I think it's pretty specific to the artist in question - the exact same thing happened to sims here in melbourne... he played a pretty clean, but IMO boring and generic set that didn't really have any power behind it and Liebing came on straight after him and made him look awful, not in terms of technical ability, but in terms of power and enthusiasm - i think that's the main difference - many of the big guns don't have the enthusiasm anymore and it comes across in their playing...

that said, mills is still so original in his style that he can rock it - if you're into that sort of thing...

machina