LIVE & LIFE

"Live & Life" is the third live album of Arena that was released in 2004. It provides the perfect companion for any true Arena's fan, capturing the sights and sounds of the group on their successful "Contagion" live tour which was released in 2003. "Live & Life" is a double CD that boasts the complete concert program from that live tour, recorded during numerous live performances. The DVD, with over forty minutes long, is a documentary that explores the journey taken by both, the band and the crew during all the live tour. With this, Arena set another highlight in their band's existence.

About the places where the tracks were recorded, it wasn't mentioned from what live concerts the recordings were taken to release this live album. However, and merely as a curiosity, the "Contagion" live tour occurred in several places of many countries, almost all in Europe and two in the North America, in Canada. So, beyond Canada, here's the list of the following European countries where they released the live tour: Germany, France, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Austria, England, Scotland, Spain, Italy, Denmark, Sweden and Norway.

Arena is a very interesting prolific band in terms of live albums. With only five studio albums at the time, the band released three live albums, including "Live & Life" which is their third live album released in seven years. And the most impressive thing is that Arena had only released the studio album "Contagion" plus two EP's with original tracks "Contagious" and "Contagium", between their second live album "Breakfast In Biarritz" and this third one "Live & Life".

"Live & Life" has twenty-two tracks and is divided into two CD's and a DVD. The CD 1 has twelve tracks. All tracks were originally released on their fifth album "Contagion". So, of the sixteen tracks of "Contagion", twelve are presented here: "Witch Hunt", "An Angel Falls", "Painted Man", "This Way Madness Lies", "Spectre At The Feast", "Skin Game", "Salamander", "Bitter Harvest", "City Of Lanterns", "Riding The Tide", "Cutting The Cards" and "Ascension". The CD 2 has ten tracks. So, from their debut album "Songs From The Lions Cage" we have the eighth track "Solomon" and the ninth track "Jericho". From their second album "Pride" we have the tenth track "Crying For Help VII". From their third album "The Visitor" we have the first track "Serenity", the third track "Double Vision", the fourth track "The Hanging Tree", the fifth track "(Don't Forget To) Breath" and the seventh track "Enemy Without". From their fourth album "Immortal?" we have the second track "Chosen" and the sixth track "The Butterfly Man". The DVD, as I mentioned before, is a forty minute documentary following the band and crew on tour, packed with both on and off stage footage.

On "Live & Life", Arena delivers what they do best, namely technically down-to-earth Neo-Prog and were everything is played with crystal clarity and precision. Live, their studio material comes out of the speakers compact, but also with little surprise, as the quartet sticks pretty much to the studio versions. As for the band's individual performance, the band is in the foreground and a soloist rarely comes to the fore. Only guitarist John Mitchell has an outstanding individual talent. Therefore, it's above all the repeated soaring guitar solos, the crunchy riffs or the elegiac individual actions that set the different scent marks that give to Arena something like an independent sound. Clive Nolan's ever present keyboard work is always performed with taste and purpose. Bassist Ian Salmon and drummer Nick Pointer form a powerful rhythm section while Rob Sowden's vocals are aggressive, calm, and passionate when they need to be without ever crossing the line into gender-bending territory. So, "Live & Life" has a good atmosphere and is very well played tailored to the broad mass taste of Neo- Prog lovers. It shows that Arena is a very solid band when perform live.

Conclusion: Finally, Arena made it. With "Live & Life" Arena was able to do a live masterpiece. It's true that the other two previous live albums "Welcome To The Stage" and "Breakfast In Biarritz" are two excellent live albums. But, I always had the feeling that lacked to them something to can be considered masterpieces. I always thought that lacked to them some diversity, creativity, passion and a certain flame. The selection of tracks here was excellent. First, the band had the intention to include on the first CD only songs from their new studio album, at the time. Twelve out of the sixteen songs from "Contagion" were included. So, we can consider this CD is the "Contagion" live album. Second, the band had the intention to include, on the second CD, tracks from all their other studio albums. The selection was also great. Still, we may question the inclusion of "Crying For Help VII" from "Pride", when there was much better options on that album such as "Welcome To The Cage?", "Medusa" and especially "Sirens", which would be much better options. In relation to the DVD, I must say that it's very interesting, especially to Arena's fans. You can see on it several activities of the preparation of the live performances, some images from the live show itself and some very brief interviews of the band and crew members and, as well as, after the live shows, some also brief interviews with some fans of the band.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)

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