posted January 11, 2013 The Dead would be tough for someone to come up with an equiv. Similar to say the Cohen Brothers or Ang Lee, who seem to not want to get locked into anyone genre and instead want to stretch themselves. That's not to say that there isn't similarity between Cohen Brother movies, and certainly their comedies tend to have more in common with each other than say a Sandler movie or a Vince Vaughn comedy. And one could find them between Lee movies if you're a student of them (I'm not). But for one director to have these be his major Oscar nominations: Sense and Sensibility Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Brokeback Mountain Life of Pi And around them do: The Ice Storm Ride with the Devil Hulk Lust, Caution Taking Woodstock We can kind of pretend that Quentin Tarantino does different genres and what not, but in the end they're QT movies that are homages / spoof / both of those genres that are every bit as much QT as the genre. Lee seems to be closer to wanting to do very different things, trying new things and avoiding getting bored. On the other, perhaps that's more common for directors as they're often "directors for hire" early on if they don't get superstardom. Look up the list of movies that Stephen Frears has done, and set aside the tv ones below it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Frears#Filmography One might try to draw a line between My Beautiful Laundrette and Prick Up Your Ears, but there's The Hit before them and Dangerous Liaisons shortly after them. The Grifters and High Fidelity, the standard Big Hollywood Production of Hero and the vastly more British Modern Historical Piece of The Queen. Wrestlers doing that? John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted January 11, 2013 Author Report Share Posted January 11, 2013 Good stuff, John. Just trying to put into (far too many words) something that was bubbling around in my head while reading within days of each other: * the various Flair threads here * the Backstreets setlists and reviews of Bruce's last few shows on this leg of the tour As is probably clear, I'm mixed on the topic, and think both are valid. I've expressed a lot of times that (i) Flair was great, (ii) Flair was wildly effective as a performer, (iii) Flair wasn't perfect if you really gave it some thought, and (iv) I've seen so much Flair that he does bore the piss out of me most of the times now that I come across his stuff. People tend to focus a lot on my comments that are about (iii) and (iv), and the ones about (i) and (ii) get buried. I was struck that what tended to jump out at me in the reviews of Bruce were more of the (iii) and (iv) while I was enjoying the (i) and (ii). "Wait a minute... I kind of liked that Crowd Surfing spot, and so did the crowd. Fuck you!" Then eventually taking a step back to get that they've seen Bruce 10+ times on this tour, probably have watched a ton of youtube clips and other boots on top of that, it's the same old spot every show... "oh shit... this is uncomfortably like a lot of us feel about a lot of wrestling". Don't have an answer, even for myself as is clear. Suspect it's similar for a lot of us: we are okay with the "same old shit" on a lot of things in life, but others drive us crazy. Side comment next... John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted January 11, 2013 Report Share Posted January 11, 2013 To me it's the difference between great and greatest of all time. He can do this and still be great and even the greatest at what he did. It's such a high level we're talking about a lot of the time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted January 11, 2013 Author Report Share Posted January 11, 2013 Strange example of this... When solo, I like to sleep on the same side of the bed every freaking night. Like to lay on my side in a certain direction, like to have the bed side table on that side, etc. When I'm at my folks sleeping in the guest bedroom, I like to sleep on that same side as well. Even when that puts me on the side up against a wall, and to get up I need to roll over and head out from the opposite side. It's just how I've sleep for as long as I can remember. I'm mean... sleeping is important, it's hard enough to go to sleep (said by someone who has battled major insomnia at times in my life)... I don't need fucking with how I sleep, thank you. Except... My girlfriend sleeps on that same side of the bed. Ran across it the first night at her place, all those years ago. That other side... that's where I'll be sleeping, there wasn't even going to be a discussion about it, that's that. What's interesting... Is that when she's staying over at my place, by habit I set things up in advance for her to sleep on her natural side, and I shift my stuff over to the other side. It's so ingrained in my head that I almost don't even think about it at this point as I'm shifting stuff around: It's how "We" sleep, not how "I" sleep, so of course I'm going to move stuff around. Ironically, I sleep perfectly well over on that side at both her place and mine. Most of that is because I feel extremely comfortable and at peace drifting off with her next to me, which is a good sign when you feel that from the start with someone... but that's another side tangent... Point: There's some "same old shit" that we like a hell of a lot in our lives because it's what we know, like, do all the time and are comfortable with. We're fine how we are, don't want to fuck with it, piss off if you think it's boring. But that doesn't mean that the other side of the bed isn't it's comfortable and could be liked as well. