rascal – Member
Nickc – clearly I can’t count
Backing singers aren’t uncommon but what I meant was why do they need an extra instrumentalist?
They should be able to replicate the studio sound with the usual set-up surely.
When a band play multiple instruments during the recording of an album, which ones should they play when doing it live?
Many musicians will play several different instruments during a song, sometimes at the same time, (3 being the maximum I’ve seen*), but extra musicians are needed to fill things out.
Goldfrapp are a duo, but they have regular studio musicians who also tour as Goldfrapp, and Elbow have gradually added extra musicians as their touring set-up, for the additional strings and brass that would otherwise have to be recorded or keyboard samples. Mellotron, anyone?
Some bands manage just by playing loud, like Blood Red Shoes who are a duo, and Honeyblood, a duo on LaLa’s 6Nusic show today were asked exactly that, as they have extra musicians in the studio, and they said, at the moment, they’ll just play louder to fill in the gaps!
I really don’t see how it matters, it’s up to the artist how they present the music, and if they can afford to tour with a couple of extra people, who might have worked in the studio anyway, then great.
* Katzenjammer are brilliant for that, all the girls are multi-instrumentalists, and continually swap instruments on stage.
