Rating: 4/5
Review:
Decent but not great
This is a decent live album, but I don't think it's a great one. It's a recording from 1980, very early in The Blues Band's career at the time of The Official Blues Band Bootleg Album, from which much of this set is taken. It's an album I've always loved and Death Letter remains an absolute classic for me, so a record of the band playing this material live is very welcome.
There's a lot to like here. Paul Jones is in good voice, the band are pretty tight and together, and there's some fine slide guitar work from Dave Kelly in particular...but somehow it doesn't really come together for me, and I don't get much of a sense of the excitement of a live gig - which, of course, is most of the point of a live album. There's a drunken, rowdy and slightly disrespectful-feeling atmosphere among the student audience which doesn't help, and the sound isn't that great. It's adequate, but the balance is poor in places and the bass and drums which ought to lift and drive the music (which they do on the studio albums) sound like a soggy mess a lot of the time.
I don't want to be too harsh. This is an album I'm glad to have heard and will probably refer back to at times, but it's not one I'll be returning to again and again like the Bootleg Album, Itchy Feet and other studio albums. If you're a Blues Band fan like me, you'll want it and will enjoy quite a lot about it, but I can only recommend it with reservations.
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