Wondering about the vocals for the tour

[LeaveMyThingAlone]

So ever since the big announcement, I’ve been going back and watching various videos of concerts from the last few tours including the R40  tour. I have to say I’d forgotten how much juice Geddy had lost with his voice in spots. He was doing his best but he just couldn’t hit a lot of the notes - some songs worse than others.

Soooo…..here we are 10 years later with Geddy Lee at 72 years old about to embark on a major tour tasked with singing some of the most challenging rock songs ever written to sing. 

 

How in the world is he going to pull this off???? Geddy has mentioned having a separate musician on stage possibly for keyboards, but I really hope they have someone for backup vocals. I don’t want him to be way way off 
 

im so excited. I’ve got tickets in the 8th row for the first show in LA. I really love these guys and want so much for them to kill it up there. I’m just wondering about Geddys voice holding up for so many shows - anyone else?

[treeduck]

Geddy's voice is shot so he's going to be doing death metal and black metal style vocals instead. It'll be fine don't worry.

[J2112YYZ]

This might sound kind of strange since he's a decade older now but perhaps the years off from touring have helped his voice to get in better shape. He hasn't worn it out with touring so it's possible that he could have regained some vocal ability. I hope he's seeing a vocal coach who can help him out. Obviously he will never hit those super high notes again but I don't think he would agree to tour again if he wasn't doing the right things to keep his voice in decent enough shape.

[Sir Lerxst]

I think it's possible that we'll get more songs detuned to Eb or D tuning to ease up on some of the high notes.  Particularly on R40 he started to sing some of the melodies a little differently (Anthem springs to mind) to avoid or limit time in some of the higher passages too - and I noticed this in the Taylor Hawkins shows too - I suspect there will be some of this too.  Also - between 2007 and 2015, they toured for 7 of the 9 years in that period and recorded an album - and admittedly he was starting to sound a bit tired towards the end of that.  Perhaps a 10-year break will have done some good.

 

I don't think they'd be coming out on tour if they believed that Geddy's voice has deteriorated to a point where he could no longer do the songs justice.  

[losingit2k]

Geddy hasn't sang for a while his vocals should be good to go! 

[TheAnarchist2112]

8 hours ago, J2112YYZ said:

This might sound kind of strange since he's a decade older now but perhaps the years off from touring have helped his voice to get in better shape. He hasn't worn it out with touring so it's possible that he could have regained some vocal ability. I hope he's seeing a vocal coach who can help him out. Obviously he will never hit those super high notes again but I don't think he would agree to tour again if he wasn't doing the right things to keep his voice in decent enough shape.

this doesn't sound far-fetched at all. Again, like I've said before, I don't think that they would go back on tour if Geddy felt that he needed a different singer. Part of the reason why his voice sounded bad (sometimes) on R40, was because they had been touring almost non stop since 2010. 

Also, remember how Geddy sounded on the VT tour? He sounded great, probably because he had 5 years off. I don't think 1997 Geddy could've sang By-Tor like he did in 2002.

[TheAnarchist2112]

5 hours ago, Sir Lerxst said:

I think it's possible that we'll get more songs detuned to Eb or D tuning to ease up on some of the high notes.  Particularly on R40 he started to sing some of the melodies a little differently (Anthem springs to mind) to avoid or limit time in some of the higher passages too - and I noticed this in the Taylor Hawkins shows too - I suspect there will be some of this too.  Also - between 2007 and 2015, they toured for 7 of the 9 years in that period and recorded an album - and admittedly he was starting to sound a bit tired towards the end of that.  Perhaps a 10-year break will have done some good.

 

I don't think they'd be coming out on tour if they believed that Geddy's voice has deteriorated to a point where he could no longer do the songs justice.  

yes exactly!!

[James Bond]

I don't think anybody has to worry about a singer that isn't Geddy. At best, if the keyboardist can sing, perhaps the backing harmonies will be performed live instead of triggered. It will 100% be Geddy handling all lead vocal duties.

 

I think R40 was a bit of a mixed bag vocally - and not always as negative as retrospective criticism has been. For one, I don't think the official release does him justice as, based on my excellent bootleg of it, he sounded better the first night in Toronto (despite all the technical mishaps that led to the choosing of the second night for the main feature). The same was true for much of the tour. Listening back to various gigs, there were some nights that were worrying and others where he sounded totally fine. At least as good as the previous tour. With R40, it didn't help that the back half of the set relied heavily on early material which has been a struggle for him longer than just the post-2002 tours.

 

He sounded good for South Park and Taylor Hawkins, even if those were only for a couple songs each. The bigger concern will be age, the amount of shows, and the stamina of singing again for extended periods. However, I have no doubt that he will put in all the necessary work.

