Geoff Tate is telling his story — acoustically
Condensing 35 years of touring experiences and an extensive catalog of music into a two hour acoustic set is what Geoff Tate has done to connect with audiences on a more intimate level.
Tate, who is best known as the former frontman of heavy metal band Queensrÿche, is bringing his The Whole Story Acoustic Tour to Albuquerque.
“It’s very intimate, it’s what I’m really enjoying about the whole tour,” Tate said. “We’re playing very small, intimate rooms and we’re playing acoustic so it’s not super loud but it’s energetic. There’s a lot of storytelling with the songs. I figured I’ve got 35 years worth of being on the road, experiences from being on the road and stories regarding the songs and a lot of interesting anecdotes that occurred while making that record or writing that particular song.”
Instead of singing along to big electric riffs and heavy drums, Tate has stripped his show down to an acoustic level.
“It’s actually kind of an interesting idea because almost every song I’ve ever written has been on acoustic guitar or piano,” Tate explained. “So this is kind of reverse engineering. The song, bringing it back to where it started and then of course we have different instrumentation on the tour. I have two acoustic guitars and violin and percussion rather than a drum kit so it really changes the song around.”
Tate will be playing songs from almost every Queensrÿche album and one new song from his latest album “Resurrection,” which is the second album of a trilogy of albums that tell one story. The third album comes out this September and that will be the final chapter, according to Tate. He describes the trilogy project as “a very extreme, progressive rock style of presentation” meant to be “intense and varied” in the presentation of the music.
Stepping away from doing his usual electric show and going acoustic has allowed Tate and his bandmates to
showcase their raw talents.
“Acoustic performances really showcase the player’s abilities and talents,” Tate said. “First off, you’re not kind of disguised by this amount of volume, you know like a huge amount of volume really covers up alot of things, just distortion on guitars, which you use quite readily on electric guitars, cover up a lot of inaccuracies, where with acoustic instruments you are really exposed and naked. The player’s talents really stand out because it’s so exposed. You could hear every note. You could hear every breath. It’s really fresh and very fun playing like this.”