Y&T Mainman Dave Meniketti - "It’s The Crowd That Brings You Back Into It Every Time"Y&T’s new DVD Y&T Live – One Hot Night shows the San Francisco band in their natural habitat, the stage. Dave Meniketti and company blast through a hit-laden set to make up one of the best live recordings heard in a long time. The rock vets know exactly what their audience wants to hear and delivers it in a way that is both rocking and soulful.
Dave spoke with antiMUSIC’s Morley Seaver recently to talk about the DVD. Here’s an excerpt:
www.antiMUSIC: Was there a real particular reason why you chose the Netherlands or this area?
Dave Meniketti: Ah, really it was just because a person…we were flying to summer festivals in Europe last year and a guy that had actually done the audio for one of those festivals came up to us at another festival a few days later and said, 'Look check this out. This is what I just recorded of you guys at the last festival in Germany. And you know, we did a really good job and we just so happen to be real big fans of the band and we’ll do the right thing for what we think the fans will want to see and hear' and so on and so forth. So, you know, they just seemed to be the right company. And so we knew we couldn’t do it right then because we were just about done with that particular part of the tour for the summer. But we knew that we were coming back in the fall to do another headline European tour so we just picked a proper date that they were going to be close by to, so they could make it to, so they could drive to. They also thought this was a good venue that they could use for a DVD.
www.antiMUSIC: Does recording a DVD cause many problems? I would assume it doesn’t always go as seamlessly as you see on the final product. One of the out-takes shows you restarting a song. Did it go pretty smooth or did you have a couple of snags?
Dave Meniketti: Nah. The biggest snag for us was just physically it was a tough thing because it was an amazingly hot night and so we turned into sweat balls trying to get through it and literally I was slipping on my own sweat, there was a puddle beneath me. (laughs) That and the fact that I was sick with a cold were the two only things that made it kind of a little bit harder than the norm. but other than that, nah, it really went pretty easily. It was just another Y&T set as far as we were concerned. Another good show. The crowd was obviously into it. And you know that helped to sort of get us pass all those other things that were bothering us at the moment.
www..antiMUSIC: A couple of songs that I liked in the past but didn’t have a special attachment to in the past, really jumped to life in a live setting. 'Winds Of Change', 'Rescue Me' and 'I Believe In You' were absolutely stunning. I talked to Ian Anderson this week and he said that he still loves playing 'Aqualung' and 'Locomotive Breath' just because they’re very good songs. Do the songs change very much for you over the years in terms of your affection for them and are there times where you think if I have to play 'Mean Streak' again I’m going to shoot myself?
Dave Meniketti: (laughs) Well, you know, I certainly can concede that there have been moments when 'Mean Streak' comes, and you just go, 'Man, I’m going to get through it. I’m going to get through it.' Really it’s the crowd that brings you back into it every time. And that’s the bottom line; if you’re playing for a good time and you’re getting a reaction, you know, then it’s just naturally going to put you back in that space where you going to love every moment you’re playing again. But generally, we do like playing almost everything that we play. There are certain songs that are more favourites I would say, such as 'I Believe In You', is a favourite every night because we make something of that every night. We make it different every night. We put our heart and soul into it. You know, there are just certain songs that are standouts to us. But in general we still like playing all of those songs because the crowd is into it, so it gives us the reason to want to get into it ourselves.
You can read the whole interview
here.
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