CAMEL ON THE ROAD 1972

For the case of Sweden's Pain of Salvation - they wrote music as a concept and performed it live before no one has ever heard the music before and a year later they released the official studio album "Be". Another year they released the live DVD BE Live. It's different case with Camel. They wrote music, played it live in 1972 before they never existed in studio album - which only happened in 1973 and only one song "Six Ate" from the performance in 1972 was recorded in first self titled camel album. Twenty years later (1992) they released "Warning: Camel On The Road 1972". As Latimer put it in liner notes [quoted here to give you the perspective and context]: "Although the essence of Camel changed when Doug left and we all grew apart musically, our frienships remain strong to this day. I chose this tape because it has the feel that inspired us to work together, despite it being nearly 20 years old and not the best quality ."

I have no other choice for this live album than giving it a masterpiece label for couple of reasons. First, the band took a bold idea recorded their music live even before they never had a studio album recorded yet. Even though I am not clear where this performance was done but the idea of putting it together as a live band is brilliant! The fact that they only released it 20 years later after they had been considered success does not really matter to me at all. With this tape we could even compare how the band was like before, say, "Lady Fantasy" had ever been recorded in their second studio album.

Second, musically .. this is a top notch performance and I dare to take any challenge from you that may disagree with my view here. Yes, you may compare this with Genesis's "Foxtrot" or Yes "Fragile" which happened around the same period. But they are all studio album, and this one is a live one man . remember that! Wanna have some proof? See how powerful guitar melody and fills produced by Latimer - it's so lively and I can feel a very strong drive of his guitar playing style. Andy ward plays his inventive drumming energetically. Doug Ferguson is one of the best bass players for prog music. Bardens? Come on .he's a very talented Hammond organ player. His style of punching organ is killing many people man . So damn powerful!

Third, yes the sound quality is bad - so what? In fact this bad sound quality gives me great value of this record. Why? If the sound is as great as Dream Theater's "Images and Words" sound quality, this album has lost its powerful nuance of "classic" seventies where the recording technology was very analog and the latest invention was only "stereo". So I do enjoy the sound being like this - which I call it in my locality language as nuansamatik meaning the sound that represents the nuances where the album was made. I can assure you that I also experienced similar case with sound in radio broadcasting. Previously we had classic rock radio station operated at FM wave which finally defunct this year after ten years in business due to mismanagement. Luckily, there is a new born classic rock radio The Jakarta Alternative Station which operates in AM wave. First time I heard it, I was not happy. But later . hey by the time the classic rock was around in seventies all radio was operating in AM or SW waves - so it's better with AM sound than FM - more nuansamatik.

Back to Camel On The Road 1972: If you proclaim yourself as prog lover, this is a must have in your CD collection. Buy it now man! You won't regret. And .. don't forget to tell the storekeeper: "Keep on proggin' ..!"

Progressively yours, GW

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