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted January 11, 2013 Author Report Share Posted January 11, 2013 To me it's the difference between great and greatest of all time. He can do this and still be great and even the greatest at what he did. It's such a high level we're talking about a lot of the time. That's an entirely different discussion, and I'm not sure where it goes. For example... Setting aside the notion that The Beatles are or are not the GOAT, let's do this by the assumption that they are. If all they did was Beatlemania Beatles, would they be the GOAT? That would be at the very least be: Albums: Please Please Me With The Beatles Hard Days Night Beatles for Sale Help Singles: "Love Me Do" / "P.S. I Love You" "Please Please Me" / "Ask Me Why" "From Me to You" / "Thank You Girl" "She Loves You" / "I'll Get You" "I Want to Hold Your Hand" / "This Boy" "Can't Buy Me Love" / "You Can't Do That" "A Hard Day's Night" / "Things We Said Today" "I Feel Fine" / "She's a Woman" "Ticket to Ride" / "Yes It Is" "Help!" / "I'm Down" Now let's say they do another five albums trying to repeat generally that same stuff because it was, to that time, The Most Successful Music Ever. I mean... they sold more shit in 1963-65 than anyone with that stuff. Their two movies were massive hits. They're tours were off the charts. They even could churn out a few more ballads like And I Lover Her and Yesterday, dropping some as singles. Of course that probably would run it's course as everything does, so declining popularity but let's pretend the "quality" stays at that level. Does that get to GOAT? Or do The Beatles need the path through Rubber Soul, Revolver, Pepper, The White Album, the failure of the Get Back Sessions and the triumph of finishing their careers with side two of Abbey Road*? Do they need single only releases like "Day Tripper" / "We Can Work It Out", "Paperback Writer" / "Rain", "Penny Lane" / "Strawberry Fields Forever", "All You Need Is Love" / "Baby, You're a Rich Man", "Hello, Goodbye", "Lady Madonna" / "The Inner Light", "Hey Jude" / "Revolution", "Get Back" / "Don't Let Me Down", "The Ballad of John and Yoko" / "Old Brown Shoe", and the single version of "Let It Be"? That's not saying that all of that is Great Shit, and even a Beatles Fan like myself thinks that they released some utter shit, some boring stuff, and some stuff that's Very Effective Pop Singles But God I'm Tired Of Them like "Hello, Goodbye" that is good business but eh. I think the Beatles don't have a GOAT shot if they keep doing 1964-65 over and over again. Even with something like Yesterday buried on Help meaning that it was a type of song they could mine for big money that they hadn't to that point... there's only so much they could do with that for another five albums and slew of singles. They needed Rubber Soul to open themselves up a bit. They needed Revolver to take them in entirely different directions. They needed Pepper to move themselves beyond just "Damn They're Successful" to "Wait... are they the GOAT?" And then after that to not completely fall on their face across another close to 90 songs they released after Pepper. I think in most broader forms of entertainment / art / performance, being static, even at a high level, is... well... it's niche. You're not the Greatest Writer Of All Time, but instead the Greatest Crime Writer Of All Time. Perhaps pro wrestling is such a niche itself that it doesn't matter. John * with the exception of one throw away song record by three of them in January Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted January 11, 2013 Report Share Posted January 11, 2013 It's also comparative. It's not just what they do but what the people directly in competition with them do. Ultimately, though. The issue is this. Not everyone will be equal in every ways and it's in the eye of the beholder what "weighs" more. Some people value certain aspects more than others. