Well I've been thinking about this for ages, and especialy since project revolution started... Ever since QWERTY & the LPUv6.0 CD leaked on the internet I became in awe of the live tracks. Whether it was the quality,the mixing, the venue or even just Linkin Park's performance, There was somthing about them that was eaons better than the rest. their vocals sounded flawless and what impressed me the most was the guitars (which probably gave qwerty the powerfull feel that we all fell in love with). Very evident in the heavy tracks, Brad sounds so much better than he did... well, ever! For example, listen to the live version of "Faint" on Live in texas THEN listen to the Summer Sonic version on the 'What I've done' Single.... You can tell how much better it sounds! same with "From the Inside" and "Numb" (which leaked on the next somehow) At first I thought just the quality since 2003 had improved so much all the live track would be recorded in this way. That why i was a little dissopointed with the project Revolution Cds - which sounded closer to LiT rather than SS. Maybe I'm digging to much into this but I'm just curious why the SS sounded so good compared to the rest! QWERTY lovers would agree with me!
As far as QWERTY goes, I think it sounded better in 2006 because it was a brand new song and fresh in their minds (they had JUST written it during rehearsals for the Japan shows). When they brought it back out on PR07, they had since recorded the studio version of QWERTY, which was a substantially different arrangement, and it sounded like they had some trouble figuring out how to play it live again. It was kinda like they couldn't make up their minds if they were playing the old live version or the newer studio version. The proshot recordings of Summer Sonic that exist (Numb, From the Inside, Faint, Breaking the Habit, QWERTY, Reading My Eyes, and Pushing Me Away) could also have been edited. In fact it's well-known that there was editing done to Pushing Me Away, as Chester screwed up the lyrics in the first chorus which is clearly audible on the audience bootleg of the 8/13 show, but he sings it perfectly on the LPU CD and the MTV Japan broadcast. But there was some editing done to the Projekt Revolution live audio as well, so that shouldn't have much to do with it. I think LP just rehearsed really extensively for Summer Sonic, being their first headlining shows in a year and a half. Another thing to consider, a lot of LP's live sound relies on Brad's guitar tone, and he's been using a completely new rig since Minutes to Midnight came out, but he was still on his old rig at Summer Sonic. His old setup ran through a Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier and a Marshall 1959SLP head into 4 Mesa Boogie 4x12 cabinets. Big, ballsy guitar tone comes from those kind of amplifiers. Since MTM though, with all the various amps Brad used to record the album, he had to find a more versatile rig, so he's now running through a Randall stereo power amplifier into 8 MTS preamp modules that model the various sounds of different amps Brad uses on different songs. He's also only running one 4x12 cabinet now as opposed to 4. His rig is more versatile now, but overall his tone is noticeably thinner than it used to be.
Honestly, while I think Chester's voice sounded a bit cleaner during the Meteora cycle, I'm starting to appreciate the way they sound live now. Save for a few choice tracks, Live In Texas just sounds tired and drab to me. I'm starting to prefer they way they sound now... less polished, more spontaneous (and just more rocking in general). Summer Sonic '06 was the best performance of QWERTY yet, but I think thats because it has that kinda "first new song we've played in four years" type of energy (which Astat mentioned) that'll likely never be replicated. Overall, I still think they're one of the better live bands around in mainstream music.
Ah nice one guys for clearing that up for me (what with the sneaky editing of the tracks etc) Even though the projRev version of QWERTY is cool, it no were near meets up with the orginal live version. its a shame they can't play it like that again It'll be great if they realeased the whole set of the Summer sonic show(s) just so we can hear how good the other songs sounded like. One thing i don't get though Astat is that if Brads used the old Amp arrangement for the summer sonic, how come it doesn't sound nothing like LiT? Which listening to it now is tired and drab as [Tim] says.
I think at the time Live in Texas was recorded, Brad was only using the Mesa Boogie amps and hadn't added the Marshall head to his rig yet. Most of Brad's distorted sound from 2004-2006 came from the Marshall, but before then he just used the Mesas. Not sure on that though... Another big factor, and I'm gonna probably get some flak for saying this, is that I wouldn't be surprised if Live in Texas went under a good amount of studio reworking. I think the drum and bass tracks and all of Joe's stuff sounds pretty normal, but I've heard some bootlegs of other shows on the Summer Sanitarium tour and Brad's guitar tone was pretty drastically different from how it sounds on Live in Texas, and the vocals on LIT sound a lot more perfect than they did at other shows on that tour. I'm not gonna go so far as to say LP pulled a Kiss Alive and basically re-recorded the entire thing in the studio, but I'd be pretty surprised if they didn't do some touch-up work. I mean, it's not like LP hasn't edited live tracks before, they overdubbed a spot on Pushing Me Away from Summer Sonic where Chester messed up the lyrics, and there's even some editing done in a few spots on the Projekt Revolution 2007 live audio releases.
Hmm interesting theory, and it is the sort of thing LP would do. Well for a future release (a long time from now, probably after their 4th album) I hope LP will realease another live album that really captures the energy and power the summer sonic tracks did and with None of that drab and boring guitar tone like on LiT.
Nah, I'm not so sure about that. The thing is that all shows sounds different. Different place, different crowd, different sound. And you can't mean that they're singing perfect in that show either. I mean, listen to From The Inside. Chester sounds really really bad douring the verses. And almost all the other songs he is completely out of tune. Though I belive the overall sound is mixed in the DVD. All artists do that with their live DVD's. They mix the instruments so they have the perfect volume. There's nothing wrong with that, I wan't good qual sound when I've bought a live DVD. And I belive a couple of smaller patches have been added to Live In Texas. Like in Runaway. When Chester ends the chorus just before the bridge he has two voices. A screaming one and a singing one. There has been some editing there. But I think they left most of the singing as it was because it's too false to have been edited. Btw, off topic. When you're listining to Runaway go find Faint from the new KROQ show too. Listen to Mike's voice doing the second churos. He is growling: "I won't be ignored". Sounds so fucking cool, I wan't them to scream together on the next album