JoshuaLogan
Banned
I saw the same show in Atlanta this past Thursday and i must say that for my third time seeing AAL I was pretty disappointed. The first time was great but I am beginning to get sick of Naveen's drumming. It seems a little flashy and sort of steals the spot light from the guitars. During On Impulse in the beginning when Tossin has his guitar intro Naveen would not stop wailing on the hi-hat. It stole the attention from the guitars completely for me. Not only that but nearly all his parts seem improvised which upsets me seeing that I know the original parts so well. Aside from a few other hick-ups in some songs it was still a great performance but definitely not the best I have seen them do. I still love you guys and look forward to hearing new materials.
Yeah... AAL were cool, but I have my fair share of complaints about the performance too. Tosin was kinda sloppy here and there... Don't get me wrong, he's clearly a great guitarist, and he nailed some riffs, and his little jam session with Circa was very cool, but some stuff was noticeably sloppy. No big deal. There's no need for intense criticism. I know nobody is a robot who plays perfectly, but I was just expecting him to be cleaner.
I also think the Axe-FX guitar tones were kinda bad sounding... the distorted guitars sounded plasticy and honky, and their FOH mix wasn't very clear or all that great sounding... I also really think they could benefit by having a bassist. IMO, they had the worst sound of the night, BUT all of that is just nitpicking. Tosin's music is great, and he and the other members are all great players. Hopefully the criticism doesn't come off sounding too harsh.