Quote:
Originally Posted by PenguinHead
I agree that 'In The Back of My Mind" would have been a great choice for an album opener. Yet, in my experience, it was a horrible choice as a show opener.
I saw several shows on that tour. While I admired their bold choice to start the show with a brand new, unfamiliar song (a deep album track!), it was a huge misstep to pick that particular song.
Picture an audience, minutes before they appear on stage; full of energy and excited in the anticipation. The band comes out and the crowd goes wild. What follows is a much too long intro which proceeds to consume all the energy in the room. When they start to play, the dirge-like pace of the song further lulls the audience into respectfu indifference.
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I saw them open with it...couldn't have been a BETTER opener...especially when they medley'ed it with "The Chain" (to me, an equally dirge-like opener...I guess they figured that in '90, a majority of their audience still was puffing on the local loco-weed when the houselights went down)...but, concert set pacing is a marathon, not a sprint. Otherwise, they'd just open with "Go Your Own Way" and then fail to keep the audience past the opener. (like Clapton mistakenly did during his '75 tour by opening his sets with "Layla")