RE: Gojira can't reproduce their own music live... bleh!
Eh, I think I kind of have to disagree with you. I think they could probably play that song live coming from a guitarist view point if they wanted to. After looking through the tabs, that song isn't that technical, the tapping repeats quite a bit in the same pattern. It doesn't look all that much more difficult than other songs from them like Oroborus.
Multi finger tapping can be hard for sure, mostly due to muscle fatigue if you're not used to it. And, I'm sure that song will require good endurance on your right arm muscles. But, I imagine they have such endurance after playing guitar for decades, especially when they use similar tapping riffs in many of their songs. I'm probably an intermediate level guitar player after playing for about 3ish years, and I feel fairly confident if I spent a 3 or 4 weeks practicing that song I could learn it and nail most of it. And, they're certainly better guitar players than I am I'm sure.
They might just genuinely not enjoy that song all that much so they don't play it on their live sets. There are tons of songs that go unplayed live for years or decades and it's because not every song on an album is an absolute banger. The vocal excuse does seem kind of goofy, but that might just be a deflection so they don't have to outright say they don't like that specific track. Who knows though, man.
Also, for funsies, here's a random crazy tapping riff that I'm 100 percent confident I cannot learn at all right now:
Well i suppose you would know better than me since you shred and I do not. You ever notice how all of these videos doing tippy taps feature people sitting? Maybe Gojira can't get their hands on any stage chairs. I'd ask for that throne they gave to Axl Rose when he broke his leg.
I can understand not wanting to play a song live because you are sick of doing it but they have NEVER played this song live. I think that kind of eliminates the "oh we've played that one out" defense.
By the way I've really been digging Archspire recently.
I mean, I don't think it's really about a played out defense. Maybe they just consider that song to be a filler track from that album and don't look back fondly on it so they don't play it live. A lot of modern metal musicians are streaming in their free time these days, and I have heard a good handful of them talk about certain tracks always just being there to fill up a gap they had on the length of the album, as well as having favorites/least favorite tracks from each album. If I wrote a song that I just thought was kind of meh, I probably wouldn't play it live since I'd assume most people also think it's kind of meh.
And, noiceee. I always enjoy the instrumental work from them since it's always pretty wild.