FULL BLOOM, ACOUSTIC STRAWBS LIVE

Interesting story to this one. The promoter in Kitchener, Ontario (a small city close to where I live), who owns a local store, booked a live show for acoustic Strawbs, but couldn't find a venue. So, he cleared out his shop and set up the gig in the store! And the audience was small and (according to the liner notes) not well versed in the Strawbs, and so sat quietly and politely all night. One result is a very clean sounding recording without much of the natural reverb added by a hall, nor as much of the kind of audience noise that usually accompanies a live gig. This album has Brian Willoughby and Dave Lambert rounded out the acoustic trio. The set is very good. They play classics like "Witchwood", "Ghosts", "The River", "Hero and Heroine" and "The Winter and the Summer" very well (among others). And special to this album, they play Brian Willoughby's song "Alice". For those who like the acoustic Strawbs, this is well worth getting. It is not "essential" though, given there are so many very good acoustic Strawbs albums out there. But this definitely deserves at least 3 PA stars. I give it 7.4 out of 10 on my 10-point scale, which is quite good for a "greatest hits" type live album (I have to rate live albums a bit differently that studio albums, at least the live albums of a "greatest hits" variety, as even if the songs are played really well, the live album needs to do something new and different to be considered "excellent", which is why I give this 7.4. However, the performances are all very good, much better than the more recent studio versions of the old albums, like 'Hero and Heroine in Absentia', which is not as good as this live album).

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