OK - quick check of 'Ceremony' on the other 1980 gigs:
Blackpool, Hoboken & Boston feature all three of them splitting the lead vocals, with them singing the same bits as they do at Hurrah’s.
I’d presume that the three other pre Gillian gigs (Beach Club, Brady’s and Tier 3) would be the same too, but we don’t have bootlegs of these.
(I’ve heard reports that the Beach Club gig was all instrumentals, but that seems unlikely for 'Ceremony', as lyrics had been written (by Ian) at the time, albeit mostly indecipherable).
As regards the remaining (post Gillian) 1980 gigs (The Squat, Rotterdam and Rochdale), it sounds like Bernard had completely taken over lead vocals on ‘Ceremony’ (although The Squat bootleg is quite murky so can’t be sure). This would make sense, as Gillian would be picking up a lot of the guitar parts, leaving Sumner to focus on the vocals.
The only other track I can think of where vocals were shared live was ‘Cries And Whispers’, with Steve and Hooky singing lead on the track, at different bits.
Generally speaking, in the early days, Hooky sings the unfamiliar bit (i.e. the bit that makes up the majority of the Hurrah’s performance and doesn’t make it to the studio version), whilst Steve sings the more familiar ‘assassin clears his lens’ style lyrics.
This is the case at Scamp’s and during most of the US tour (well, according to the three surviving bootlegs).
However, at Hurrah’s on the tour, they dropped the Steve bit.
My only explanation for this is that they may have found it difficult to replicate following their equipment being stolen not long before this gig, especially in such a short space of time, with limited equipment. Maybe, later in the tour, they were more confident or better prepared to include it.
They also included this bit at The Squat gig in October 1980, after they return to the UK.
However, by the time they get to Rotterdam in the December, the track has changed a bit (to how it sounds on the Cargo demo), with the gruff, shouty Hooky bits being refined into something a bit more melodic. The whole song is sung by Bernard at this point. This is the way that the song remains until it is phased out of the setlist in early 1981.
As far as I know they never performed it like the studio version; ‘live’ it always contained that additional bit.
Talking of oddities, I just finished reading Steve’s book last night and was pleased to see that he makes reference (albeit small) to the very rare track ‘Hour’. As far as I know, that track was only ever played once, at the previous gig to the Hurrah’s one (at Maxwell’s, Hoboken). Steve speculates that it was sung by Hooky. I concur; it certainly sounds like Hooky on the bootleg.
I can kind of see why it was dropped, but it seems strange that they only played it once.
Maybe, with a bit of work, it might have been pretty good.
Edited by user 18 June 2019 13:00:40(UTC)
| Reason: Just to make it clearer that I was talking about 'Ceremony', not other songs...