LIVE IN PENNSYLVANIA (2CD + DVD)

This 2 Cd/DVD package is a real treat for fans of Italian symphonic prog. Recorded at the 2005 Nearfest festival, it's a well recorded and filmed document of an excellent performance from Le Orme capturing their lush and melodic keyboard dominated sound perfectly. The band play brilliantly, particularly impressive being Michi Dei Rossi's dynamic performance on the drums, powerful yet full of many subtleties. Aldo Tagliapietra shows that his voice is more than capable in a live setting and has lost none of its distinctive melancholic charm over the years.

Not surprisingly there's no difference in the track listing between the cd's and DVD. The band play a crowd pleasing set drawing heavily from their most popular mid seventies albums. However, no doubt eager to showcase their latest studio album they open with 5 tracks from L'infinito which whilst not reaching the heights of their seventies classics proves they can still write a decent song, the only disappointment for me being the sitar heavy La ruota del cielo.

The rest of the first cd is mainly tracks from their 1972 masterpiece Uomo Di Pezza as well as one from Collage (Cemento Armato), all brilliantly executed. Probably the biggest treat for fans though is that the classic Felona E Sorona album is played here in its entirety taking up the whole of the second cd.

It's hard to find fault with this excellent package. If it has one then it's simply that at one and half hours it's a little short but as this is no doubt down to festival time restrictions it would be ungenerous of me to award it anything less than the full 5 stars.