FEATURE: The Power Trio In Live Music

 They are considered the original soup for all types of rock music and were the initial solution for a successful band constellation, especially during the development phase of the same style in the 60s and 70s. Whether Rush, Cream, Jimi Hendrix, Triumph, ZZTOP or in the “newer” versions Police, Nirvana or Kings X and countless other formations, the power trio in the line-up, drums, bass and guitar, with one of the musicians also singing still takes over, was downright groundbreaking in its original form. What made and makes this combination so fascinating as a power trio and what problems do you encounter in live situations?

As little as possible and as much as necessary

I'm guessing the experiences that a normal musician has had over the course of their career in terms of starting a band, maintaining a band, or joining a band are probably as varied as the colors of a rainbow, so I'll be damned and attest to the fundamentals of this area. However, if you move back in time between five and six decades, when apart from instrumental amplifiers, microphones and possibly a vocal system, there were no technical advances that made the live situation easier in any way, you get a complete picture different perspective on the art of making music than today.

In addition, the area of learning music and instruments itself was limited to the immediate area around you, which you could only reach through direct communication. Blessed is he who lived in a city and not in the country. Otherwise you only had the option of putting the needle back on vinyl records countless times to the same point where the passage you really wanted to be able to play was and pressing around on the fretboard until a note sounded roughly in that direction tended to be what you heard on the album. Or you had another musician in your neighborhood or school who could do or knew exactly what you needed. Just a quick reminder: no internet, almost no music magazines, no advertising market, nothing, which means making music was a deeply subjective and personal approach.

For example, I still remember spending at least half a year of my life trying to figure out how Brian May makes the sound swell before the We Will Rock You solo and the sound just doesn't die down. I tried everything I could at home in my teenage room to recreate this effect, but I just couldn't manage it until I was in a rehearsal room for the first time and had to play at a very high volume. And lo and behold, the sound not only stood on its own and continued to vibrate forever, it continued to vibrate for so long that it became annoying again, and the next problem got in my way.

It was therefore very difficult to find suitable musicians for a band. Mind you, every sound that sounded back then had to be formed in some way with hands, arms, legs or fingers, not with the press of a key, certainly not with the click of a mouse, but really through manual work. Finding people who didn't fall below a minimum level on their instrument was relatively difficult, at least in my environment, which is why you quickly came to the realization that the fewer people you have in a band, the better the people can create the most voluminous sound possible. The easier and more practical it is to plan a band. Oh yes, three musicians of course earn more proportionally.

The functions of the individual instruments

It quickly became clear that without drums and bass you couldn't actually create anything that a.) you could move to rhythmically and b.) create enough volume in the lower registers. An interesting fact if you keep in mind that nowadays, at least in the pop and heavy sectors, almost everything is done to completely remove these instruments from the fans' field of vision, at least in the studio and to a large extent also live. At least the drummers can still stay in the live area due to the fact that they have the most attractive instrument on stage, but in some cases they have already been condemned to a large extent to stupid key-pushing of the backing tracks in the play and stop area and otherwise busy reproducing the beats that were programmed or played in the studio as best as possible live.

In the bass area it looks much worse, as guitars come suspiciously close to the actual frequency spectrum of the electric bass in the downtuning area or have even overtaken a regular 4-string.

And on the other hand, nowadays you can pump up a guitar sound to such an extent in terms of pressure and compression that you are grateful for every free frequency where you can still place the bass for the purpose of localization. Many bands already do without a bass player in the live area because, depending on the style and space, a concrete transmission is almost hopeless and you can achieve exactly the same results with a synthetically generated bass. Mind you, this doesn't apply to Earth, Wind & Fire and the whole Motown slide, but more to the area of hard and heavy, where everything is compressed to death ad nauseam both in the studio and in the live area.

The most important instrument of all, which hasn't been used yet, is the singing. One of the three musicians has to take on the lead vocals, and many bands probably have the problem that it is not the best singer or singer who has to take on this task, but rather the least bad singer or singer. He also has the thankless task of having to separate both his instrument and his singing with a kind of two-brain solution and treat them independently. Anyone who has tried this, especially as a bassist, when you have to play bass lines parallel to the vocal lines, which are diametrically opposed in interpretation, knows how much training is necessary for such a performance. For this reason alone, I can't imagine what it's like in the brain of Geddy Lee from Rush, who was able to expand this thing not only with vocals and bass, but also with a bass foot pedal and a keyboard at the same time. But that is another matter. As a result, many bands are forced to expand to a quartet, simply because the vocal performance of the protagonists is not enough.

OK, so let's assume that we have solved all of the above-mentioned problems, i.e. we have outstanding musicians who are very pleasant people, we have great songs and everyone fulfills exactly the part within a power trio that you want . However, the constant problem of a trio becomes apparent at the first guitar solo. There is a lack of volume because the lack of chord playing immediately causes everything to collapse. Of course, as a solution you can, for example, do the variant of the Canadian band Triumph, where the bassist briefly switched to the keyboard during a solo, played the bass with his left hand and delivered chords with his right hand. However, this assumes that the bassist is also a keyboard player, otherwise you have a fourth man in your luggage who you need for a fat sound.

Personally, I have actually only met a single band in my entire life that has probably presented the most perfect solution to chord playing within a band power trio. We're talking about the band Kings The same band, for example, has the opportunity to not only provide bass and drums in a guitar solo, but also to sing a two-part chord with the two remaining vocals, so that there is never a feeling of harmonic emptiness in a live concert. However, as you can imagine, such skills require a certain level of talent and an incredible amount of training, but they can be achieved.

