LIVEOSITY

A great concert and a bonus CD

"Liveosity", brings together Pendragon's "Acoustically challenged" live CD, and "Live at last" DVD into one package. The collection is deceptively housed in a CD jewel case, rather underplaying the presence of the full length DVD.

Both these albums are listed and reviewed as separate products on this site, but their combination here offers excellent value both in their own right, and as an introduction to the music of this underrated band.

The package is worth picking up for the DVD alone, which contains a gig filmed in Poland in 1996 on the tour to promote the then current Masquerade Overture album. This sees the band at their best, enhanced by sympathetic audio and video production.

There is little overlap in terms of songs between the full band gig and the CD containing the unplugged session. In any event, the unplugged versions are radically different to the normal plugged in renditions of the selected songs. For me, the transition does not work particularly well, focussing too much on acoustic guitar and vocals. Given the great value of the package as a whole though, if we look upon the acoustic CD as a bonus, in total we have a fine offering.

The presentation is completed with well presented sleeve notes, and a host of DVD extras.

I decided to go to the Pendragon Mega Daze at Riffs (near Swindon England) in September 2008, so in order to get myself even more excited (rather on time since it's still 7 month away)I decided to watch one of their DVD's again, reading Easy Livin's review I decided that this set was the one to watch today.

Liveosity isn't a 'new' product, both the live CD (accoustically challenged) and the live DVD (Live at Last) were previously seperatly released, with this release Pendragon has combined the two in a 'simple' jewel case, with good artwork, though honestly I prefer a DVD in a bigger case, but we are in it for the music, so when i bought this I thought it to be a very good deal for a reasonable price, and it was.

I'm not overtly fond of the accoustic set, it's good music, but it's too much accoustics (with synth keyboards?) and the absence of drums takes away some of the dynamics I've come to expect from the band. But it's nice to have and listen to once in a while.

The real deal however is the DVD Live at Last, a great show, and great fun to watch. You can see that the band really enjoyes the show themselves. The songs are played very well, with attention to details throughout the show. The show kicks right in with a good uplifting version of Nostradamus and is followed with a consistantly good set of some of my favourite songs from Pendragon. highlights include As Good As Gold, Breaking the Spell and The Last Man on Earth.

If you already have the DVD Live at Last, than you can skip this, else Liveosity is as good as gold.. Enjoy.