Great Front Men

A list like this will always be very subjective and personal, and to me one of the most important things a frontman needs is energy. The energy to perform like you were playing to thousands no matter how big the crowd. A frontman needs to be cocky but not arrogant, he needs to like what he’s doing.

While there are lots of great frontmen out there, I keep coming back to these three:

1. David Lee Roth
2. Bon Scott
3. Freddie Mercury

Diamond Dave. Love him or hate him, to me he is the embodiment of exuberance. A guy who can wax eloquently about nothing for hours, knows Japanese sword fighting, is a qualified EMT, mountain climber, a poet. Seriously, read his lyrics! One of the biggest differences between classic Van Halen and Van Hagar (and I like a lot of what Hagar has done) is the lyrics. Dave’s lyrics are great, Hagar’s not so much. DLR is a renaissance man. Is his voice gone these days? Sure. But to me he’ll always be the greatest.

Bon Scott. Cheeky lyrics, not cheezy. Again one of the big differences between two versions of a fantastic band. Hardly an angelical voice, but an absolute perfect match for the blues drenched hard rock of AC/DC. His stage presence was second to none even without wild moves and crazy stunts. The twinkle in his eye was the light from a two megaton rock a-bomb.

Freddie Mercury. What a singer. You may not dig Queen’s music (although I don’t understand why some people don’t), but there’s no denying his skill as a singer and performer. Just take a look at Queen’s Live Aid performance. Mercury controlled the crowd like the knobs on a stereo rack. Strutting around like he owned the whole world.
 
I was never an AC/DC fan growing up. I always used to hate it when they came on the national music program, Countdown from which a lot of the now ‘classic’ Bon performances are from.
But watching them now he just has that look in his eye like
“I know a really big secret, and no matter what you say or do, I am never going to tell you what it is. I’m just going to walk around in the knowledge that I know it! And you don’t”.
 
83 blazer said:
I was never an AC/DC fan growing up. I always used to hate it when they came on the national music program, Countdown from which a lot of the now ‘classic’ Bon performances are from.
But watching them now he just has that look in his eye like
“I know a really big secret, and no matter what you say or do, I am never going to tell you what it is. I’m just going to walk around in the knowledge that I know it! And you don’t”.
Click to expand...
Haha! That's a great description!
 
What indefinable qualities differentiate
a good front person from a great one?
How do we know who qualifies if those
qualities are not definable?

What is "Star Power"?
 
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th


:)
 
Tony M. said:
What indefinable qualities differentiate
a good front person from a great one?
Click to expand...
A great front man is someone who makes women want them and men want to be them. A cult of personality, so to speak.

Not everything needs to be capable of definition to exist.
US Supreme Court Justice Potter, said this of what constitutes "hard-core pornography"
"I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description, and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that."
 
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