I want to see a reinvention of the live show setlist like what used to happen from album to album - as good a level that they've reached, the live show has stagnated.
You can really group Chems sets into categories:
Original Sets 1995-1997
Surrender / Come With Us
Push The Button
Modern Sets (2007-today)
The original sets were a constant evolution of the same basic idea. In 1999 they modified that in the context of Surrender and mixed it up to great results, though many parts of the early sets were still kept.
Then the Come With Us tour ditched any vestiges of those first sets and came up with something completely new to surround the new elements from the Surrender tour. Almost nothing was kept as it was. And they did this again in 2004/2005 and 2007/2008 - beyond playing the hits somewhere in the set, the single constant in that 8 year period was the use of OOC > Temptation / Star Guitar > Interlude at the heart of the set, and even that got changed up each time (2002 used TSU after the interlude, 04-08 used Surface To Air, and 07/08 introduced Don't Fight Control into the transition). The Come With Us, Push The Button, and We Are The Night sets were all wildly good surprises.
Then 2010 happened. It was Further, and recycled parts from the 07/08 and 04/05 tours. Still cool - the parts of the 2007 tour were far from stale, and Further replaced so much of the last tour and shook up a few standbys in the process (Swoon / Star Guitar) that it wasn't really a repeat. And the 2011 tour shook things up enough to keep it fresh, even though it still relied on templates from previous tours. Like stepping from 2000 to 2002, it was enough to make it different.
But then the 2015/2016 sets did the same thing. They consisted of 4 new songs, 2 re-imagined surprises (Under The Influence and The Sunshine Underground), and a few interesting new segues (like House Nation and Elektrobank). Then everything else was a wholesale repeat of moments from 2007-2011 and earlier. I get why - Adam needed familiarity to perform live - but it's frustrating the sets stayed mostly predictable.
I'm not saying these sets suck, they're just becoming predictable, with only a few subverted expectations each new tour.
I want to see stuff like Star Guitar or Do It Again in the back half of the setlist, and see a song that has never been used as an intro / outro moved to that spot. No more starting with Hey Boy Hey Girl or Galvanize or ending with Leave Home / Block Rockin Beats. Actually, bring The Reel back as a traditional set closer since encores never happen anymore!
Ditch Believe and Out Of Control, they've run their course, and bring back tracks like The Golden Path or It Began In Afrika (which were just as big of "hits" as Believe and OOC) or make more room for new tracks, instead of playing less than half of the new album (2015/2016 featured fewer songs from their touring albums than any other set before, especially considering encores with Reflextion and Wide Open happened maybe three or four times all tour).
I'm looking forward to something really new again. Nothing predictable or from a previous tour. No traditions. Keep the standards, but mess up where they are and how they're played!
and @ Bosco, Chemical Beats could be considered at risk. They've dropped it before, it was mostly absent in 04 and 05.
Never for money, always for love.