The power trio 2023, a discontinued model or a sensible reduction to the bare essentials?

The computer has changed everything. Not necessarily a new insight when it comes to the Microsoft and Apple sectors, but I actually wouldn't have dared to dream that the entire music industry, especially its protagonists, would once be reorganized upside down. In principle, nowadays you no longer need musicians on a stage to deliver a good entertainment program. A perfectly implemented choreography with tons of dancers, plus lightning, thunder, fog, lasers, if you didn't see it, should be enough for a large number of music-loving listeners to have a nice evening. If you want to add a little more personality cult to the whole thing, you can also put DJ whoever on stage with a table and several pieces of equipment, who can then heat up the people a little and provide them with the appropriate animation.

To artistically combat this type of entertainment with the approach of a classic power trio is completely naive and, if at all, can only be generated in approaches with massive use of backing tracks. I don't want this article to be used as a pamphlet against backing tracks, I just think that if you use traditional tone shaping as it was invented a long time ago because there was no other option, that's how you should use your art form today. If you want to play in a power trio, you should only use pure craftsmanship.

One of the first bands to face this musical dilemma was the Texan trio ZZ Top, which brought a classic blues-rock trio performance without any frills to the stage until their high-flying commercial album Eliminator, but was then forced to to transport the album's massive use of sequences plus the programmed drums and various keyboards to the stage in some form. To this day, these musical creative phases polarize fans.


Quo vadis, trio?

The artistic realization of music has completely moved away from people as performers, and it doesn't matter how many people are on stage. I've seen jumping jacks on stage, jumping around the stage in Guitar Hero style with an unplugged compact mixer in their hand, twisting and tearing wildly on a mixer control knob and then dropping theatrically to the floor ultimate ridiculousness in its purest form. Therefore, when it comes to transporting musical information, today's technology offers all the possibilities to transport the whole thing in some technical form using sound waves, regardless of whether the sound is produced manually by a person or not.

However, what cannot be imitated, or rather cannot yet be imitated, is the human factor. The majority of listeners who are genuinely music-loving still come to a concert to see people. People who have technical skills and who, when interacting with other people, convey a sound that consists half of musical information and half of the human aura. Personally, I still see the use of a real power trio here, which, with extremely good craftsmanship, manages to make all other instruments seem obsolete.

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1. Motorhead: The British band Motorhead, consisting of Lemmy Kilmister, Phil Campbell, and Mikkey Dee, was known for its unique style blending elements of rock, punk, and metal.

2. Rush: The Canadian progressive rock band Rush, comprising Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart (until his passing in 2020), was renowned for its technically complex music and distinctive instrumentation.

3. Cream: Although they existed for a short time, the British trio Cream with Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, and Ginger Baker was a groundbreaking blues-rock trio of the 1960s.

4. Emerson, Lake & Palmer (ELP): An English progressive rock trio featuring Keith Emerson, Greg Lake, and Carl Palmer, achieving success in the 1970s.

5. The Jimi Hendrix Experience: While Jimi Hendrix was the most prominent figure, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, with Noel Redding on bass and Mitch Mitchell on drums, was a trio that left an indelible mark.

6. Primus: A U.S. band known for its unique blend of funk, rock, and metal. The lineup includes Les Claypool, Larry LaLonde, and Tim "Herb" Alexander.

7. Dinosaur Jr.: The U.S. alternative rock trio, consisting of J Mascis, Lou Barlow, and Murph, played a significant role in shaping the sound of the 1990s.

8. Wolfmother: An Australian hard rock band with Andrew Stockdale, Chris Ross, and Myles Heskett.

9. **ZZ Top:** The iconic Texan trio with a blues-rock foundation, featuring Billy Gibbons, Dusty Hill, and Frank Beard.

10. **Nirvana:** While primarily associated with Kurt Cobain, Nirvana was a trio that also included Krist Novoselic on bass and Dave Grohl on drums.

11. **Chevelle:** An American alternative metal band consisting of brothers Pete Loeffler, Sam Loeffler, and Dean Bernardini.

12. **Blue Cheer:** A pioneering hard rock trio from the late 1960s, with the classic lineup including Dickie Peterson, Leigh Stephens, and Paul Whaley.

13. **Muse:** The English rock trio comprising Matthew Bellamy, Chris Wolstenholme, and Dominic Howard, known for their progressive and alternative influences.

14. **Green Day:** The punk rock trio from the U.S. with Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt, and Tré Cool.

15. **Hüsker Dü:** An influential punk rock trio from the 1980s, featuring Bob Mould, Greg Norton, and Grant Hart.

16. **High on Fire:** A modern heavy metal trio fronted by Matt Pike, along with Jeff Matz and Des Kensel.

17. **Russian Circles:** An instrumental post-metal trio featuring Mike Sullivan, Dave Turncrantz, and Brian Cook.

18. **Kyuss:** A pioneering desert rock trio from the early '90s, with members including Josh Homme, Brant Bjork, and John Garcia.

19. **Triggerfinger:** A Belgian rock trio known for their blues-infused hard rock, featuring Ruben Block, Paul Van Bruystegem, and Mario Goossens.

20. **Earthless:** An instrumental psychedelic rock trio consisting of Isaiah Mitchell, Mike Eginton, and Mario Rubalcaba.