I never really gave this one much of a spin. It came out during one of many Zep lulls, where I wasn’t really listening to them much and certainly at that moment lacked patience for their long expositions. Returning it to it now, I can see how much I missed. This is Zeppelin at the height of their live powers. Their playing is massive, though I also really loved the Going to California / That’s the Way / Bron-Y-Aur Stomp run. The Ocean feels like it’s bringing the house down even though it is introduced as a new song. Dazed and Confused sounds rather focused for its extended run time. Whole Lotta Love has a great medley mixed in the middle and they seem like they’ve got just the right balance going.
Disco Biscuits - Steele’s Reels, Vol. 2: 8/25/01 Wilmington, DE
Before today, I never heard this band, but heard plenty about their reputation as a live band, so I threw them into this journey as a point of possible discovery. Truthfully, there’s no doubt these guys can play, and play they do - songs routinely run between 20 and 30 minutes (18 songs and 3 hours and 48 minutes comprise this show), and even then it seemed like jams got random song titles since there’s nary a real transition but constant continuation without vocals for nearly an hour at a time it seems. Granted, vocals are really the Achilles heel of this band. The vocals are really bad, as in you want it to stop and get back to the playing, which seems to take a synth based hypnosis melded with guitar solos that sometimes get pretty hot. I don’t know that this is a band I would spend too much time with, but their brand of jam is unique and background level enjoyable with some flourishes to the forefront of your consciousness.
liebzz wrote:Yeah I’d like to think this and the revamped The Song Remains the Same finally captures the band in their prime.
The revamped TSRTS is a huge disappointment because they left out some killer stuff from the original album. The best part of "No Quarter" is gone and "Black Dog" is missing a big chunk of the song.
They just recycled the movie soundtrack (which had used different versions than the original album and was heavily edited because of a lack of visuals) and added some extra songs. Total lazy bullshit.
On this one, 2/3 of the live album is Waters without the remainder of Pink Floyd playing the hits, for the most part, it’s a reason facsimile of those songs, somewhat overly embellished with backup singers. David Gilmour is clearly missed on these songs. The rest is Waters solo work, which at best seems like Floyd-lite. That’s not to say this was in any way bad, but largely serviceable, perhaps especially for those clamoring for a Floyd reunion but getting this at best. There is, to my ears, one major highlight here, and that is Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun, reimagined and built in such a way to give the song new life rather than emulating the chords without the primary players.
The Essential Performance: Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun
Culled largely from the Kid A/Amnesiac era, and his one often feels like the songs are meant to connect to other songs rather than exist in their own atmosphere or bough that could just be my personal bias since I only ever listen to these songs in the context of their albums. National Anthem is great though, and Everything in its Right Place goes all sorts of interesting directions live. The highlight though is the stunning performance of True Love Waits, really quite powerful in its straightforward and stripped down delivery as compared to the remainder of the songs.
The Essential Performance: True Love Waits
Up Next: U2 - Live at the Fleet Center, Boston 2001 (from the All That You Can’t Leave Behind expanded edition)
U2 - Live at the Fleet Center, Boston 2001 (All tlRhat You Can’t Leave Behind deluxe)
This show was a solid addition to the journey, showcasing the band in a time it seemed they may have been at their most popular. They tear through the new songs of the time pretty well, including on Elevation, and Walk On, though the true gems here are the stretched out Sunday Bloody Sunday, Where the Street Have No Name, and Bullet the Blue Sky. Really excellent little listen there.
The Essential Performance: Bullet the Blue Sky
Up Next: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band - Live in New York City
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band - Live in New York City
The Boss is back! On the reunion tour with the E Street Band, Bruce closed out the 90s and started the new millennium with his trusted band back in tow after what I prefer to describe as a lost decade for Springsteen, though I know there are arguments against that. This live album, culled from performances at his runs in Madison Square Garden during this period, exemplify an energetic and spiritual tour, fun and engaging. Yet the release suffers from a terrible sense of disjointed energy, and a track list that lacks the narrative focus this should have had. Born to Run, Tenth Avenue Freezeout, and Land of Hope and Dreams, all high quality versions, are stuck in the middle, leaving the at home audience to wonder what can really come next. A weirdly countrified Born in the USA does and sucks the energy out of the room. Jungleland and Ramrod sound great but then are followed by a trio of slower tunes that don’t close things out on the note you’d wish for with the energy this thing starts with on My Love Will Not Let You Down, Prove It All Night, and Two Hearts. Elsewhere, the biggest highlights for me were Youngstown, which built wonderfully into a Nils frenzy, and the controversial American Skin (41 Shots), a poignant and powerful moment in this compilation.
