Drum Solos Blow!!

I can count on one hand how many drummers I'd love to hear a drum solo from. Chad Smith. Bonzo. Neil Peart.. Moonie, maybe. Sorry Tommy Lee. Okay, maybe Phil Collins back in the day. If this sounds like one of those typical 'radio content' driven ideas, it's not. A drummer confirmed what I've thought for many years after many concerts: Drum solos are dumb. Roger Taylor of Queen had the balls to throw this out on Queen's You Tube series: The Greatest in honor of their 50th anniversary. In episode #39 Rog flashed back to the 70's where a concert wasn't complete unless there was a drum solo somewhere in the middle of it. Whoever came up with that apparently didn't understand mob mentality. The mob gets restless in their seats when drummers spin off into their solo bit, hell, even the rest of the band leaves when the guy behind the kit commandeers the show. Taylor says after noticing the exodus from the venues to the restrooms and hot dog stands, he never wanted to play another drum solo again. I saw too many of them throughout my concert going days including Judas Priest at the Toledo Sports Arena, punctuating a song by surging their light banks to the bass drum thumps until it tripped a circuit breaker for the entire neighborhood of the Sports Arena. My Dad, working for Toledo Electric Illuminating at the time was called in to coordinate the blackout. All fun and games 'til the mob mentality switched from boredom to fire. The drum solo wasn't directly to blame, but Roger Taylor is 100% correct. It's just drummers showing off. And it's boring. So, lemme know where you're at on drum solos. I have yet to see tickets selling to a show that's just a drummer, so I think I'm right, but I'm willing to hear your arguments for or against. Hit me up here.


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