THE BEARD IS OUT THERE

Spock's Beard's first live album comes in two distinct configurations and - confusingly - under two different titles, though in terms of the actual music you get the versions are almost identical. To keep them straight: The Official Live Bootleg is what the release was called when it came out on Radiant Records, the independent label Neal Morse originally set up to put out the band's own works on, whilst The Beard Is Out There is what the album was retitled as when InsideOut gave it a wider release.

Either way, the basis of the album is the band's set at Progfest 1995, in support of The Light, and includes performances of all the tracks from that album, plus Thoughts from Beware of Darkness. The Beard Is Out There version adds on to the end the finale - a performance of Waste Away, also from Beware of Darkness, intertwined with Jimi Hendrix's Fire to bring the set to a rocking conclusion.

Whichever release you are dealing with, you're getting into an interesting spot in the band's history. They're riding high f rom the warm reception The Light received in prog circles, and they've just added Ryo Okumoto on keyboards, but t hey've not yet gone into the studio to complete Beware of Darkness. Okumoto slides seamlessly into the lineup, making i t possible to perform live renditions of the complex epics from The Light in the first place (Neal wouldn't have enough a rms otherwise!), the band's ability to bring those studio marathons alive in tight, energetic versions is impressive, and t he previews of Beyond of Darkness are welcome. Thoughts, in particular, is about as unabashed a tribute to Gentle G iant as any 1990s band would produce.

The recording quality is broadly fine - a little shaky towards the start of the album, perhaps, but this may well be down to t he live mixing desk not quite being right until a little way into the performance; such is often the case at festivals, after a ll. Either way, in whichever configuration, this is a decidedly solid live album which really shows how well Spock's Beard's e arly material translates to the stage. If you'd only heard The Light at this point in time, you might have wondered w hether the Beard could really pull this off, or whether they were relying on studio wizardry; this is where they prove t hey could tackle the stage right from their earliest days.