kenethlevine
(Ken Levine)
Special Collaborator Prog-Folk Team

This collection of live performances demonstrates that Amazing Blondel was fully capable of reproducing their studio sound in a live format, which should not be surprising given their level of perfectionism and professionalism. It also shows they had some charisma and a sense of humour in a concert setting. Beyond that, not much is added to our appreciation, as most tunes are simply reproduced fairly faithfully, with precious little improvisation and embellishment, and no material is presented that has been hitherto unavailable. In fact, the only place where they really deviate is in "Shepherd's Song". Of all the great songs in the AB canon, why they enlisted "Shepherd's Song" as a singalong is quite beyond me. It really doesn't give one much to work with, being dreadfully mundane as is, but extended to 10 minutes by half-baked audience participation it becomes a serious barrier to listening pleasure, especially if the skip button is far away. Moreover, the poor sound quality especially in the upper registers in many tracks completes the picture of a disk that is really only for those who want to....complete the picture. At least a DVD would have been interesting from the perspective of how odd the band must have looked with its instrumental smorgasbord, and given me cause to round this review up a half star, instead of down.

 

This live album brings back the atmosphere of an early '70s 'folk(-rock) concert and shows what great entertainers Amazing Blondel were on stage. Although the instrumentations is reduced compared to the studio albums the obvious fun they had on stage makes this a great live album. Unfortunately they forgot to indicate where exactly those songs were recorded (from the announcements it becomes clear that a part of it was recorded in France).