LIVE SKY

It would have been interesting to see what would have happened to Crack The Sky had band leader John palumbo not left the grou during the recording of "Safety In Numbers". The band was (in my opinion) at it's creative peak, and performance-wise, as this album shows, the band was never better. But history can't be changed. After this live album, Palumbo reclaimed the band name, and released a series of sub-par (compared to all the prvious albums) recordings, until a regroupng in 1998 began a slow reformation which now has all but one original member (Jim Griffiths) back in the fold.

This album has the lineup from "Safety In Numbers", including Gary Lee Chappell on vocals and Vince DePaul on keyboards. While the the recording quality is less than perfect, the performance is spectacular. Every song is tight, and the band throws in more embellishments (what Zappa called "eyebrows"), making the songs that much more enjoyable. Particularly good is the long version of Ice, one of the most traditional prog sounding songs of the band's repertoire.