A NIGHT AT LORELEY

Gazpacho have been making a name for themselves in the last few years, with 2007's Night and 2009's Tick Tock receiving generally good reviews and being well liked by many, so it was as good a time as any to record their first live album/DVD.

The good news here is that this DVD presents Gazpacho as a really strong live act, and the only thing that could perhaps be considered a downside to some is that the music seems to be played to backing tracks (mostly containing sound effects, but the ticking sound from tick-tock, which is a pretty integral part of the song, is also presented in this manner). This is not an inherently bad thing, especially when trying to recreate a very layered studio experience, but it does put the band in a position of needing to stay very tightly in time with these backdrops, meaning less room for spontaneity.

Not that Gazpacho are a band who really focus on that type of energy, instead the music here is (as on their albums) finely crafted multi-layered music with a ton of texture and emotion to it. The music is fairly close to the studio album, but varies enough to stay fresh. Not enough to recommend this as being a wholly unnique experience however. And, in my mind, the studio recordings are still superior.

The album contains the majority of both Tick Tock and Night, although from Night they skipped both the end of Massive Illusion (the cello part) and Valerie's Friend (which is a shame, because both of those were among my favorite parts of that album). They also include a few tracks from earlier albums, probably as a taster for those who (like me) know them from their better known new stuff. I must admit that I quite enjoyed them.

The video quality is really quite good and while the band doesn't have the most interesting stage presence (expect no men walking around in flower suits, for example), they certainly put on a good show and play good music, very well. The camera angles are very good and usually focus on the most interesting thing happening musically.

This could even be considered a good entry point for one curious about Gazpacho, because as I said, it doesn't include almost the entirety of their last two albums.