It’s really become a thing for bands to go on tour to play their classic albums from start to finish (e.g. Death Cab, Postal Service). When did this start? I found this 10-year-old Reddit thread which mentioned Weezer, Green Day, and The Pixies. Anyone?
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Discussion 40 comments
When the Decemberists released "The Hazards of Love" (which was a rock opera), they did it on tour and they played the whole thing start to finish: https://jambands.com/news/2017/04/20/the-decemberists-play-hazards-of-love-in-its-entirety-at-brooklyn-steel-finale/
Not full tours but Pitchfork Music Fest had full album shows at least as far back as 2007 with Sonic Youth (Daydream Nation), GZA (Liquid Swords), and Slint (Spiderland).
Piggybacking off this, I would say the org All Tomorrow's Parties started this trend with their "Don't Look Back" series, of which this show was a part of (and I too was at).
https://www.hotels-innewyork.com/en/dontlookbackconcerts.html
I've seen Liz Phair for Exile and the Breeders for Pod this year, and I am positive it's a much bigger money generator than if they just toured sans gimmick. I have friends that would never see Weezer (at least again) that are considering going to the Blue Albums shows this year.
I was just coming here to chime in on Slint in 2007. They played Spiderland from start to finish at the show I saw at Bimbo's in SF. It was great! Also fun to see was a teen who was very into the band, who was there with his mom. Cute.
As a 90s kid, I was witheringly critical of bands doing their reunion tours. My parents dragged me to see the Eagles "hell freezes over" show and I went on and on with my soapbox vindication.
I have let sentimentality get the better of me more than once as a full-grown music lover, most recently by a post-mortem Yo La Tengo.
Mostly I think bands are the best the first time around.
I think the difference between our parents' generation and ours is that their reunion concerts were all about dropping $100+/ticket—for the nosebleed section—to see blockbuster acts like the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, and the Stones.
The current album-in-its-entirety trend is a) tied to anniversaries of the releases and b) cash-ins for smaller bands that never made much money. In the past couple of years, I've seen The Lemonheads perform It's a Shame About Ray, Liz Phair doing Exile in Guyville, and the Violent Femmes playing their self-titled debut. All shows were in smallish clubs, not arenas, and tickets were well under $100. These aren't bands that had long lists of hits over a number of albums. They're ones that recorded individual much-beloved albums that can be enjoyed with feeling like they've left something out.
Imagine the Stones performing Exile on Main Street, generally regarded as their critical peak, and omitting the really big songs that aren't on that album, like Satisfaction, Paint It Black, and Start Me Up. Some Boomers would be fuming that they didn't get to hear their greatest hits. But again, that's a mainstream mega-act vs. indie darlings.
I've come to terms with this. At some point, the biggest artists become their own cover band. Billy Joel has been doing "greatest hits" for 30 years. The Who has been constantly recycling Tommy and Quadrophenia for 30 years. For a while, I felt that this was artistic fraud, but then I realized: These people are trying to make a living. Billy Joel is plying his trade, and if people like to go hear the hits again and again, and they are willing to pay for it, so be it. I don't have to go. A lot of these artists don't want to be in the T-shirt business, which is what it takes these days to scratch out a living in music. So if they can play a bigger venue and get a better draw by playing through their hit album, who am I to complain about how they make a living.
The first I went to was in 2007 when The Wedding Present did a tour to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their debut album "George Best", playing the whole album each night. They did the same again for the 30th anniversary.
Roger Waters toured the full Dark Side of the Moon album back in 2006, that might be the first one I remember. New Order and Peter Hook have both toured New Order albums
I saw the Roger Waters tour in Budapest in 2007.
Another thing is tribute performances of entire albums. I think there was one for The Beatles' White Album in Australia several years ago.
There's also a couple of guys doing live performances of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells album, which was famously a massively overdubbed recording by the creator.
I was so incredibly happy to go to the recent Postal Service / DCFC tour. What an amazing experience. Those albums were right in the wheelhouse of my formative years and so I connected with them deeply. Being able to see them performed live, now, was a gift I never would have thought possible.
Lots of discussion and examples on the Mastodon thread for this post.
Marillion played all of "Misplaced Childhood" in album order during their '86 tour.
Springsteen was doing it some in the 2000’s I think.
I think Ben Daubney called it on Mastodon, the modern trend started with the "Don't Look Back" concert series kicked off by All Tomorrow's Parties in 2005.
But my personal favorite example was one I was lucky enough to attend: Elvis Costello performing his 1977 debut, My Aim Is True, cover-to-cover live with Clover, his original backing band on the album, for the first time ever. It was a benefit show at The Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, and it was tremendous. After tearing through the album (it's just over 30 minutes long) and its b-sides, he brought out his old notebooks and started playing songs from 1977 he'd never played publicly before. Amazing.
Yeah, came here to post something similar about ATP / Don't Look Back and noticed the Ben Daubney toot. It was definitely a big thing in the mid-late 2000s.
I called it here first 😉
That Costello show sounds like an absolute dream.
Just as an influence on these others, perhaps, Phish has often covered whole albums (by other bands), for their Halloween or NYE shows. The internets say they started with The Beatles' White Album in 1994. I couldn't determine if they've covered their own albums or not.
