CARAVAN & THE NEW SYMPHONIA

Caravan celebrated the release of For Girls Who Grow Plump In the Night with this special concert backed up by the New Symphonia orchestra. As others have pointed out, you really do want to get the remastered version that provides the whole show in the correct running order, because the first few songs - which include the band only, before the orchestra kick in - are absolutely smoking renditions of Plump In the Night material. The actual work with the orchestra took comparatively longer to warm on me, to be honest - the orchestra at points goes too saccharine, or too overdramatic in a Hollywood way, like this is what it'd sound like if Caravan scored a Bond movie or something, whilst Caravan seem to be thrown off their game slightly by having to accommodate the orchestra in their sound.

For a better live Caravan album from this era, the Fairfield Halls album is the way to go - but I think on balance I've been selling this release a little short simply because that one is so, so good. After all, Caravan had fairly successfully worked with the orchestra on Plump In the Night, and the orchestral arrangements of some earlier Caravan numbers are particularly interesting. Call it an average of four stars - four-and-a-bit if you're looking at a version that includes the restored tracks, three-and three-quarters if you're looking at a version with just the original five tracks.