THE EUROPEAN TOUR 2011 - LIVE AT SHEPHERDS BUSH EMPIRE

I just read Matt-T's review on this very forum so let's start saying it one more time: technically speaking, this is a relatively bad bad work! Never has the tune "Why Why Why?" deserved a better title! 1:16 cut abruptely without any logical reason; on the track list from the back cover, you'll have to shift "Golf Girl" and "Smoking Gun", the latter coming first as track 4; a few short glitches will also test your ear here and there and finally, yes, Pye doesn't sing too good ... at times! It depends on the range used for the tune. But giving this album one star is maybe just the price of frustration! Because this concert is NOT a bad concert; in fact it is still impressive to hear them playing with such positive energy; kudoos to the rhythm section! The new man on drums, Mark Walker, does a solid job and Jim Leverton on bass is wailing with a contagious enthusiasm; both Jan Schelhaas on keyboards and Geoffrey Richardson provide us with great soloing, the former even emulating at times Dave Sinclair's classic organ sound (the one in family with Dave Stewart's and Mike Ratledge's). So let's face it relaxed: if you want to check what Caravan is doin' to date, you'll get the right answers here or in other of the live recordings from about the same period flourishing on the market (the entire Caravan at the Metropolis studios is uploaded on You Tube, 87 minutes in all, a shameless lack of moral when you think the DVD is officially marketed!). If you're new to the band, then it would be - like nearly always - better to check them chronologically, there are plenty of possibilities for you, from the super anniversary edition of "In the Land of Grey and Pink" to Japanese papersleeves or several compilations. So, taking into account those guys have been entertaining us in more than 40 years and globally still deliver the goods, make us smile or get relaxed, I honestly feel that a rating between two and three would be more appropriate and I'll go up to three, as two and a half are not featured here.