Moody Blues Concert Tours From the 80s in aohio

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1. Sounds like Hayward is going through the "Lennon" syndrome. Ignore or minimize some of your greatest contributions.

2. very possibly - like shedding an older musical 'skin' in order to move on and away as very much his own solo artist

   I get the impression that Justin seems keen to 're-invent' himself now as an acoustic flavoured soloist fronting a small group for more intimate shows and 'distance' himself from all those years of being the public 'face' and chief voice of The Moodies notably in the 80's / 90's etc

   maybe as the band increasingly became essentially their own 'Tribute act' Justin found himself imprisoned and creatively unable to move ahead - for all his 'bigging up' the eighties onwards he might have grown fed up doing the same old nostalgic thing etc..

   clearly Justin and John seem to have grown apart

   and now John very much wants to keep The Moody Blues flag flying in addition to his own solo works fronting a 'Moodies style' concert band who include a number of latter era Moodies touring group musicians

   Hopefully both Justin and John will keep their respective recording careers going which is the best we now can hope for

   and while unlikely now maybe in the future a reunion even if for a 'Blue Jays' thing is not entirely out of the er 'question'

3. I prefer the path John is taking over Justin's. At least John employs a drummer.

4. Totally agree.Hayward is the better musician by far but his shows are rather tedious without drums-which we know he now hates- and almost exclusively acoustic apart from a few licks-Blue Guitar being a priceless exception.Trouble is the acoustic slant renders so many great songs unplayable.No The Voice,English Sunset,Gypsy or Story in Your Eyes,although he plays the latter acoustically.I really don't like his keyboard sounds either.Julie Ragins plays so quietly and the keys on Wildest Dreams are just horrible-like a tinny Yamaha.Yuck!.The Moodies sound is based on that layered strings/Mellotron -that depth that is sadly missing.But Justins voice is still outstanding-probably the best of his 70 + peers.

   Its sad by comparison to see(although I love them!) ELO with a number one album,BBC specials, sell out gigs.ELO have sold 50m albums-The Moodies 70m plus.They are more than capable of doing a great new album that would attract attention and they could easily sell out the Albert Hall for 3 nights.But Hayward seems to want nothing to do with it.He comes over as a very detatched fellow these days.

   At least John is releasing material and playing with a great band.John also has a great positive attitude.It sounds like the Moodies.!Hayward will end up like and old crooner if he isn't careful.Such a waste of a supreme talent. and exceptional songwriter and one of the great voices of modern music.

5. Time Traveller, I'm glad you brought up the ELO comparison. I think about that a lot, as these are my two favorite bands. I don't know that the Moodies could pull off what Jeff Lynne has thankfully been able to do in recent years - as you said, he just hit #1 in the UK with his new album, and he's been selling out 20,000 seat arenas in the US, to say nothing of Wembley in the UK. The Moodies, with their more contemplative, "serious" sound are a bit of a harder sell.

   That being said, you're totally right that even now they could make a great album if they wanted to! Hayward & Lodge's most recent solo albums prove that. If they each contributed 5 good songs, and had Edge supply a poem and/or a tune, there you go. It's always been a big shame to me that they quit recording 20 years ago (I personally don't count the xmas album). Another one of my favorites, Alan Parsons, released a new album this year, along with a music video or two and tour dates to support it. I love Alan, but he was never as big a name as the Moody Blues. Point being: if he can do it, they can do it. They just don't want to. Or perhaps it's only Hayward that doesn't want to.

   If he and Lodge toured as "Justin Hayward & John Lodge of the Moody Blues", or "The Blue Jays featuring Justin Hayward & John Lodge of the Moody Blues", that would at least be a satisfactory ending to their long careers. I'm assuming they'd have to get the permission of Edge (who surely is done at this point) if they chose to go out under the name Moody Blues.

   Last edited: Nov 18, 2019

6. The other issue I have with Hayward's show is that almost all of the lead guitar playing is done by his other guitarist. As good as he may be, I didn't come for him. I want to see Justin play, but he mainly sticks to strumming, occasionally some finger picking.

7. I saw Justin a couple of years ago and I have to admit I enjoyed it more than the Moodies "by numbers" show I saw a few years before. He seemed more engaged and I enjoyed hearing his stories. I have a lot of respect for him giving up the easy paycheck being a Moody for something he believes in and we should respect that.

8. The thing is, I went to his show a few years ago as well, plus he's put out two concert DVDs already. And at least those were all in the wake of a new album. Now that it's been nearly 7 years since his last album, the show feel kind of played out and "by the numbers" at this point.

9. That's his own doing, then. Nothing was stopping the Moodies from making new music except the Moodies themselves, and playing the kind of theater venues they often did, they certainly could've mixed up the setlist more, even if they still couldn't play a large amount of new material.

   Looking at the setlist from Hayward's last solo show, he literally played one song from his entire solo catalog (along with two 44 year-old Blue Jays tunes), and 12 or so Moodies tunes. A few deep cuts but nothing the band itself didn't play occasionally ("The Actor," "Voices In The Sky," etc) that would've been unfamiliar to the larger Moodies audience.

   If he's fed up being a nostalgia act, he doesn't seem to be acting like it, even though he's 100% calling the shots now and playing the kind of small venues suitable for risks and artistic evolution.

10. So disappointing, and why I don't bother attending Justin's solo shows anymore. No rhythm section, and essentially the same moldy setlist the Moodies played for the last 30 years (minus John's tunes).

