Music Monday: Thomas Dolby “The Flat Earth” Live

It’s very rare that you can see a song created and built before your eyes.
I love this video of Dolby playing live because you can see his equipment, you can see him build the samples and beats into the great title track from his The Flat Earth album.
Personally, I will always prefer this album to his breakout album, The Golden Age of Wireless, especially when it comes to the choice of singles.
“She Blinded Me With Science” was always annoying and just too damn whimsical for my young brooding synth and dance loving self. Granted, it introduced Dolby to a larger audience, and kind of pigeonholed him into the Mad Scientist sort of persona, which was also unwarranted and annoying.
The Flat Earth showed his more introspective and experimental side, and the title track is just one of those experiments that succeeds wonderfully.

This video shows Dolby on stage during his most recent US tour, and as I mentioned, it’s just him and his equipment and that’s it. You can see that he’s really mastered the technical side of the tools, which, in turn, allows him to really bend and shape them to his will to serve the song.

Since starting writing again, I’ve really become fascinated by the act of creativity, and how it varies from person to person, from discipline to discipline. I’ve even branched out myself – working on poetry, working on short stories, learning Garage Band, picking up my old unused and dusty musical instruments.

There’s so much out there for each of us to explore.
I hope you enjoy the video.

If you can’t see the embed on the RSS feed, the direct link is here.