UKH

This is a term that may not be familiar to anyone below a certain age? Back in the day, when bands played real instruments, wrote real tunes and got up on stage to blast them out at ear-bleeding volumes there was often a singer who, because of their individual charisma or showmanship would be known as The Frontman for the band. Who would you consider to be the greatest? I never saw Freddie Mercury live but I did see the shy and retiring 'Diamond Dave' in 1979

youtube.com/watch?v=ojNrj-sWfpk&

Your vote?

The bloke out of kraftwerk 

Thread closed.

Alice Cooper, Robert Plant, Jon Anderson. All high on my lists but there's so many to choose from. Agree DLR was one of the best; a real showman.

Freddie was always my favourite. 

More recently eddie vedder was good at jumping off stuff

I've seen a few in my time, including Freddie, who was carried on the shoulders of two bulky "roadies", wearing a Superman cape and singing " We Are The Champions".

Not a normal Saturday night in Glasgow but he went down a storm.

Also Roger Daltrey, Mick Jagger, Ian Gillan, David Coverdale, Ian Dury, Sting, Bruce Springsteen, Peter Gabriel.

Hard to pick a favourite but I'd have to go with the frontman of my own band who will hopefully be strutting his stuff again post lockdown!

Alex Harvey.

I think the contenders should be restricted to those who were prepared to get bare chested and could rock leather pants, so I'm going with Iggy Pop...

...with Jim Morrison as an alternative for those who want something a bit more Byronic and poetical.

Powder-puff lightweight compared to Ron Mael.  

T.

Ian Brown.

..or the late Lux Interior.

Gen from Genitorturers. Closely followed by Siouxsie Sioux

youtube.com/watch?v=lvs2x8KkIAc&

I recall thinking The Banshees were dire back in the day. How wrong I was.

Dumpy Dunnell

Would an open-fronted catsuit with bell bottoms do?

youtube.com/watch?v=tKjZuykKY1I&

David Byrne had a special presence on stage, Wayne Coyne also, but like someone else said Springsteen is his day was something else

I'm not sure if he had any particular band to front but for me the most charismatic of the type was Joe Cocker.  

A lso a mention for Paul Rodgers who had swarthy and cool in equal measure.

Edit : The Grease Band. It would have made complete sense if they originated in Greaseborough, which is real Cocker country, but they didn't

Only saw Gabriel once, that was the Genesis reunion Womad concert in 82, he came on stage in a coffin

Nice outfit, but probably not quite enough to compete with the legendary riot of the Stooges.

Or Iggy's see through pvc trews.

Saw Iggy in the late 90’s (when he still looked pretty good with his shirt off) was absolutely brilliant....

Does Prince count as a frontman? 

Good shout. Saw SAHB on the Next tour in 1973, I'm feeling very old. It's nearly 40 years since he died! Just about the last gig I went to pre lockdown was the SAHB Experience.

I could never tell whether the term was meant to be slightly pejorative with a hint of “only a vocalist and not involved with any aspect of songwriting”, especially when applied to women (e.g. Kelli Ali of Sneaker Pimps) whereas a “real” band member would be referred to as “the lead singer”. Seems a grey area but I have indeed seen it used in the way you describe, essentially the visual representative of the band regardless of how much involvement they have in the writing. In the non-pejorative sense it does seem to demand that there is some aspect of “performance” to it. Peacocking. So Freddie, and Bono, yes. I am not sure I would include Bruce Springsteen as an example. And how about Prince? Prince can’t be a frontman for Prince can he?! 😃

I'm not old enough to have seen them but I've watched a few videos and he was pretty full on, an archetypal front man I thought.

Same age as my father-in-law who died late last year. Both from working class Glasgow backgrounds but went very different directions!

I've never thought of 'frontman' being slightly pejorative. Always more of the exhibitionist performer. When David Lee Roth left Van Halen they got an excellent rock singer replacement in Sammy Hagar. Some of their best stuff resulted and Sammy is undoubtedly a better singer than DLR but he can't come close to DLR as a frontman (at least back in the seventies and eighties). Another 'uber-frontman' (copyright applied for) was Phil Lynott. Without him there was no Thin Lizzy. Guitarists came and went but the mould was broken when he died.

James Brown.

Second place would be between Lee Scratch, Iggy, Ozzy and DLR. Maybe Henry Rollins and Johnny Lydon in there too.

Prince? No. Because that means opening it up to musicians, which means Lemmy, and that's that.

Wayne Coyne. 

The best I saw was Howlin' Pelle Almqvist of The Hives.  I was a middling fan of the band but went along with friends and they were astonishingly good live and he absolutely owned the room and had a great double act going with 'Dr Matt Destruction' the guitarist that actually wrote their stuff  Maybe the gig was 2008? Probably helped that the audience were rabid.

I'd also nominate Eddie Argos of Art Brut.  Running around, down in the crowd, like a cabaret singer for an art rock band.  Brimming with charisma and totally engaging.  Probably 2009 or so?

The person I would have loved to have seen was James Brown.  He looks amazing, especially as he's conducting and queuing in the band at the same time.

Rob Tyner

Maybe a lot of you wouldn’t consider them in the same league as your Freddies etc, but Adele Bethel and Scott Paterson of Sons & Daughters were a great sort of “double act” of frontpersons. 

I never saw them (the music wasn’t my cup of tea) but simply from reading descriptions in plain text, I get the impression that David Yow of The Jesus Lizard was quite something to behold in the early 1990s 

Good suggestion. The music was my cup of tea, but never got to see them live. But going by the reviews in the music press at the time, it was quite an experience. 

Cedric Bixler-Zavala. A raging torrent of onstage energy. 

