Mike's Gid

I hate when songs are recorded with these amazing drum beats but then the drummer completely disregards this for all future live performances.

Case in point: Watching the Detectives by Elvis Costello.

Steve Goulding provides this stable, simple yet engrossing piece of reggae styled drumming that persists throughout but keeps your interest. But listen to any live recordings, watch any old tv clips on YouTube and all you'll get is a standard 4/4 rock beat with some annoying tomtom rubbish. Pete Thomas ruined that song for me.

Even worse is when the beat is ruined by the very same drummer who recorded it in the first place.

In this case I'm talking about Phil Selway of Radiohead. Radiohead have this great song called Reckoner, which was released on their latest album, In Rainbows. Reckoner has this consistent, yet slightly unpredictable new-alt beat which makes the song, especially the intro an unavoidable listen.

However, I went to a Radiohead gig recently. As brilliant as it was, the absence of this beat, replaced by a similar yet all too straightforward mashup was unmistakeable and jarring. Hoping this was just a fluke, I looked up live performances, even professionally recorded ones on YouTube. All the same.

Fair enough it's your song, do what you want with it, just realise when you're making a good thing less so.