CARAVAN & THE NEW SYMPHONIA

After the experience with an orchestra on the last song on For Girls Who Grow Plump in the Night called L'auberge du Sanglier / A hunting we shall go / Pengola / Backwards / A hunting we shall go (reprise) Caravan decided they would record a live album with classical orchestra and went on to do just that.

The first half of the concert is without the orchestra though, and shows how great a band Caravan was in a live environment. I enjoy this part while I´m more biased towards the second half with the orchestra. One thing is that Caravan chose to use an orchestra on L'auberge du Sanglier / A hunting we shall go / Pengola / Backwards / A hunting we shall go (reprise) on For Girls Who Grow Plump in the Night but using it to this extent is a bit too much IMO. I have a problem with this kind of mix. It almost always sounds like the orchestra is playing in one room while the band plays in another ( the worst example is probably S/M by Metallica) and while it works allright here on Caravan & The New Symphonia it never reaches excellent. I don´t like the gospel like backing singing either. It´s an aquired taste of course, but I dislike it.

The musicianship is great as always when we´re talking Caravan. They are such great musicians. Never showing of, but always playing exciting things anyway.

The production could have been better, but again it´s not bad either.

I´ll call this live album a tiny disappointment, even though it´s good. I would much rather have them playing their songs in the more conventional way, but I guess this is good for the diversity of their discography. 3 stars is all I´ll give for Caravan & The New Symphonia.