Karen O 

Justin Sullivan

I muddled my Justins and for a frightening half minute I thought you meant him out of The Darkness 😃

New model army were one of the last bands I saw before lockdown and one of the best live bands I've seen. Not sure if Justin meets everyone's definition of frontman?

How about Mike Patton ?

Poly Styrene? 

Haha, opposite ends of the flamboyance spectrum! 

True. Get more of him through the records than on stage perhaps, though as you say, very good live and remarkable energy 40 years on. Mike Patton a good shout. 

Good to see this name in there. Accounts from the relatively small number of people who ever saw him are he was a force of nature.

I've seen him twice with both Faith and Bungle and I'd have to say no. No question the mans a genius and certainly a presence on the stage, but - at least the times I saw them - the bands were so cohesive and multi-faceted he was but one of the elements fronting the show. He spent a lot of the time more directing than I'd say fronting as per Ozzy or whoever.

In a similar vein I'd throw Gibby Haynes into the mix - frontman yes, but also drowned in the cacophony of general chaos so part of the wallpaper. Wayne Coyne (who I've seen a few times) same thing. More band leader than frontman I feel. Gram'ma Funk is amazing in that way too. 

Seen NMA a few times, they did a 40th  live streaming show over the lockdown as well.

One of the most memorable gigs was Justin doing a solo gig in a small pub in Cornwall, Joolz did a poetry set as well, which was one of the most powerful stage performances I've ever seen. 

Patti Smith?

Lemmy, no questions!

Ian Anderson.

Bon Scott at a distant third (eve though I never saw him live, a few years too young for that!)

CB

Hawkins actually is a very good frontman. And he can play.

Of those I only saw Scott live (once). The 'problem' for him as a classic frontman was that he was up against Angus Young who tended to draw your attention most of the time?

He's a good example of a frontman but having read a detailed account of their "farewell" concert at Alexandra Palace, I am not sure that "good" is an adjective I'd apply to him. I'm all for a bit of audience aggression in a frontperson if it's in some sort of context or somehow part of an act, but Hawkins sulking and slagging off the audience for his whole concert...hmm

I know he can play. And sing. 

Mick Derrick and Linda Steelyard of Prolapse

I know nothing about this - was it when he split with the band in the mid 2000s? If you're unhappy and stuffed with drugs you aren't going to bow out gracefully. From what I can tell he's back on form. 'Solid Gold' is classic Darkness mickey take, on a par with their early stuff.

Yeah 2007 or so. I shouldn't really single him out, there have been plenty of graceless music performers, I've seen my share. It's just that the review I read was quite detailed so it stuck with me. Everyone's allowed an "off" night I suppose. Paul Draper of Mansun had a well publicised meltdown in Nottingham a few years on a Mansun reunion/"recite the classic album" tour, and Badly Drawn Boy and Cat Power have got plenty of form. And Lou Reed, for that matter  

I think it's just that I don't find The Darkness' tongue-in-cheek stuff to be sustainably funny  

You dont need to be a point mic at audience everyone say type to be a good frontman ie Ian Curtis / Mark e smith 

Yes, just about to write the same. I saw them in 77 and Angus blew me away.

Surprised no ones mentioned Gary Glitter  !

youtube.com/watch?v=kaC6zb2uSOQ&

Saw them when it first came out and a long time fan, but that linked video was not comfortable viewing. 

How prescient of you!

In the Frank Worthington RIP I did just that but then edited it out. Similar good looks, similar lifestyle, not sure if Frank had the voice though.

My greatest disappointment on the Pennine Way is that I timed it wrong by a day:  a couple of lads walking north met me  at Malham walking south and told me they'd spent the previous night camping at Ponden Hall, where PJ was living in a commune  during his Yorkshire hippy stage: they'd had fresh goat's milk, warm bread straight from the oven and even had a short chat with the singer  himself.

 A  day later when I got there they were welcoming enough, only charged me 50p for the pitch, but the milk was from the Co-op, the loaf a still thawing Mother's Pride  and the great man was gone, off gigging in Bridlington or somewhere similar. I was crestfallen.

Trouser splitting aside, he had a great voice and  although every singer under the sun has done a rendition  of Bernstein's " Somewhere", no one has come near to PJ's version .

( Though he does mumble a bit at one point)

We have a winner.

I was lucky enough to see him not long before he died. 

OP: Michael Stipe, Gibby Haynes, Lux Interior. 

I'd loved to have seen them live, did you? 

I saw REM during the tour for Monster in 1995, my only ever stadium concert, and Stipe’s full-on “frontman” posturing put me off the band and spoiled the concert, it felt stilted and cold, insincere. Like bad overacting. I know he sings with real passion and all that, but he added a load of posturing in and it didn’t really seem “him” 

Yes, at the album launch for Pointless Walks to Dismal Places, where I felt out of place because it almost felt like I was the outsider at a private party (and I was on my own), but again twice during the reunion tour in 2015 and yes they did Tina This is Matthew Stone but the violence was toned down a bit. To be honest in 1994 if you weren’t “in on the joke” it was pretty damn awkward because they played it so convincingly! Obviously the fact that they toured and played multiple dates doing the same thing again and again, was maybe a plot spoiler 😃

Method acting? 

They still do Grandad...

I guess I qualify, but I'd describe PJ as a singer, rather than the frontman of a band. He did once record with Led Zeppelin though, so maybe he taught Robert Plant some moves!

As another contender, what about 1st generation Nick Cave?

But who's buying the shedloads of product, kiddo .....?

The Cult - what a great band! Often the soundtrack to my driving back in the eighties. 

This goes back to my first post on the thread