LIVE AT THE BBC: 1967 - 1970

Well, the only classic Moody Blues live we have before this release was the awful souding "Caught Live + Five". Listening carefully to this album give me a far better impression of the band's live sound in their prime than the "Caught Live" RoIO quality tracks. Salmacis' review is full of details about the tracks. I'll be more concise: if you love The Moodies and could buy this album by a reasonable price, do it. Unfortunatelly it covers only 5 of the 7 great albums of this band - but it still is a worth collection. I truly miss some of my fav sogs that belong to this era but were not present in this album: "Melancholy Man" and "The Minstrel's song" (from 'A question of balance"), "Don't you feel small" (from TOCCC) and the wonderful "Dawn" (from DoFP). Can't understand why we need three almost identical versions of "Nights..." (including the one that Salmacis described as a vocal overdub on a pre-recorded music). The Moody Blues were not kings of improvisation, and if the practice of showing two or three versions of the same song works with some artists to show their evolution and creativity live (like Led Zeppelin's "BBC Sessions"), this is not the case here.

Finally I'd like to show your atention to the wonderful Mike Pinder and his Mellotron. This album is a must for people who likes this incredible instrument.

All in all, a fine 4 stars Moodies album.