1)I don't think i exaggerating anything. No need to tell me to listen to anything as a bootleg collector and owner of a QR bootleg channel on YT) i'm a die-hard QR fun and very well aware of their performances, even with Kelly in the band. He was definitely not worse than the scottish guitarist in Tate's band when it comes to solos/harmonies. He butchers solos with the same frequency as Gray. The rest -original- members during the 1999/2001 era, performed better than Tate's current band,
Besides the Italian guitarist Tate has that comes closer to play things the proper way the rest of the guitarists aren't really much better than Robertson.
2)No band really performs perfectly live, at least not all the time.
3) If you'd call Queensryche a glorified tribute band then you have to do the same for Tate and his band(especially since they only play QR songs) and since they are less good as musicians than the guy's in QR(that also have the better singer) they're the worse tribute band of the two. Anything else is disingenuous.
4) From EP to Empire Wilton was too a core songwriter(with more credits than DeGarmo on The Warning btw). When they turned softer by the years he stopped writing much or when Tate marginalized him and the rest of the band he stopped having songs on the albums completely. Nowadays he's the creative force writing the majority of the songs with Jackson turning to a profiling songwriter since the self titled album too.
Tate only ever wrote lyrics and vocal melodies for QR, not original music.
No one can take anything away from DeGarmo but also no one can diminish Wilton's role in the band. He'd be equally as important for the core sound of QR even if he didn't wrote a single note. Same appies for the rest of the original lineup.
Current lineup, they're are definitely Queensryche to me.
Yes, obviously the original Queensryche band members played better. That's not the point, but that the distance between competently performed and Queensryche isn't a huge divide (and yeah, Robertson and Gray were about equally messy - later years, post-breakup Kelly Gray was worse. I think Brown plays better than Robertson anyway). I gather I offended you by pointing you towards the Kelly Gray bootlegs, and that wasn't my intention.
Nor have I claimed that Tate's solo band is more Queensryche than the current "QR", though on the other hand, his band doesn't claim to be Queensryche. That's what Whip and Jackson do, however, and I think from where I'm sitting, it doesn't seem right. I think neither capture what once was Queensryche, and I would've preferred them staying with the Rising West moniker, but it's of course a matter of the Queensryche brand being worth a helluva lot more; same as many feel uneasy about the current Judas Priest lacking both KK and Glenn on stage.
Re Tate's songwriting: writing credits are technically divided 50% music, 50% lyrics. From a royalty standpoint, the lyrics to the song is worth as much as the music, and I think that's fair division of the creative side of things - and besides, his vocals were one of QR's main selling points. He was one of the absolute best in the hard rock/metal business. So arguing that one "only" writes lyrics and melodies (to be fair, DeGarmo co-wrote lots of the melodies with Tate, at least pre Promised Land) isn't giving credit where the credit is due - especially since back in the day, Tate wrote terrific lyrics and vocal lines, and contributed the concept of Mindcrime, my favorite ever album, all bands considered.
I also don't agree with anyone being equally important for the core sound without contributing material. Of importance, yes (see Rockenfield's characteristics as a drummer, or Dave Murray's guitar playing while being arguably the least prolific writer out of the three amigo's), but I fail to see how you can be of equal importance. And while Whip certainly was important as a writer, writes and has written kickass songs which the credits to show, to me, the
core of QR was the partnership between DeGarmo and Tate, because they stood for the vast majority of the credits until the break up. If the rest of the Maiden band but Steve were to play together, it wouldn't be Maiden, and being without both DeGarmo and Tate is, to me, rather similar to a Maiden without Steve Harris. The rest of the band would put out great music, make great albums, but it would lack the center core.
