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August 19th - Crowded House are listed as musical guests on The Late Show with Steven Colbert here in the U.S. - presumably another pre-recorded performance from Roundhead.

Wow. Colbert is the number one US late show right now, bigger than the Tonight Show, over 3 million real-time TV viewers which is as big as it gets these days (and millions more watching on YouTube, of course). Maybe it will be prerecorded, maybe not, Colbert went back to in-studio taping recently with an audience. Still a great bit of exposure for the band. Easily the most high-profile TV appearance for Neil in a really long time.

@slowpogo posted:

Wow. Colbert is the number one US late show right now, bigger than the Tonight Show, over 3 million real-time TV viewers which is as big as it gets these days (and millions more watching on YouTube, of course). Maybe it will be prerecorded, maybe not, Colbert went back to in-studio taping recently with an audience. Still a great bit of exposure for the band. Easily the most high-profile TV appearance for Neil in a really long time.

Colbert having an audience is not the complicated bit, it's getting all of CH in New York at the same time.

@slowpogo posted:

Neil's guitar is seemingly strung backwards on "To the Island," thicker strings on top. Anyone know what that's all about? It's like he's playing a left-hand guitar but right-handed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAgOE8iqlgI

Optical illusion! The light is being reflected from the (clearly new) unwound strings highlighting them. The thicker wound strings are all present in correct position for a right-handed player - you can see this if you focus on the area between the nut and the tuning peg on the headstock, and the chord shapes appear standard.
Few guitarists play with the strings reversed and any I’m aware of (Albert King is probably the most prominent example) do so because they are left-handed (as I am) and they learned how to play on the only instruments available to them which were right-handed, without restringing them.

@slowpogo posted:

I'm not totally convinced. DDIO was filmed in the same conditions but his Gibson does not show the same "optical illusion."

In order to achieve total convincement that Neil hasn’t decided to make playing his signature song 1000% more difficult to perform after almost 40 years - pause the Colbert performance of DDIO at 1:15; look very closely at the thickness of the guitar strings (if you play guitar start with looking at the chord shapes- first dead giveaway) then come back and tell us all that his trusted Les Paul Gold Top is strung upside down (which will only work if the nut is modified or inverted) and I’ll buy you a beer in the next city we both attend a Finn performance in.

@slowpogo posted:

I think you misunderstood. I do not think it’s strung upside down in DDIO. It looks normal. I’m wondering why, if an optical illusion makes it look upside down in To the Island, it does not do the same in DDIO.

As initially mentioned: a fresh set of unplayed unwound strings will reflect light.  Consider that Neil’s Les Paul may not be sporting a brand new set of strings for this performance. Setting aside that he’s clearly not inverting ANY of the chords needed to play DDIO which destroys the discussion 2 seconds into the performance - do you really want to continue to argue a flawed point? You DID go and pause the performance at 1:15 as I suggested in my initially polite response, right? I’m happy to play bull**** tennis with you all day, all night and I’ll buy you 2 beers now if you’re right, but you aren’t - over and out! He should have played that ****ing accordion!!

Last edited by The Ligature

lol dude, you still misunderstand. I do NOT think the strings are inverted in DDIO. Reread if you want. It’s fine. Neil does write songs in weird alternate tunings sometimes, and he has the trickster spirit, so it’s not implausible he might do such a thing (on To the Island). When we have more live footage of To the Island, we’ll know for sure. Until then… #InvertedIsland 😎

Last edited by slowpogo

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