 

He's no stranger to adjusting vocal melodies and tuning down when necessary. Personally, I think they could do the entire set a half-step down and most people wouldn't even notice. That would ease things up for him even on the songs he has no trouble with. Nevertheless, I think the more likely occurrence is that the usual early songs will be tuned down a full step (like 2112 - although it was nice to hear it in standard tuning again at the Hawkins shows), and the rest he will re-adjust some vocal melodies and stick to a good warm-up and exercise routine. I'm positive he's not going to go out and there after the hype and not deliver. He'll do what he needs to do.

[TheGhostRider]

57 minutes ago, James Bond said:

I don't think anybody has to worry about a singer that isn't Geddy. At best, if the keyboardist can sing, perhaps the backing harmonies will be performed live instead of triggered. It will 100% be Geddy handling all lead vocal duties.

 

I think R40 was a bit of a mixed bag vocally - and not always as negative as retrospective criticism has been. For one, I don't think the official release does him justice as, based on my excellent bootleg of it, he sounded better the first night in Toronto (despite all the technical mishaps that led to the choosing of the second night for the main feature). The same was true for much of the tour. Listening back to various gigs, there were some nights that were worrying and others where he sounded totally fine. At least as good as the previous tour. With R40, it didn't help that the back half of the set relied heavily on early material which has been a struggle for him longer than just the post-2002 tours.

 

He sounded good for South Park and Taylor Hawkins, even if those were only for a couple songs each. The bigger concern will be age, the amount of shows, and the stamina of singing again for extended periods. However, I have no doubt that he will put in all the necessary work.

 

He's no stranger to adjusting vocal melodies and tuning down when necessary. Personally, I think they could do the entire set a half-step down and most people wouldn't even notice. That would ease things up for him even on the songs he has no trouble with. Nevertheless, I think the more likely occurrence is that the usual early songs will be tuned down a full step (like 2112 - although it was nice to hear it in standard tuning again at the Hawkins shows), and the rest he will re-adjust some vocal melodies and stick to a good warm-up and exercise routine. I'm positive he's not going to go out and there after the hype and not deliver. He'll do what he needs to do.

This is a really good analysis. I think people tend to overly criticize R40 and Geddy's vocals. Did he sound strained? Sure that's a fair criticism. Was his singing awful? I don't think so. I was re listening to the live show recently and it's not nearly as bad as people make it out to be imo. I remember Geddy sounding good on the one R40 show I saw in Austin. Maybe I just got really lucky for that show. I had the same thought as J2112 in regards to the tour. Geddy's voice sounded rougher because they toured nonstop in the past ten years. Now that he's had all this time off, and he's only played very sporadically since then, I think he's going to sound really good. I don't think that we'll get Vapor Trails or R30 vocals ever again, but I think Time Machine era vocals are absolutely possible. 

[blackhawkrush]

17 hours ago, treeduck said:

Geddy's voice is shot so he's going to be doing death metal and black metal style vocals instead. It'll be fine don't worry.

We are not entertained...    

[treeduck]

18 minutes ago, blackhawkrush said:

We are not entertained...    

[blackhawkrush]

5 minutes ago, treeduck said:

His hair's not short enough for De Niro.   

Edited November 6 by blackhawkrush

[treeduck]

11 minutes ago, blackhawkrush said:

His hair's not short enough for De Niro.   

[blackhawkrush]

10 minutes ago, treeduck said:

Come on, Halloween's over.   

[treeduck]

7 minutes ago, blackhawkrush said:

Come on, Halloween's over.   

[blackhawkrush]

30 minutes ago, treeduck said:

I bet Kimono's next.   

[thizzellewashington]

It's a real shame they released the show they released from the R40 tour because Geddy sounded AWFUL that night. By far the worst he's ever sounded on an official release. But I saw them twice on that tour and he sounded great.

 

I definitely have some concerns about how he'll hold up vocally (much more so than the new drummer, I'm 0% worried about her, she'll do great) but I also think Geddy wouldn't agree to do this if he didn't think he could do it well.

[treeduck]

42 minutes ago, blackhawkrush said:

I bet Kimono's next.   

[blackhawkrush]

8 minutes ago, treeduck said:

Rob Halford. Pleasant surprise.    

[treeduck]

11 minutes ago, blackhawkrush said:

Rob Halford. Pleasant surprise.    

[blackhawkrush]

5 minutes ago, treeduck said:

Don't do any writing. I wanna guess these.    

[treeduck]

17 minutes ago, blackhawkrush said:

Don't do any writing. I wanna guess these.    

[blackhawkrush]

4 minutes ago, treeduck said:

Rod Stewart. That's one for me.   

[treeduck]

6 minutes ago, blackhawkrush said:

Rod Stewart. That's one for me.   

[blackhawkrush]

3 minutes ago, treeduck said:

That's a tough one, but I know the guy on the right is Tom Atkins.