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveJRogers Posted January 11, 2013 Report Share Posted January 11, 2013 * with the exception of one throw away song record by three of them in January "I Me Mine" is a throw away song? I agree that if the Beatles had stayed in "Beatlemania" mode all those years and never evolved, they'd be remembered really by pop music nostalgia fans (fucking hell John would still be alive now that I think about it) much in the same way many Doo-wop acts have been looked upon since that genre faded with the rise of 1960s era rock and singer/songwriter stuff. BTW, something you forgot to mention is the wrinkle that sadly Bruce has added to his set, and that's the tribute to the late Big Man, Clarence Clemons in Tenth Avenue. And having seen Bruce in concert recently, there is a ton of differences between Bruce today and Bruce late 1970s-early 1980s. One difference is that Bruce was a lot more... well Triple H-esque in his "promos" if you will in between and sometimes during songs. I think that's where the length of concerts back in that era really comes from more so than his massive set lists. Just rambling on with stories and whatnot while a beat was being played underneath him (check out his live 75-85 box for perfect examples). Today he is more Flair-esque (for lack of a better example off hand). Throwing off quick quips and letting his songs tell stories more so than "20 minute promos" and really being more Baptist revival sermon-esque than a homily spewing minister. Same message about the Church of Rock & Roll, but different methods of spreading the good word. Point kind of being that a Bruce concert you saw 30 or 20 years ago, even with much of the same setlist, is not going to be the same Bruce concert you'll see today. Back to wrestling, I think in a way "you see one, you've seen them all" kind of in a way is trying to ask the promoters to keep the illusion that it's not scripted entertainment. Like "can we please ACT like this is a real competition." Other wise it's just the Harlem Globetrotters and Washington Generals every night. You're not there for the game, you're there for the Globetrotter's act. Yeah, you are at the wrestling event to see the stars, but at the same time, a mix of what happens in each match can be good for getting your entertainment's worth if you go to each house show along that current tour. It is a good topic though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted January 11, 2013 Author Report Share Posted January 11, 2013 * with the exception of one throw away song record by three of them in January "I Me Mine" is a throw away song? At the time? Of course. They thought so little of it that they didn't do a studio version until they saw it was in the first cut of the movie, so they slapped together a recording in the new year. They thought so little of it that when redoing the album two decades later, they left the length at the Spector edit length rather than returning it to it's original shorter version. Granted, John and Paul didn't generally think much of most of George's songs. Even All Things Must Pass got a long working over, and they made some attempts at Apple to record it, but it pretty much went nowhere. I Me Mine didn't even get that: it was something that George was noddling on, attracted the attention of the director when putting the film together, and they felt the need to record it. That's a throw away. They put more effort into Only A Northern Song, which was a throwaway... and ridiculously more effort into Not Guilty, which was literally thrown away. I agree that if the Beatles had stayed in "Beatlemania" mode all those years and never evolved, they'd be remembered really by pop music nostalgia fans (fucking hell John would still be alive now that I think about it) much in the same way many Doo-wop acts have been looked upon since that genre faded with the rise of 1960s era rock and singer/songwriter stuff. Probably. On the other hand, that 1963-65 run was so huge, and assuming that the "next five albums" were a moderately slow decline, they would have been remembered as a huge band. It's also reasonable to think slow decline in success on given the item mentioned early: Yesterday was a soundtrack side 2 for them, not even thought of for a heavy push. But it *did* get a heavy push in the US, all the way to #1. So if they kept doing the same old stuff that made them successful, one would expect another Yesterday in them, possibly one that intentionally decided to put more effort into and push. Also, those last two singles that I listed for the Beatlemania era: "Ticket to Ride" / "Yes It Is" "Help!" / "I'm Down" This were pretty advanced relative to what they were doing in 1963. One could easily see them doing a With The Beatles / Beatles For Sale type of album in later 1965 (8-10 originals + 4-6 covers) along with a fresh semi-Double-A single (like "I Feel Fine" / "She's a Woman"), then going into 1966 to cash in with a 3rd movie and a soundtrack for it. Drop off the "We're bigger than Jesus" comment by John, given the ability of John and Paul as pop-song writers at the time, they probably could have had as succefull of a late 1965 into 1966 as the really did. It's possible that some of those songs might have come into being anyway: "In My Life" as John trying to do his own "Yesterday", "Michelle" wasn't a massive advancement for Paul, "Nowhere Man" continues the "I'll Cry Instead" and "I'm A Loser' and other