CAMEL ON THE ROAD 1972

Camel

Symphonic Prog

3.72 | 148 ratings

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ZowieZiggy
Prog Reviewer

As Camel will mention on the sleeve, it is an "official bootleg". The sound recording is not great, but I guess that we can not complain too much since it dates from ancient times.

During the move to set up in his new studio in 1991, Latimer stumbled upon some old reel-to-reel tapes. These rare gems would launch the hugely successful 'Offical Bootleg' series. Latimer was disgusted by the poor sound quality and extortionate prices bootleggers charged for such recordings. Soon, "WARNING: CAMEL ON THE ROAD 1972'" would become the flagship for this series, the artwork inspired by a bumper sticker a fan had sent to Latimer years before which proved amusingly appropriate. It was lovingly mastered and fairly priced.

This record has to be taken for what it is : a live set before any Camel studio album.

The longest track "God Of Light Revisited" will never be released on a Camel studio album (guess why!). It is a pure impro, jam number : not really enthusiastic to say the least. "Six Ate" will make it on the first studio album but is not really my fave.

Things get better of course with the mini suite "The White Rider", although the studio version available on "Mirage" is much more accomplished.

The opener, and the best track of this release is "Lady Fantasy" also available on "Mirage". This one is not the best live rendition of this Camel classic (they will play it live for more than thirty tears) but it is quite remarkable that they had already wrote that song two years before its publication on their studio effort.

I would honestly have rated this one five out of ten. Since the difficult rating scale imposes the scale of five, I will upgrade this one to three stars. This is more for the document this album represents than for the outstanding band quality or the incredible track listing.

ZowieZiggy | 3/5 | 2007-2-4

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