The Essential Performances: Youngstown, American Skin (41 Shots)
Up Next: The Toadies - Best of Toadies: Live in Paradise
The Toadies - The Best of Toadies: Live in Paradise
I only knew one song from the Toadies, Possum Kingdom. This wasn’t what I was expecting - actually far better than that. This has early 90s Nirvana/Mudhoney vibes all over it. For the first half of this, they ran at a Ramones pace, wasting barely a second as they rolled through some hard rock tracks, Heel, Quitter, Little Sun, and Away being my favorites on this listen. The second half or really last third from Possum Kingdom on seemed to take its time a little more and was really a good listen, with my favorite of those being Where Is My Mind. A nice surprise this morning.
The Essential Performance: Away
Up Next: Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals - Live at the Hollywood Bowl EP
Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals - Live at the Hollywood Bowl EP
In March, 2003, I headed down to the Bowery Ballroom on the release of Diamonds on the Inside to see BHIC. I remember the show starting quite late, and all the typical trappings waiting right up front. When Ben Harper hit the stage though, for hardcore fans it was like Dylan going electric - he hit the stage and did not take his customary position at The Chair. Instead, he came out with a reggae-fied Wxcuse Me Mr., and the rest was history. The years go by, and Ben Harper from this moment seemed to wrestle out his version of freedom. Freedom from the musical box he sort of fell into - that combination of folk and hard rock steeped in blues - and traveled wherever he felt the itch: gospel, funk, soul, rock, reggae, whatever. Freedom from The Chair. For a while, he seemed all the better for it, particularly on this tour armed with an equal in Marc Ford. In the latter part of that tour, they made a stop at The Hollywood Bowl. This EP is a sort of little taste, the full show available as a concert movie filmed by Danny Clinch. We get here Brown Eyed Blues, a soul funk combo that mostly gets highlighted by Juan Nelson’s incredible groove, With My Own Two Hands/War where Ben Harper lays down some killer reggae and blends the two songs together seamlessly, Marvin Gaye’s soul classic Sexual Healing, and Amen Omen, a ballad with strong guitar work from Marc Ford and Ben Harper really stretching his pipes. All of these are pretty well essential, but Two Hands/War takes this one in the end.
The Essential Performance: With My Own Two Hands/War
Here we go again! Another Pearl Jam run, this time through the officially released shows into stores (Perth, Tokyo, State College, New York 1, New York 2, Mansfield [those three were packaged together at one point], and Benaroya Hall). It will be interesting to see how this impacts my appreciation for Riot Act and how these stack against the Binaural tour shows.
The rest is Waters solo work, which at best seems like Floyd-lite. That’s not to say this was in any way bad, but largely serviceable, perhaps especially for those clamoring for a Floyd reunion but getting this at best.
I would take Amused to Death over any Floyd record, but it’s all down to preference.
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band - Live in New York City
The Essential Performances: Youngstown, American Skin (41 Shots)
American Skin is good, but Land of Hope and Dreams is in its element here. That song is good church: it needs an audience to work, and it packs a whole lifetime in. Sloppy enough to have heart, melancholy in its understanding, and yet absolutely hopeful to the death. I love the breathless exhaustion that shakes the words out of his mouth at the start of the final “this train…” refrain, before itself giving way to the full throated relentlessness of the song’s healing promise. This performance is probably my favorite captured moment of his career, buried on an album that otherwise has maybe 3 or 4 performances I still revisit.
