LIVE: DUST IN THE WIND

This album is an odd mix of not trying enough and of trying too hard. Many songs on this album make you forget it is a live album, and the songs just become carbon copies of the studio album versions, giving you no reason to listen to yet another version that is no different at all. Nothing new, in fact, it is just like their other live album.

On the completely opposite hand, in other sections of the album, they try too hard. On such classics as "Carry On Wayward Son" and "The Wall", they strive to sound completely different from the studio version, and you can tell it is their main goal. The tracks sound chopped up, and stressed as vocals are over-emphasized and stretched where they should not be, making for hard listening,

As far as positive things go: there is a good job editing out audience noise on this album, hardly any other than the first cheers right before a song starts. As well, on some of the overly-different songs, there are extended guitar and keyboard parts that are good variations on the original song, but are probably more entertaining to those in the audience than to those listening to a live album.

Not a good live album, it just feels thrown together without much thought or care.