Quote:
Originally Posted by btpeters
Went to DMBc for the first time in a long while. It appears people have ALREADY turned on AFTW? Good Christ, this place is amazing.
Calling The Riff "horrible" and "sucks"? I think its clear now people only want songs that have already been recorded and played before they were ever able to go to shows.
Ridiculous
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I saw that thread a day or so ago and laughed as well. Especially at the part where the one poster said something like “nobody who saw those songs when they first were played would say AFTW is better” and then had his ass handed to him by people who felt
exactly that way. I think in some ways, people are just nostalgic, and I think there is a nostalgia that is particularly strong for people who didn’t actually experience something first hand.
You hear people on this site say that it will never get better than the early days. And on some levels that is true. No one was burnt out, there weren’t many jaded fanboys following the band, shows were more intimate and the band was still growing into the monster that they are now. But at the same time, if people are fair, when you listen to those tapes the band is pretty unpolished, the guys aren’t as proficient at their instruments as they are now (minus maybe Boyd) and a lot of the songs lack the sophisticated execution that they have now. For my money most of the songs that are still being played today have grown into better versions of themselves than they were in the early days.
I think this nostalgia goes for specific songs as well, especially the ones that only had a tour or so of play. Sugar Will was a total bore as far as I am concerned when it was played in 04. People around me loudly yelled rude stuff at the stage as that intro just dragged on and on, people talked, no one paid attention. I really don’t think it was that great a song. Joy Ride is fun, but for a site that constantly complains about overtly political and uncreative lyrics, it doesn’t get much worse than that one. Hello again is great, but not
better than the great songs on AFTW.
As I have listened to it more and more, I really think AFTW is amazing. But I will say again, I don’t think you can really latch onto it unless you are close to where the band is developmentally. DMB is at its best when lyrics and music all mesh up, emotion of the lyrics riding the emotion of the musical composition. You can’t truly appreciate The Riff unless you are able to touch the things that those lyrics talk about. You can’t be 20 and truly appreciate:
“Funny how time slips away/ lookin at the cracks creepin across my face/ I remember the little to kid livin in here/ He’ll be livin here probably till I’m dead/ Please don’t leave me baby/ Please don’t leave me yet”
There is a longing in the musical composition that matches up with the longing in those lyrics. At 20, you are still a kid (no offense you 20ish year old creekers), I don’t think you can appreciate that sense of seeing age when you look in the mirror but feeling youth in your bones. Of grasping onto some portions of your youth and not wanting them to slip away.
The riff is a fucking brilliant piece of song writing. But you aren’t going to put it on at a kegger. You aren’t going to go out and rage to it. It’s reflective; it’s whiskey and your wife by a fire. It’s about changing and letting go and finding a way to grow into your age without losing everything you love about your youth. And the way that song slides right into Belly Full is amazing, musically, emotionally and thematically.
/rant
Damn Whippersnappers, where’s my tapioca.