is every (PF) live version of trial a prerecorded vocals tape? the only different performance of it is on the first night of the wall (7th february 1980) but other than that night all the other Trials sound the same too me, was it too hard for roger to perform it every night so they prerecorded it?
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that was pretty avant-garde, wasn't it? -
8th feb is live too -
February 7 and 8 were live. I honestly don't know why they pre-recorded the vocals since Roger did it very well on 7th and 8th despite being a difficult song to sing.Last edited by Edufloyd; 09-23-2023, 04:04 PM.Comment
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But that's exactly why they added it. Compare the entire 7th show to the entire 8th show, Roger's voice is completely gone on the 8th. Those two shows did more damage to his voice than all of 1973-1981 alone. Roger's voice was so gone on the second night that David had to fill in for the last verse of Hey You and the Judge in The Trial. Despite the decision for playback, David's lines ("Call the Schoolmaster/Call the wife/GO ON JUDGE, SHIT ON HIM!") were all done live for the entire tour. David even volunteered to do the Judge on February 25th 1980 and February 16th 1981. No idea why, but he did.Originally posted by Edufloyd View Post
Choosing to do playback for the rest of the tour was a very wise decision. The playback is made up of recordings Roger did in the studio before the tour. Another thing they introduced as playback was the teacher laugh. It was never done live (though Roger tried on February 12th lol) but it doesn't exist in the first few shows, and they made it longer as the tour went on (until London 1980).Comment
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I never knew David covered for Roger in Hey You. I've just listened to it and it's great!Comment
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Another thing that nobody seems to have pointed out is the fact that (at least if I remember correctly), there is no playback of the children singing Another Brick Pt 2 on the second show (8th February 1980), instead Roger and Gilmour repeat the verse themselves. In addition, there is no playback in Waiting for the Worms either - Roger does the first speech live with no backing track while the second speech is omitted altogether.
Which is odd considering that the children tape was used for the first show, as was the tape for both of Roger's speeches in Waiting for the Worms (the first speech was admittedly done live with the vocal track playing in the background rather than lip-synced, but the backing track is clearly there, while the second speech was full playback as far as I can hear).
Does anybody have any idea why they didn't use the tapes for Another brick and WFTW for that particular show? Could it be that it was a technical issue, and that something went wrong with those tapes after the first night or something, considering that they were used both on the first night and all later shows? Omitting what some might consider a defining element from a #1 single for one single night comes off as a weird choice, particularly when it happens that early in the tour.
I find these early The Wall shows quite interesting because there is some variation that appeared to disappear in the later shows. I love the extended Last Few Bricks with the long jam, as well as Rick's extended intro on The Thin Ice, etc. The later shows were more rigid, but the earlier shows showed some level of experimentation. And of course there are obviously the incidents where things go wrong, e.g. fire on stage and all that.
Btw to what extent were pre-recorded vocals used on other parts of the original The Wall shows, in addition to The Trial and Waiting for the Worms? I know that Roger sings live along with a pre-recorded track on Bring the Boys Back Home and Stop as well, at least on later shows (e.g. on that film from Earls Court 9 August 1980 it is very obvious). It also seems to differ to which extent or at all Roger's live vocal was heard during The Trial; if I remember correctly there is at least one show (I can't remember which, but probably one of the early ones) where it is more like BTBBH and Stop, where you can hear both the playback vocal and the live vocal throughout the entire song, not perfectly in sync with each other, and it sounds a bit weird. In others (such as the aforementioned 9 August performance) it's a mix between live and playback on the choruses, while the live feed is gone on the verses. And there are others (e.g. that last The Wall show in 1981) where I can't hear any live feed at any point in the song, not even on the choruses. And wasn't the whole intro to Is There Anybody Out There, including the vocals, pre-recorded as well? It turns out that those shows used a considerable chunk of pre-recorded vocals. Maybe there is even more? Has anyone investigated this in detail?Comment
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The only songs to ever feature vocal playback of the band members in the entire tour are ITAOT?, Vera, Bring The Boys Back Home, Worms, Stop, and The Trial. As somebody who has listened to every show — that is available — of this tour at least twice, I can tell you that there is no playback on other songs. Reminder that I'm only including vocals of the band members, not stuff like the kids in Brick 2, the teacher laugh, Harry in Blue Sky, etc. -
Thank you, you've really done your homework on this. So Nobody Home is live? I always thought the vocals on the live album sounded a bit studio-recorded, and I also found it likely that they would probably do that for technical reasons, considering that Roger was in a "hotel room" a few meters up from the ground, but I may be mistaken (I have not researched this like you have).
I found it a bit surprising that Vera was playbacked though. It's far from one of the most challenging songs on The Wall vocally, and Roger has done it live as recently as 2018. Were the pre-recorded vocals on the aforementioned songs, except The Trial, used from the start of the tour, or did they start to do this as the tour went on? On the first night, there is a technical failure at the start of Vera in which Roger's vocals are inaudible at the very start, and when they come in he sounds slightly out of tune. In addition, I can't hear any doubled vocals (in contrast to e.g. Earls Court) on Stop either. -
ILuvHoney My bad, I didn't mean to include Vera. Vera never had playback vocals from Roger. And yes, Nobody Home was always live. Stop didn't have the playback vocals immediately but Roger did love to sing on top of it for some reason sometimes. Roger had a weird habit during that tour of singing over himself in stuff like Worms and the Trial, even if the playback was working. No idea why.
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