Basil C. Thurston III

I think the artist should care because the fans are the ones who pay for and support their opportunity to perform live. And keep in mind, as originally posted, I'm not talking about bands who normally jam, or have a proclivity to spread out the songs somewhat (Dead, Matthews, Widespread, etc)- I'm talking about a band who had a hit song but no longer perform it as it was- for whatever reason. I know when I saw Floyd back in the day, I was stunned mid-show to realize that they sounded pretty spot-on to the recordings, and seemed to take great steps to ensure this. I think with the basic rock band, there is a difference in sound between live and recorded performances- that HAS to be accepted- but that isn't what I am speaking of- I am suggesting the total dismantling of a very familiar sound- If Zeppelin were to reunite, do a tour, and end the show with Stairway To Heaven but do it in a 1980's new wave band synth style, people would go nuts, and not in a good way. The Miller performance on The Jools show stood out to me because of the way that he kind of mailed in the vocals, improvising on the spot hopefully, as it wasn't great. The Forbert performance was a solo acoustic gig, so it's going to sound different, but for the most part, he was faithful to the originals, both lyrically and sonically, until he got to Romeo's Tune, where he played entirely different chords and an altered rhythm for the first 2-3 minutes- and it resulted in many not knowing what song he was playing, until he got to the chorus, which he did straight on.
I understand that an artist is going to improvise somewhat, and I get that playing the same song the same way for 30 years is boring-but isn't that part of the job- almost every job?