The Daily Swarm

real rock-n-roll.

sad and mildly pathetic. seriously gentlemen, this is your job... you dont know your own lyrics? i see this all the time, too much to be honest, and find it endlessly depressing...

or you could do what Paul Westerberg does... get loaded, forget your set list and lyrics and have the audience sing it back to you... which is also endlessly depressing but sans, prompters... so a tad bit more credible.

welcome to the Guitar Hero generation people...

thats cause if they know its being taped they wouldn't do it on purpose to people wouldn't find out, genius.

Guns 'N Roses did the same thing 17 years ago. So what?

engma, you apparently don't know much about Perry Farrell.

Old? Check. He's 50.

Drugs? Check...and check again.

The pictures not from a Janes show anyway there, smooth guys, it's from PFs 50th birthday. Anyway, who the fuck cares.

Actually, bands have been doing this for years. G 'n' R did it back in their heyday. Most big bands then, and now, are and have been doing it, so this isn't anything new, really.

It does seem a little odd for someone in Rock to require assistance from a teleprompter. Although in many other genres such as Jazz and Classical it's quite acceptable to have a music stand in front of you with sheet music and all... I think what the deal is with a lot of these guys you see with the teleprompter is age. I'm 42 and I've been singing in cover bands for 20 years (I know, what a loser...) and I have found that now, in my midlife, it's much harder for me to memorize lyrics, even to songs that I've listen to for 30 years. I used to have no problems at all remembering 50 songs a night. Now I really struggle with it and I'm sure a lot of these big name guys have been too. As you get older your memory isn't as sharp as it once was. I also have a hard time remembering the structures of the songs (how many verses, where the guitar solos and bridges are etc.) So the teleprompters are not just for lyric purposes. I keep a binder full of lyric sheets in front of me leaning against my monitor on the floor. I don’t need it every ten seconds, but once in a while I’ll need just the first line of a verse to get me off and running and I’m good. So it’s good for me to cheat a little so I don’t ruin the whole song just because I’m having a brain fart. I guess the bottom line for me is that it’s not as easy as you would think, remembering all the things these musicians have to remember. Some people are just blessed with better memories than others and that doesn’t make the teleprompter guys any less the musician / singer.