downbeat songs that John did. Maybe they also come up with "Paperback Writer" as the single leading into the 3rd movie (like "Can't Buy Me Love" and "Ticket To Ride" before it... they tended to get really inspired for that single). But instead of the Real Beatles wanting to experiment (in more ways then one), the Mirror Beatles focus instead on raking in the cash... and at some point hit the wall as the rest of music passes them by... at some point. My guess is that there would have been enough there for people to think of them as "greats". But they never would be in a GOAT discussion, other than folks pointing to no band ever being bigger at their peak. BTW, something you forgot to mention is the wrinkle that sadly Bruce has added to his set, and that's the tribute to the late Big Man, Clarence Clemons in Tenth Avenue. I didn't want to touch that one with a ten foot pool, but since it's brought up... * I thought it was a heartfelt tribute to Clarence and Bruce's heart was in the right place. * I thought that Bruce made a mistake by putting it well into the last song of the night. The crowd was generally burned / tired at that point. It was a long concert, and say 10-15% had left after Born To Run / during Santa Claus. They had been on their feet for much of the encore, and frankly the two songs before it and the minute or two before the Main Set List and the Encores... a shit load of clapping, yelling, stomping and bouncing around DEEP into a show. We'd also had a number of "Clarence moments" earlier in the show, which the crowd responded to. So the tribute came, it was looooooooooong, it didn't really build but instead was a consistent vibe across the pictures, Bruce let it play out but generally indicated that we were expected to clap through the whole thing... it... Was the heart in the right place, but just not thought out. :/ Maybe it played AWESOME in other crowds, but in mine it should have been a 1/3rd or so as long and/or placed earlier in the show and/or had a build/momentum towards it where every second picture spurned the crowd on. Hence why I've ducked it. It's hard to write all that about a tribute to the Big Man. I also can't imagine what it would be like to have been in 5 different crowds where they all felt as tired, drained and almost ready to drop when the tribute came on... and feeling it was forced. :/ And having seen Bruce in concert recently, there is a ton of differences between Bruce today and Bruce late 1970s-early 1980s. Bruce was different during the various legs of Born In The USA tour from what he had been in the Born To Run and Darkness tours. It's one of the great things of having those full concerts available now (along with assorted youtube clips) in addition to all the boots that have been around for years. You get to see Bruce evolve as a performer even in a decade. But of course Flair was "different" in some ways in 1989 from what he'd been in 1979. But we could still point to his Born To Run and Thunder Road and Badlands and Promised Land and Rosie and Jungleland spots, and agree that while there might be slight shadings over time (such as Ric perhaps not putting as much effort into setting up the figure for as consistently and strongly as in the past)... in the end, it's still the Figure Four, and Ric tended to overall work it the same way: * get kicked off in the ass a few times * get it on eventually * use the ropes for leverage * have the face reverse it and do even more damage to Ric than the F-4 did to the face The were flavorings in there: * sometimes the ref would see the rope leverage and break the hold * sometimes the face would put the F-4 on Ric and do even more damage than Ric's But that's kind of like Bruce doing the Piano-Only version of Thunder Road rather than the Full Band Version... or sometimes start with the Piano-Only version that transitions into the Full Band Version. Those of us that have seen him a fair amount and/or seen a fair amount of video and/or have some boots, we've all heard/seen those variations so they're not really all that different anymore: they're the general ways that Bruce does Thunder Road. One difference is that Bruce was a lot more... well Triple H-esque in his "promos" if you will in between and sometimes during songs. I think that's where the length of concerts back in that era really comes from more so than his massive set lists. Just rambling on with stories and whatnot while a beat was being played underneath him (check out his live 75-85 box for perfect examples). I think when people count "concert length", they count the promos. Where the extra length came from was: * that long intermission between two Main Sets I could swear that the ones at the end of the BitUSA tour were 40 minutes, always between splitting between Thunder Road and Cover me. There are no splits of the Main Set into Two Main Sets. * encores It seemed like we had to clapp our ass off for longer back in the old day as the band went backstage to take a break. They also might have split