    Last edited: Nov 18, 2019

11. When I last saw him he was promoting tne Western Sky album so there were five songs from that, plus two Moodies gems I have never seen them do (You Can Never Go Home and Watching & Waiting), plus Forever Autumn which the Moodies don't do. So I would have preferred a band, but it was a very satisfying setlist.

12. Hayward has added a flautist to his touring group.
    Adds a lot to the song selection.

13. I agree with your thoughts here.

    Justin seems to be a bit of a curmudgeon.

    He has mentioned that he likes their 80's era things the most .

    Is this partly because he was more in control with Mike out of the picture? Was this era more satisfying to him because Mike couldn't take any credit for the music?

    Ray and John worked with Mike again but not
    Justin.

    If Justin has grown apart from John as clearly seems to be the case, he probably just wants to play his own songs without dealing with John, two drummers, including Graeme doing his silly dance , and backup singers and all that goes along with playing out as "The Moody Blues" .

    P.S. John was in Chicago for a couple of shows a week or two ago so he appeared on the WGN morning news and played "Ride My See Saw".

    While I applaud his enthusiasm and respect his decision to keep working , their version of the song was a very pale tribute band sort of thing IMO.

    Last edited: Nov 18, 2019

14. He's been here a couple times, but I've never bothered, given the ticket prices. Not unreasonable, but expensive enough to where you're like "you can afford a drummer, dude."

    Maybe if the show was more of a deep dive, and he felt like he didn't have to play "Satin" or "Tuesday" and stuff, I'd have splurged. But I saw the Moodies once about 5 years ago, they were solid, and I'm set.

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15. Minor point, but the Moodies actually performed that one many times. It's even on at least one of their live CDs/DVDs. I always found it interesting that it was the one solo song that all the band members approved for the setlist. I wish Blue Guitar had made it in as well.

    Speaking of which, I do give Justin credit for dusting off songs that hadn't been played live in a long time after going solo. On the 2 DVDs he currently has for sale, along with the more standard Moodies tunes, you can find:

    It's Up To You
    The Land Of Make Believe
    It's Cold Outside Of Your Heart (from The Present - an album criminally ignored by the Moodies themselves)
    You Can Never Go Home
    Watching And Waiting
    I Dreamed Last Night (from Blue Jays)
    Blue Guitar (solo track that eventually made it onto the Blue Jays CD)
    Who Are You Now? (from Blue Jays)

    In addition, he has played these live in the last few years:

    Dawning Is the Day
    Haunted
    Never Comes the Day
    The Best Is Yet To Come (from the Moving Mountains solo album)

    I've seen him twice, the last time being in 2017, and I did enjoy hearing the less often played gems. And the songs from his 'Spirits' album were good too. I sure hope he's working on something new. As someone already pointed out, he's had long enough (7 years).

16. Do you know what tours this was done on? I've seen a bunch of latter day Moodies tours and not heard it, and can't find any recordings, including the Timeless Flight set. EVen the "Moody Blues" versions on Youtube seem to be the solo studio track.

17. It's performed live on this DVD, or the CD version. However, I suppose it is questionable whether the Moodies actually do it, since I have the DVD and John and Graeme take a break while Justin performs it with the backup musicians. But I've seen them in concert many times over the years, and I want to say this wasn't always the case. I think at some point they did perform it as a full band?

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18. The last time I saw them in concert was roughly a week after that concert at the Greek Theatre on the DVD. They played the same set list except they did not perform Forever Autumn. I think it may have been an extra song they played for the recording of the DVD. I think it was also performed between their 2 sets as they always take an intermission.

19. Solo, yes, as far as personnel, but released as a Hayward/Lodge single hence why it was later included as a bonus track for Blue Jays CD.

20. Possibly.

    I would guess that he or any artist touting their more recent stuff over their older stuff makes them seem more current. Ironically and obviously though, the 80s were some time ago.

    I first saw the Moodies on the LDV tour. I was 15 and pretty much the youngest person there. I have seen them numerous times since, the most recent being around 3 years ago.

    I have remained the youngest person at these gigs.

21. If it was ever played on the Moodies it was probably on the Octave tour, when the song was still a current hit. I saw the tour but memory fails, and the only recording I know is the King Biscuit one which doesn't have it, but that's incomplete.

22. setlist.fm lists at least 17 performances of the song between 1991 and 2005. Whether all of those were just Hayward, it doesn't say.

23. Louder just posted a pretty nice article about the Moodies. I learned a few things I didn't know, such as Legend of a Mind being a leftover track from Days of Future Passed. I wonder if the interview comments (from Hayward, Lodge and Pinder) are new or archival. And I do like how Justin thinks of his time in the Moody Blues in retrospect:

    "It's like a room in the house that only I go into. I exist as a different person in that room. It's where all of those songs and this other person live. All of those songs were about that room and the things that happened in there with the band. There's colour and light and imagination, childhood wonder, love and peace – this whole fantasy world."

    The Moody Blues: stories of nights in technicolour satin and LSD | Louder

24. Nice. Thanks for linking this article.

    There's always a nugget or two of interesting information when Justin and John are interviewed.

25. And that John Lodge wrote Tuesday Afternoon:

    "Days Of Future Passed was the launch pad for The Moody Blues' career. The state-of-the-art recording highlighted the band's delicate harmonies and quality songs, two of which became worldwide hits: Lodge's Tuesday Afternoon and Hayward's Nights In White Satin. "

    

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