THE BOOTLEG BOX SET VOL. 1

This 7 CD box set is excellent value for money, and has a great deal to offer hard core TD fans. For many people the Franke/Froese/Baumann line up heard on most of these discs was the definitive one and 1974 - 1976 was their classic era. Every concert was completely improvised and although official live albums were released at the time, most notably the excellent Ricochet, they were compiled and edited from different performances; these discs present their lengthy electronic improvisations live and unedited.

The 7 discs are taken from 5 concerts and are presented in chronological order. As it says on the box, these are bootleg recordings; the sound quality ranges from remarkably clear to just about acceptable, with some featuring a lot of ambient noise from the audience (coughs, sneezes) and in the case of the Bilbao concert the kind of whooping that would be more in keeping with a heavy metal gig. The pick of the bunch for both sound quality and historical interest has to be the 1975 Royal Albert Hall set, spread over 2 cds. This particular concert was recorded by the BBC and was taken from their tapes complete with John Peel introducing the proceedings. This is also of great interest as this was taken from the tour where Michael Hoenig briefly replaced Peter Baumann, which makes it the only official (or at least semi-official) document of this chapter in TD's history. The other 2 UK concerts also sound pretty good. The Sheffield concert from 1974 sees them at their most chilled out and abstract, creating a slowly evolving sound sculpture, while the Croydon show features a segment that was used on Ricochet and features the sequencer driven sequences that were pretty much their trademark at this stage in their career. The Bilbao set features some of their most exciting playing but also probably the worst sound quality - the audience sound very enthusiastic and this clearly had an effect on the performance, but the audience is just a little too prominent on this recording. The final disc from Berlin is similar to Bilbao both in style and sound quality, and is probably the least memorable of the lot.

For those Tangerine Dream fans who think that the Virgin years were the band's peak (and that's probably the majority) this box set is well worth picking up. The Albert Hall recording with Michael Hoening (who isn't mentioned in the packaging at all) makes it essential for the hard core fan, but casual listeners and newcomers would be better off with Ricochet or Encore.