INTERVIEW IN CONCERT

There's a lot of live Gentle Giant albums in the market; some are great, some are poor. "Interview In Concert" is a mixed bag: although this particular performance is great (some songs have versions released here which are actually better than its counterparts officially released in "Playing the Fool"), there are some major flaws: this album is an official release of a bootleg, and suffers from poor quality. Worse, some songs are edited: "Proclamation" begins at least one minute after the beggining, the "five men drums bash" at "So Sincere" was cut off and there's a fade in/fade out at the middle of "Free Hand". This album was recorded in New York in July 1976, a few months before "Playing the Fool", and should be a great addition to this album, since it includes "Give it Back", "Interview" and "Timing", which were not released at that album, but those aforementioned problems make this album unessential. Gentle Giant fans may welcome Ray Shulman's fantastic violin solo at "Timing" (in fact, this prevents me of selling my copy), but casual listeners will be disappointed by this badly recorded and poorly packaged album.