GEOFF TATE To Perform QUEENSRŸCHE's Entire 'Promised Land' Album At Belfast Concert
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Geoff Tate will perform QUEENSRŸCHE's 1994 album "Promised Land" in its entirety at his August 28 concert at Limelight Belfast 2 in Belfast, Ireland. Tate's setlist will also include "a selection of his greatest hits from his legendary career," according to an advertisement for the show.
In a recent interview with the "Thunder Underground" podcast, Tate touched upon the possibility of performing "Promised Land" from front to back, saying (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "We did it when it first came out, but that was almost 30 years ago. I'd like to do that one [in its entirety], although it's a bit of a dark album. I'm not sure that it would be a candidate for doing something like [that]. I might have to marry it with another album, 'cause it's a bit — I don't know — stark, a little bit introspective.
Asked if he had good memories of the making of "Promised Land", Geoff said: "I have really definitive memories of it, actually. I'm not saying they're all good memories, but there were some interesting times. We made the record under extreme circumstances. We hadn't talk to each other in three years after we finished the 'Empire' tour, and the record company was knocking at the door for another record. And we knew we had to get in the studio to make one. None of us really wanted to be in the same room, but we had to do it. So I came up with this idea, 'Well, let's get everybody together on a remote island and we'll all sit in one place for a few months and throw around a bunch of ideas and see what happens and maybe kind of get back to being a band again,' like we were on maybe the first album. That didn't work. [Laughs] We still went and did that plan, but I think the drummer, [Scott] Rockenfield, he stayed for two weeks. He got all his parts done and left. And then the same with Eddie [Jackson, bass]. He was there about a week; he got done and left. Michael [Wilton, guitar] did some parts. He was there about three weeks and left. And it was just Chris [DeGarmo, guitar] and me and our engineer for six months [laughs], staying on the island, making the record.
"It was good. It was interesting," he continued. "I have good memories of being there. It was the kind of a situation like this where we lived in this log cabin on this remote island. We put the studio together. It took us a couple of different tries to get the studio to work, 'cause our first attempt kind of failed, putting all the gear together. But then we got the right setup set up, and then it was kind of magical. Being there in this remote place. The ocean was [very] close, and there was whales and seals and all kinds of wildlife. And it was quiet — really super quiet. So the only thing you heard was what was going on your head. So we took that, what was going on in our heads, and made music out of it."
Pressed about whether he was surprised by the fact that "Promised Land" wasn't as commercially successful as the two albums immediately preceding it, Tate said: "I've never been surprised. The '[Operation:] Mindcrime' album was the one that caught us all off guard because we weren't expecting it to be as big and popular as it got, 'cause it was really dark and very challenging for people. But we had just tremendous airplay and video play as well, with MTV. So it went from nothing to five hundred thousand — boom — and then it went to a million and then it went to two million… And then 'Empire' was a little bit more out of the box because the record company was really geared up and ready and had a really fantastic team of people that were promoting the record. And it definitely got a lot of airplay. 'Promised Land' didn't get so much airplay, 'cause everything was shifting at that point in the record industry, so it was kind of left on its own. Although it sold 1.5 million albums — something like that — which is nothing to sneeze at."
Tate's recent tour celebrated the 30th anniversary of QUEENSRŸCHE's "Empire" and "Rage For Order" albums.Prior to that, Geoff celebrated the 30th anniversary of "Operation: Mindcrime" on European and U.S. tours.
Tate was fired from QUEENSRŸCHE in 2012 and was replaced by former CRIMSON GLORY singer Todd La Torre.(Source: www.blabbermouth.net)
