There must be a law against it
Eric Hall | Pionsat, France | 03/24/2006
(5 out of 5 stars)
"There has to be a law against anyone making an album as good as this one.
I'm all for live albums, especially when I've been in the audience as I was on June 29 1974 at the Liverpool Stadium, when half this album was recorded. When I finally acquired a copy after searching for so long, I never remembered the concert being as good as this (my excuse surely must be that my girlfiend at the time must have totally distracted me).
The concert opens with a blistering ten minutes of "Summer Soldier". Forget the three or four minutes that you are offered on any other BJH album - this is the definitive version and nothing else comes nearly close.
If you're not convinced after this, then the next track surely will. What can you say about 10 minutes and 25 seconds of "Medicine Man"? Well, I can say that for an hour I played it on a continuous loop, and the only reason I stopped was because I went to dust off my old bass guitar and join it. This is definitely Motorway Music at its best. I daren't put this on my MP3 player. Whatever would people say when they see me freaking out at the tram stop - me who wouldn't see 50 again even if you lent me a telescope?
We're treated after this to a couple of standard BJH stocking fillers such as "Crazy City" and "After the Day", but what comes searing out of the speakers is nothing like the anodyne studio versions.
From here on, though, we're filled up with my favourite tracks (with one exception that I'll mention below). "The Great 1974 Mining Disaster", "Galadriel", "She Said", "Paper Wings", and the truly magnificent "For No-one". There's just nothing you can say about these tracks at all, because you've already run out of superlatives after "Medicine Man". Each one of these would merit 5 stars on its own, let alone all of them together played live on a live album. When I was listening to "The Great 1974 Mining Disaster" and "For No-one", I was simply recalling the previous time I heard them - on a desolate, cold and windswept car park at Fort Beausejour on the border of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick in 2003. These tracks invoke painful memories in me and have played a significant part in my life, but I've never heard them played with power such as this. I can't think what it was I must have been doing at this concert nearly 32 years ago.
Only disappointment? Well, why oh why oh why do they always have to play "Mocking Bird"? It's like "Stairway to Heaven", "Hotel California", "Silver Machine" "Bohemian Rhapsody" and whatever that Lynyrd Skynyrd song is that has gone clean out of my mind that I'll remember as soon as I press "send". Yes, it may have been good once upon a time, but it's vastly overrated and vastly overplayed and it's like having a really good curry but there's always the lingering smell that won't go away and just hangs around and you can't get rid of it and it spoils your appetite after a while. Some bands are known just by one particular track. For BJH it's, unfortunately, "Mocking Bird", but they are a much better band and have much more to offer than that.
Having said that however, most BJH fans get off on "Mocking Bird" and I don't suppose I'd want to spoil their fun just to pander to my strange and bizarre wishes.
If you are into "Mocking Bird", then you'll have no complaints at all about this album - even I gave it 5 stars. BJH, and one or two other bands such as "Caravan" signify the calmer rock music that came along once the heat of the Led Zep / Black Sabbath / Deep Purple heat died down. If you have fond memories of this era, or want to see what British rock had to offer in that couple of year period before punk came along and destroyed everything that was creative, then you really need to buy this album. There's absolutely nothing better than this."
Some very good live music played well....but a "masterpiece"
Squire Jaco | Buffalo, NY USA | 05/26/2006
(3 out of 5 stars)
"C'mon folks, let's not go too overboard on this band. They might be a bit "underrated" as some reviewers will claim, but they were clearly a second-tier band for a reason, which I'll conjecture on shortly.
I like BJH, and I enjoy this "Live" album from 1974. But I'm not convinced that this is really progressive music in the vein of what most of us considered to be "prog" in the mid-70's; and for the life of me, I just don't see the comparisons that some reviewers readily make to groups like Yes, Genesis or Pink Floyd that played much more elaborate and varied compositions. To me, BJH always sounded more like The Band with strings or mellotron accompaniment! I definitely sense more psychedelic and folk rock than true prog.
Leaving the orchestra behind and performing here as a four-piece is one of the strengths of this album. The BJH sound during this era was characterized by simple, melodic and pleasant compositions, heaped with mellotron (or orchestration) and other keyboards. The vocals were warm and friendly, and you get a good dose of that on this album. There really is not a bad song on the album....but there is a sameness or familiarity that keeps creeping in, especially on the middle few slower, more atmospheric songs. I'm a progger, so favorite tracks for me here are Medicine Man (with the instrumental solos), Crazy City, Negative Earth, She Said, and Paper Wings.
I think the more you like the sound of the mellotron, the more you will like this band. Personally, I thought the 'tron was way overused on this recording, and I would have gladly welcomed any other keyboard sound in many places - ARP, organ, piano....anything! That may be why I enjoyed parts of their 1978 "Live Tapes" just a tad more than this. (Combined, both albums are a great overview of the band's music.)
So why didn't BJH ever reach the acclaim that many felt that they deserved? Well, to the extent that their music is sort of rooted in folk rock sensibilities, many prog enthusiasts (like myself) were disappointed in
1.) the lack of dynamic in their music,
2.) a lack of overt virtuosity that many identified with most of the prog giants of the time, and
3.) the general use of standard 4/4 meters in most of their songs.
And on the other side of the coin, the multi-layered use of mellotron and synths had the classic rock lovers scrunching up their noses at another band that they felt was pretentious and trying too hard to be something different. The unique brand of music that BJH made appealed to a relatively narrow slice of distinctive rock adventurers, and left the rest of us running back to our old standbys, be they Gentle Giant or the Eagles.
If you're a diehard 'tron lover, definitely pick up this cd. The music and vocals are enjoyable, and the production isn't bad. But don't come here looking for the fantasy, inventiveness and virtuosity that characterized groups such as the Moody Blues (another group to which BJH is frequently compared, if for the mellotron only).
You have to take this group for what they were - as uneven as their musical output could be, they were pretty good musicians, fairly good songwriters, and men who exuded confidence in their own musical niche and message. (Who also happened to love the sound of the mellotron!)
I value interesting music that is played and recorded well. This cd's rating was based on:
Music quality = 7.4/10; Performance = 8/10; Production = 8/10; CD length = 9/10.
Overall score weighted on my proprietary scale = 7.8 ("3 stars")
"
Track Listings (11) - Disc #1