Why do live reviews always assume the same tone of hyperbole?

The seagull, what would the seagull think as it swoops and soars above a usually empty courtyard, now full of drunk pale indie kids cooking in the sunset listening to ice flowing lava-like silkily through glacial netherworlds. Read also: the prettiest music being made on earth right now…

http://www.drownedinsound.com/articles/12673.html

Live reviews... agreed they're pointless. Who gives a toss? Anyway, one question - would you talk about the support act first or jump right in for the headline act and mention the supports later?

Live reviews are basically journalism, and likewise only really reward attention if something noteworthy actually happened.

...that make it a you-hadda-be-there urban legend.

I like live reviews. Sure, they can be subject to hyperbole, but no more than any other form of criticism. You could just as easily point to a DiS record review or news item and put it up for mockery.

I enjoy reading them - when they are well written - and I enjoy writing them. I prefer them when they have a sense of narrative, like a short story featuring the band. But this does take more actual literary skill than yr average reviewer posesses. When it's good, it's my favourite form of music criticism, though.

It's not just helping you make the decision to see a band or not, it also should be a little window into the entire experience. I think it's the most literary of music criticism forms. Which can be negative or positive depending on yr opinions on literaryism. And again, the skill of the writer.

i like them better than record reviews, or maybe I just don't like all the context and bullshit and efforts at dispassion people feel they need to put into record reviews. fat is trimmed, a concrete event is assayed and if a good time is had, i want to feel it, via exclamation points if necessary but good writing also welcome. there's just more grist for the mill so all things being equal it just makes for a funner read usually

That one article linked above, though, is pretty fucking terrible.

Silly rumours about a new direction toward the land of KoRn are mocked in the moments before the band come on stage.

Nothing tonight sounded like Korn ...

Why do they mention Korn twice in an article about Sigur Ros? Was nu-metal such a vital force in 2005 to pose a threat to SR's glacial netherworld?

And the writer's use of passive voice was mocked by armchair music critic two years after the band left the stage.

My current gig involves covering a lot of concerts, and while it's easy to fall into a very repetitive groove with how to set the scene and describe the venue/audience/crowd reaction, there are some things I like a lot about it, writing-wise. With record reviews, ultimately it's pretty easy for the reader to just listen to it themselves and ignore the critic, but with a live review, you're their eyes and ears for an event they weren't at and (presumably) want to hear about. Plus there's always a lot of stimulus to pick and choose from, weird details that never come to play when just listening to a record, and when you do focus on those kinds of non-musical things, it's not as much of a sidetrack or ripoff as if, say, you review an album and just talk about the cover art.