No idea when it started but I love it. modest Mouse’s 25 year anniversary tour of The Lonesome Crowded West was an extremely enjoyable experience for me, but straight up cathartic for much of the audience that were fans when it came out in ‘97.
The Shins did that for their Oh, Inverted World album recently. It's a trend I've enjoyed for sure.
Okay, this is really showing my age, but I think this came out of a bit of a trend in the 70s with some bands playing an entire album - I think Yes did Tales from Topographic Oceans as a concert (I haven't checked that on Google, so I'm not sure it's accurate.) But the one I do remember very well is Genesis' last tour with Peter Gabriel, where they mounted the entire Lamb Lies Down on Broadway and that was all they played. So I'm gonna call that one the granpappy of them all. It was a great show, by the way - in my part of the world at the time it was at the Shrine Auditorium in downtown LA.
I'm headed to see The Magnetic Fields play 69 Love Songs next month!
Me too, later this month. Saw the whole album when they toured it back in 2000 too… it’ll be fun to see again.
I saw this tour over two nights at the Old Towne School in Chicago in 2000! One of the best shows I’ve ever seen.
> I'm headed to see The Magnetic Fields play 69 Love Songs next month!
Me too (in October anyway)! I'm really excited about that one. I'm also seeing Typhoon play White Lighter later this month for the 10th anniversary of that album.
Prior to the previously mentioned Roger Waters tours, the post-Waters era Pink Floyd played Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety during the 1994 Division Bell Tour.
Face to Face is doing Triple Crown shows (three back-to-back nights of their first three albums). I believe it started during COVID as online shows to raise funds for a local performance space but now performing live shows this way. Gimme those deep cuts!
I doubt it's the first, but it may well be the best - The Cure's trilogy in 2003 was a note by note performance of Pornography, Disintegration, and Bloodflowers. Great concert video.
Tegan & Sara did this with The Con on its ten-year anniversary several years back; I'm sure they didn't start the trend but I think it did get a lot of their base out to see them. (Including me -- I was less into the pop turn they took afterward, though my kid really liked it, so taking her to see The Con was a good compromise.)
I absolutely hate this trend so, so much. I like to hear the new stuff! I love to hear fresh takes on old songs! But when an artist plays an album start to finish it just makes me unspeakably sad-- trapped in amber but still alive and struggling.
Actually, when done well it's interesting to hear the band's take on the album after the passage of time -- things change and they change and when the tour takes that into account it can be a good concert.
On the topic of new stuff -- I went to see Peter Gabriel last year, and he mostly did songs from his new album (which was always clear if you'd done any reading on the tour beforehand), and the people around us were NOT happy. They were clearly only there for the '80s hits. He could have done So straight through and that would have made them happy (though he'd have probably lost them on the deeper cuts).
I guess it’s for the hardcore fans? I wasn’t really into it but I just saw that Air is playing Moon Safari and, man, I listened to that album straight through so many times. It would be cool to hear it live.
My wife fondly remembers that Air album and they’re coming to play it at the Sydney Opera House but the idea of hearing it live decades later doesn’t align with the nostalgic memories, so it’s a pass for her.
We saw Semisonic in 2017ish and they played Feeling Strangely Fine start to finish. The show was great (of course) but it was kinda weird that Closing Time was played first when it's obvs better suited as an encore. I repeat, still a great show!
I think that people like to relive the past, what felt meaningful when they were young.
I remember many years ago taking with some musicians who were reasonably successful playing live covers at a big club here. And they said they thought that the audiences were excited to hear something that they knew and had heard many times before, that it was a reaction out of familiarity rather than an artistic/energetic experience.
So bringing back the old hits unlocks memories and associations from fans’ youth, which often touches them on a deeper level because of how they interact with music.
Tldr-artists make more money because it’s easier to market and more people show up.
I remember seeing Supertramp perform every song from their Crime of the Century album. This was on their last tour with Roger Hodgson still a a member. I don't think it was in order, and I think they interspersed other songs. That was in 1983. One of the best concerts I've been to. Those guys were top-notch musicians.
I know Steely Dan did a tour where they played an entire album at each gig. I think that was 2019.
And The Who has done this with Tommy and Quadrophenia. I saw them perform the latter in 1997.
Belle & Sebastian did a live album in 2005 of If You’re Feeling Sinister but that was out of necessity - the original mix is a mess and they wanted to release a more definitive version. It does sound much better!
Think this was also part of the Don't Look Back series, but I have never heard or read anything about it being considered the definitive version.
They Might Be Giants have been doing album shows since at least 2000, when they did a "Flood show". They later released the recording of the show to subscribers to their TMBG Unlimited subscription service, which they had partnered with the pre-iTunes mp3 buying service emusic.
Since then they've done shows where they play other albums (their self-titled debut, Lincoln, Apollo 18, and many more Flood shows).
Typically they don't just go up on stage and play the whole album in questions straight through, but rather play all of the songs at some point during a longer concert.
Came here to say TMBG has been doing this the longest. I've seen the Apollo 18 and Flood shows, early 2000s.
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