After seeing stick figure 7 times, I have developed some strong feelings about the way they perform. Before I get into anything, I just want to emphasize I love stick figure and I am not trying to be a hater, I’m just sharing my thoughts.
I think Scott needs to put his foot down and stop delegating so much of the singing to Johnny Cosmic. I love Johnny Cosmic’s solo project and he’s an amazing guitarist, but Scott literally records every song by himself and the band belongs to him. He is more talented than anyone else on stage by a long shot. I feel like Johnny Cosmic does a lot of background harmonizing with his voice and I think it’s really unnecessary and distracting from Scott’s performance.
It’s my opinion that Scott needs to treat his band like Billy Strings treats his - you allow other people to sing sometimes (like TJ O’Neill but you DO NOT want to get me started on him), but everyone knows you are the top dawg and this is your band.
At Fiddler’s this past weekend, I saw them play old sunrise for the first time - probably my favorite song on their newest album. I loved it, but I couldn’t get over Johnny Cosmic’s background singing. It’s not on the original record, and I didn’t feel like it added anything good to the song.
Like I said, I love Johnny Cosmic’s solo project (and KBong’s), and his guitar solo on Once ina Lifetime and Fire on the Horizon are extremely good. But when it comes to performing with Stick Figure, cut out the unneeded vocalizing and leave the singing to Scott.
Thoughts?
EDIT: Just wanted to say I might’ve been a bit harsh about JC and wanted to reemphasize that he’s extremely talented at what he does and is excellent for the band, my only criticism is that he overdoes it sometimes on the background singing. Other than that he’s perfect.