INFINITE LOVE: LIVE AT THE QUEEN ELIZABETH 1971

Simply listening to Quintessence was never what it was all about; this was a band that just had to be experienced "live". Their concerts were full-on experiences, with candles, lightshows, drapes, incense, chants, hypnotic rhythms and soaring vocals, with jams which gradually built up - (very much along the lines of Grateful Dead's Dead/Alive) - until the disparate parts wondrously coalesced, and the melodies expanded to invade all your senses, and you found yourself transported to another sphere altogether. With Allan's guitar wailing and floating gloriously, propelled by Maha Dev on rhythm guitar, Jake on drums and Sambhu on bass, while Raja Ram danced with his flute and Shiva danced with the audience, this was simply electrifying - psychedelic rock at its finest.

I have previously reviewed each of the band's five albums and consistently bemoaned the fact that no studio-based offering could ever hope to be truly representative of their "live" performances and actual musicianship; and, worse, that there was no chance, after all this time, of being able to do other than imagine how completely magical their concerts were. How happily wrong I was! Here we are, some forty years down the track, unbelievably resurrecting two live concerts from 1971, recorded at QEH on the same day (plus another half a concert, if you add in the surviving excerpts from the previous year's St Pancras concert, as captured on the sister CD, "Cosmic Energy: Live at St Pancras 1970"). What total joy!

I am not going to launch into a review of the individual tracks (a number of which are duplicated across the two concerts), because there is no need: people either loved the band or dismissed them as being a bunch of pretentious piss-takers peddling their own brand of pseudo-devotional clap-trap. Guess what? I loved them. Indeed, cards on the table: Quintessence is one of my favourite bands of all time. And the magic is all here again, on disc, in 2010.

Whilst the physical constraints of the CD format has necessarily resulted in the "Giants" suite from concert 1 (which should properly feature after Meditations, track 4) being housed as a bonus track on the St Pancras CD, we are nevertheless still left with well over 2 hours of sheer bliss. I note that the commentator in the booklet sides slightly with concert 2 as the preferred one. In the race to the stars, it's a severe case of splitting hairs, but, in my book, the inclusion of (a truly stunning version of) Wonders of the Universe elevates the first concert to a slightly higher plane, with the band on absolutely top form.

At their height, the band earned the reputation as being one of the best "live" bands in the world. They undoubtedly were. And now, thanks to this release, they are again, within the given constraints. Music and lights from the spheres, indeed!

Whoever mastered the double disc at Hux records deserves a medal - it has truly been a labour of love. The sound quality is absolutely crystal clear. And the accompanying booklet is hugely informative - (two of the concerts at which I saw the band are missing from the itinerary at the back, but it is both unreasonable and unrealistic to expect total accuracy after all this time).

All in all, this package is altogether just about as good as it could ever hope to get; and, to me, it's (quite literally) wonderful - as Oliverstoned says, a total masterpiece! Accordingly, I couldn't recommend it more highly. But I freely accept that it may now sound chronically dated and distinctly less than wonderful to the uninitiated!

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