LES PORCHES LIVE

Wow, After having been so long out of CD offerings Maneige is quite Quebec's newer attraction with a second posthumous live album, making it the fourth in their career. After 78's Composite (mostly then-new tracks) and 98's Live 74-75 album on Fonodisc featuring pre-debut album live recordings (ant two never-available-before tracks) and last year's "live à l'éveché" (which took the entire 98 recordings and added more tracks with some yet unreleased-before tracks) OprogQuebec is unleashing this superb release with yet another unreleased track!!

While negotiations are stalled with the Harvest label for Maneige's first two studio albums to receive their first Cd re-issue, most fans can now have their appetite soothed as most of the first two albums are now available in a live form or another. This is now certainly the case for their second Les Porches (as the title suggest) but most of their debut album is now also presented live on ProgQuebec's two releases. While the Saxinette's adventures are excellently played and most of Les Porches' album is faithfully played, My attention is carried to the yet-unavailable 15-min+ Chou-Fleur track which appears to be a combination of improvs on themes (some of which are well-known) and while not always flawless, this track is certainly a highlight of this release almost worth the price of admission. This album is divided into two sets andwhile the first one ends on Galerie III (from their debut), the second set starts on the funky Chromo, but the highlight of this set is the 17-min+ Porches De Notre Dame, where Lappierre's guitar solo is a bit unusual (for Maneige, that is) but hardly unwelcome. With such performances, no surprises they blew Ekseption repeatedly off the stage. Closing on the calmer Jean-Jacques, this posthumous live release is even better than the Eveché tapes and a real must if you do not know their second album.

On the other hand of the silver dollar, if these two live recordings are soothing the demand for the first two album's releases, it appears that Harvest did not make a good calculation by asking astronomical prices to have the rights bought back the group of the new ProgQuebec label. Theoretically the demand is much lesser and therefore the price should drop dramatically. Can't win them all, uh, Harvest??

After becoming acquainted with Maneige's first two albums through not exactly legal means, I rushed to wash away my sins by purchasing this album as soon as I knew of its existence. I wasn't exactly delighted with what I got, in comparison to the studio albums.

Les Aventures de Saxinette et Clarophone is a good, never dull performance, but it seems to miss all of the guitar work on the studio version, something I was very fond of. The studio version also sounds a little bit more exciting. Can't really judge on the performance of Chou-Fleur, as it is something I never heard before. The song itself, as Hughes Chantraine put it, sounds like a collage of bits and bolts from other songs. Features some lovely clarinet playing. The tiny booklet does not shed any light on it, but I suppose it could have been a track for Les Porches, but dropped to make the album shorter. In today's extended CD space, it would have been a welcome addition. The small pieceLa Grosse Torche was pleasantly improvised, with the flute more prominent than the studio version, mostly due to the lack of orchestral backing on the live stage. Gallerie III is so improvised, almost to the extent of sounding like a completely different song from the original, apart from a few seconds here and there towards the end. Chromo suffers from the same problem. Not that the songs are badly played - quite the opposite. But they are played in a way that they differ from their already near-perfect studio versions. My real beef with this concert lies in the next track.

Les Porches de Notre Dame starts off well, but its beautiful second half is scarred by poor improvisation, the omission of the fantastic vocal part (probably due to the absence of Raoul Duguay) and a somewhat sloppy performance of the final guitar solo. What flowed naturally and beautifully in the original studio version, here sounds forced, unbalanced, overacted. Jean Jacques kind of forgives the previous performance, ending the set on a positive note, with the band playing it beautifully and almost faithfully to the studio version.

This performance is not bad at all, but its just not as good as the studio albums. It is surely no good replacement for them. The band themselves admit so on the booklet. The sound quality is extremely good. You also get a good, unreleased tune. So, my advice is to be patient and wait for the CD release of their first albums, truly wonderful pieces. I know I will be getting them. If you want to get this first as a taste of what's to come, by all means, do so - if you enjoy this concert, you will be very pleasantly surprised once getting the original stuff.