up the encore multiple times, with a clap between each segment (rather than song) of the encore. I don't think Bruce was as big of a pain in the ass about this as other folks, but pretty sure it was longer than now. Now... he didn't seem off for more than a minute. It was really quick. And it was straight through: he didn't go back after Born To Run (which would have been a natural false finish break in the encores) only to come out and do two more songs. The show I went to was about 3:20 long. I suspect that if we range the length of the BitUSA shows, cut the intermission to just a "between songs clap" length, and then cut the space between Second Main Set and Encores down to the same clap length as I saw with no breaks in the Encores... I suspect that there weren't a ton of old shows going much longer than 3:20. This guy has done good analysis of long shows: 12/31/80: Uniondale: 3:42:33 (the legendary record) 10/02/85 Los Angeles: 3:39:18 (I was there!) 06/07/12 Milan: 3:38:31 (not quite the #2 people thought at the time) 06/17/12 Madrid: 3:45:32 (the new record) 07/31/12 Helsinki: 4:04:47 (the Bob Beamon of Bruce shows... + there also was the 33:16 "pre set") So the 3:20ish that I saw (which would probably drop into the 3:15+ range if analyzed) was a long show. If you read his post on the Milan show where he walks through other long shows, a heck of a lot of them have some in the past few years. Bruce is really going long. Setting that aside, I agree that Bruce has cut back on the old Triple H promo... which frankly he did a hell of a lot better than Trip. I miss having a good one of those a show, and some smaller ones as well. Today he is more Flair-esque (for lack of a better example off hand). Throwing off quick quips and letting his songs tell stories more so than "20 minute promos" and really being more Baptist revival sermon-esque than a homily spewing minister. Same message about the Church of Rock & Roll, but different methods of spreading the good word. Very true. Pretty much the case since the Reunion Tour. Point kind of being that a Bruce concert you saw 30 or 20 years ago, even with much of the same setlist, is not going to be the same Bruce concert you'll see today. Totally agree, and that was one of the points. The other point was that within the context of that section of the specific leg of that specific tour, Bruce does have structure to his shows. He has songs he does every night, and "spots" he does every night. Many of the non-repeat items actually are part of their own structure that happens every night, like Fan Selection. Which in turn means that the hardest of the hardcore Bruce fans who go to multiple shows during the tour can get bored or tired of the same old show. Tour-to-Tour? More variance, but there remains some common things. Decade-to-Decade? More change. But I also can't think of a great deal that was different in Born To Run than the first time I saw it live. He's older, the band is bigger, if I were to listen to an 80s version next to a 2012 version, maybe I'd pick out differences... but the "feel" of the performance is the same. So there is change, and he has his warhorses that pop the crowd. Back to wrestling, I think in a way "you see one, you've seen them all" kind of in a way is trying to ask the promoters to keep the illusion that it's not scripted entertainment. Like "can we please ACT like this is a real competition." Other wise it's just the Harlem Globetrotters and Washington Generals every night. You're not there for the game, you're there for the Globetrotter's act. Yeah, you are at the wrestling event to see the stars, but at the same time, a mix of what happens in each match can be good for getting your entertainment's worth if you go to each house show along that current tour. I think the problem that's hit in the Very Recent Modern Era is that we're seeing a lot more matches between the same people. It makes it easier to see the sameness. Let's say it's 1987 and what we in Los Angeles were getting of Flair: Inglewood, CA - Great Western Forum - December 29, 1986 Dusty Rhodes & NWA US Champion Nikita Koloff defeated NWA World Champion Ric Flair & NWA TV Champion Tully Blanchard Inglewood, CA - Great Western Forum - January 29, 1987 NWA US Champion Nikita Koloff defeated NWA World Champion Ric Flair via disqualification Inglewood, CA - Great Western Forum - March 19, 1987 NWA World Champion Ric Flair defeated Barry Windham Inglewood, CA - Great Western Forum - April 22, 1987 NWA World Champion Ric Flair defeated Brad Armstrong Inglewood, CA - Great Western Forum - July 6, 1987 NWA US Champion Nikita Koloff & the Road Warriors defeated NWA World Champion Ric Flair & Lex Luger & Arn Anderson in a steel cage match Inglewood, CA - Great Western Forum - September 23, 1987 NWA World Champion Ric Flair fought Ron Garvin to a no contest Inglewood, CA - Great Western Forum - November 16, 1987 Ric Flair & NWA US Champion Lex Luger defeated NWA World Champion Ron Garvin & UWF Heavyweight Champion Steve