JANE AT HOME LIVE

The original JANE had an eleven album run from 1972 to 1986. And they were quite successful in Germany as far as sales go. Apparently that is why keyboardist Manfred Wieczorke left ELOY after 1975's "Power And The Passion" album to join JANE. He was on the first four ELOY albums including my favourite two "Floating" and "Inside". This live record would be his first recording with the band.

I'm such a fan of JANE's debut "Together" with the vocals from Bernd Pulst raising my appreciation. Singing in English with emotion and character. He would leave after that one. This live record was recorded on Friday the 13th, 1976, and features three lead singers. Manfred our keyboardist sings lead on 3 songs, while Peter the drummer sings lead on 2 tracks, and lastly Klaus on guitar sings lead on 3 songs. It's called "Live At Home" because it was held in Hannover, Germany, their home town. And yes the crown is very enthusiastic.

Honestly, it felt like I was listening to a classic rock concert. And so there's a bit of a "guilty pleasure" feeling with this one. Almost all of these eleven tracks worth around 75 minutes are slow to mid-paced, with that power ballad vibe in play. The vocals, guitar and organ lead the way here. I mentioned eleven tracks, but some have the edition with an extra song called "Daytime" on it, which I would have loved to have been on mine. It's the opener on "Together". At least the closer from that classic debut is here called "Hangman".

Funny that there's only four songs from the five albums released prior to this concert. None from the third album "III", and one each from the other four. So in that sense the band offered up some new material for their fans. A consistent album with that over 18 minute closer called "Windows" being the highlight. It's also interesting on this song towards the end, at around 15 minutes we get this insane atmosphere that has the crowd responding loudly. A FLOYD vibe follows to the end. The song "Rest Of My Life" keeps getting stuck in my head. Conny Plank recorded and mixed this one for the Brain label.

I do prefer the debut album over this live one by a wide margin, but I feel that this one is a low 4 stars. I like the cover art here of the Mars landscape. Someone should pick those rocks up though.