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band - Live in New York City
The Essential Performances: Youngstown, American Skin (41 Shots)
American Skin is good, but Land of Hope and Dreams is in its element here. That song is good church: it needs an audience to work, and it packs a whole lifetime in. Sloppy enough to have heart, melancholy in its understanding, and yet absolutely hopeful to the death. I love the breathless exhaustion that shakes the words out of his mouth at the start of the final “this train…” refrain, before itself giving way to the full throated relentlessness of the song’s healing promise. This performance is probably my favorite captured moment of his career, buried on an album that otherwise has maybe 3 or 4 performances I still revisit.
What are your thoughts on the album version of Land of Hope and Dreams?
For some reason, I swear I’ve heard a stronger version but I wouldn’t be able to point it out right off hand. Live in Dublin? Did they do that one? Perhaps I get there on this journey and I’ll point that out when I do. The Born to Run on this was also very good, just the right amount of frenzied energy.
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band - Live in New York City
The Essential Performances: Youngstown, American Skin (41 Shots)
American Skin is good, but Land of Hope and Dreams is in its element here. That song is good church: it needs an audience to work, and it packs a whole lifetime in. Sloppy enough to have heart, melancholy in its understanding, and yet absolutely hopeful to the death. I love the breathless exhaustion that shakes the words out of his mouth at the start of the final “this train…” refrain, before itself giving way to the full throated relentlessness of the song’s healing promise. This performance is probably my favorite captured moment of his career, buried on an album that otherwise has maybe 3 or 4 performances I still revisit.
What are your thoughts on the album version of Land of Hope and Dreams?
I don’t have much of an opinion on it. I would probably like it more if I hadn’t heard it live first (first during the tour, and then on this album). But the song just feels wrong to me without a crowd.
On this one, 2/3 of the live album is Waters without the remainder of Pink Floyd playing the hits, for the most part, it’s a reason facsimile of those songs, somewhat overly embellished with backup singers. David Gilmour is clearly missed on these songs. The rest is Waters solo work, which at best seems like Floyd-lite. That’s not to say this was in any way bad, but largely serviceable, perhaps especially for those clamoring for a Floyd reunion but getting this at best. There is, to my ears, one major highlight here, and that is Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun, reimagined and built in such a way to give the song new life rather than emulating the chords without the primary players.
The Essential Performance: Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun
Up Next: Radiohead - I Might Be Wrong
I used to listen to this one back in the day, because Amused To Death was a personal favorite back then
After a considerable rest, Pearl Jam is back! Other than a few spotted shows, they recorded Riot Act, played 4 warm up shows in Seattle, recorded the Chop Suey live takes, and headed to Australia. They released this, the last night of that leg of the world tour, perhaps as representative of those couple of weeks. Ultimately, this one seems a bit sloppy. The Riot Act songs don’t seem to have found their personalities quite yet, Eddie flubs a bunch of verses and lyrics, and it seemed the band just wasn’t quite there yet, save for a great ending to the main set (Half Full, Insignificance, Go), and from the closing of the first encore through the end (jammed out Crazy Mary, Throw Your Arms Around Me w/ Mark Seymour, Alive, and Fortunate Son). So big highs and low lows.
The Essential Performance: Throw Your Arms Around Me
liebzz wrote:Pearl Jam - Perth, Australia 2/23/2003
After a considerable rest, Pearl Jam is back! Other than a few spotted shows, they recorded Riot Act, played 4 warm up shows in Seattle, recorded the Chop Suey live takes, and headed to Australia. They released this, the last night of that leg of the world tour, perhaps as representative of those couple of weeks. Ultimately, this one seems a bit sloppy. The Riot Act songs don’t seem to have found their personalities quite yet, Eddie flubs a bunch of verses and lyrics, and it seemed the band just wasn’t quite there yet, save for a great ending to the main set (Half Full, Insignificance, Go), and from the closing of the first encore through the end (jammed out Crazy Mary, Throw Your Arms Around Me w/ Mark Seymour, Alive, and Fortunate Son). So big highs and low lows.
The Essential Performance: Throw Your Arms Around Me
Nice review. The energy on that album is insane.