Williams Inglewood, CA - Great Western Forum - January 21, 1988 NWA World Champion Ric Flair defeated Michael Hayes I went post Starcade '87 to include the late December 1986 match, and then added the Jan 1988 match since we didn't get a December 1987 card. There's a variety of Flair Opponents. We don't get Ric facing the same challenger twice, and instead the double dips get pit into tag matches. The "variety" comes from Ric's opponents, and it probably makes it less easy to catch on that Ric is doing a lot of the same shit against everyone. Even if he is, you're happy with Barry kicking his ass like Nikita was. Is it different in the areas like the Mid Atlantic where Ric worked more often? They got to see full cycles of feuds between Ric and Barry or Ric and Garvin (along with the Jimmy Garvin match we didn't get). Perhaps the repetition sinks in more in that setting. Then we get to the point where Ric's PPV matches start happening, and more TV matches like the Clash, along with what you're seeing at the arena. It starts to stand out a bit more. Then you get to Us - batshit crazy collector fans. We just don't have Ric's matches from 1987, but those from 1986 and 1988 around it... and loads of other stuff. We have it from different promotions when he was touring, we have some handhelds, we have stuff from Japan. We have a lot. Which makes it even easier to see all his performances of Born To Run and Thunder Road and Badlands and Promised Land, etc. They're great spots... but one can see a fan getting tired at some point. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MJH Posted January 11, 2013 Report Share Posted January 11, 2013 No one, in any form we might care to discuss, is so versatile as to completely re-invent themselves tour-by-tour, much less night-by-night. If you were to break down every Miles Davis solo ("he'd turn around and look completely different", etc...) you'd find lines/licks/progressions/"tropes" that carry on throughout his entire career. In wrestling, it's rare for a guy/girl to have two/three separate, different runs (Eddy's the first to come into my head), much less several. Besides, if a guy did Lucha one night, shoot-style the next, "WWE" the next, "King's Road" the night after, maybe a Zenjo-style match to round off the week, maybe a comedy match on the Saturday matinee shot to take a rest, what would we even make of it? (Ignoring the fact that a guy/girl with such a mindset wouldn't make it far in wrestling because they'd be running to their own drum and catering to themselves and their own desire, not the crowds, and would therefore cease to be booked long before they'd ran out of styles/spots to do)... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted January 13, 2013 Author Report Share Posted January 13, 2013 It's possible that Bowie came close to reinventing himself over a fair number of years. That doesn't mean that you weren't going to get a similar version of Major Tom across a lot of those tours from the 70s into the mid-80s. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnny Sorrow Posted January 13, 2013 Report Share Posted January 13, 2013 It's possible that Bowie came close to reinventing himself over a fair number of years. That doesn't mean that you weren't going to get a similar version of Major Tom across a lot of those tours from the 70s into the mid-80s.I saw him during the Glass Spider tour where he reinvented himself into the most boring concert I've ever been to. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted January 16, 2013 Author Report Share Posted January 16, 2013 I liked the Glass Spider tour as the equiv of a "Greatest Hits" tour with the added feature of having a popular album (and some recent hits) to support. For long time hardcore Bowie fans? No. But for people who generally liked him, or recently liked him, and never could make out the goofiness, it was solid. Quality backing band as well. But in a sense, Bruce's Reunion Tour was a semi-greatest hits / greatest war horses tour, with a little sprinkling of Tracks stuff in there since he didn't really have a new record to pound. It might not have been as thrilling as some earlier tours, but seeing him with the band again had value and was fun. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ohtani's jacket Posted January 23, 2013 Report Share Posted January 23, 2013 Watched an old Robert Mitchum movie tonight where he gave the standard Robert Mitchum performance. Reminded me that nobody worked the same match night after night more than old-school Hollywood actors. There were exceptions like Lon Chaney, Sr. and Paul Muni, but by large I think the old adage about stars and actors doesn't even really apply to the actors in the studio days. May have been a result of the star factory, but even guys like Kirk Douglas who tried their damnedest wound up getting pigeonholed. Casting probably had a lot to do with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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