ALIVE ON PLANET EARTH

There won't be any from their last album at that time : "Flowerpower ". Guess why ? Some will say that the one hour "suite" could hardly be cut but my feeling is that it is just not interesting enough to be played live, even in a shorter format.

So, only three albums covered in this double live one. Well, not really. We'll get a very old excerpts of a Kaipa song (another Roine project). It is the solo guitar available on the album "Inget Nytt Under Solen" released in ... 1976. This instrumental track "Nothing New Under The Sun" comes from the title track of the album and is stretched to over four minutes. Very good guitar work from Roine but not an exceptional moment.

We'll even get a cover from "The Lamb", with Roine trying to mime Peter. Frightening. I could understand that they did an attempt of a Genesis cover on some early recordings that could fit better into their genre like "Stagnation" or "Visions Of Angels" from "Trespass" but "The Lamb". Come on !

They would also have been inspired by playing a YesSong since their obvious filiation is definitely more Yes oriented than Genesis. On top of this, after the traditional song we'll get two minutes of audience participation (on Braooooodway) and useless and heavy guitar solo. What went through their minds ? This is totally awful. Although it ends disc one, this was the last number of one of their sets (since this live album has been recorded at different venues). Disgusting, really.

Disc one holds two great numbers : "There Is More To This World" (Retropolis) and "Church Of Your Heart" (Stardust). I admit that I am not really impressed by their very extended version for "The Judas Kiss" (Retropolis again). This long and dull middle part to double the original song lenght is absolutely not necessary. I understand that a live version is not a carbon copy of the original studio track. But at least, if one adds some unexisting part, it should be at least worthwhile. It is not the case here.

We'll get only one song from their debut album : "Big Puzzle". Here again the track has been extended to almost nineteen minutes (but the original was already clocking at over thirteen minutes). This version is a great one, full of beauty and harmony. TFK as we all (?) like. Just playing beautiful music (even if it is 100% Yes oriented). One of the best track in this live record although that these additional five minutes are not vital.

"Three Stories" is a track from "An Ordinary Night In My Ordinary Life" from Bodin. Subtle piano to start and a great guitar solo at the end. Not too bad.

Two songs will come out from the excellent Roine solo album : "The Flower King" (1994). "The Sounds Of Violence" is not really a great instrumental track (a bit noisy and almost hard-rocking : when TFK meets Deep Purple). Out of purpose I should say.

Of course the title track is a wonderful song, fully in-line with TFK repertoire. They had already recorded this song on their compilation album "Scanning the Grenhouse" (another Roine's song) but slightly different from the original one. I would rank this version as the poorest one of the three: my preferred one remaining the original. This version is rockier (almost heavy), Roine even asking the audience to clap their hands if they feel like it...The passion and subtlety of the original is all gone.

There will be two songs from "Stardust" (We Are, not Ziggy).

An excellent version of "In the Eyes Of The World" (although harder as well). Very dynamic and bombastic. TFK in all its splendour. The second one will be a shorter (!) version of "Stardust We Are". It is based on the version available on "Scanning" and known as Part Three. FYI, the original track lasts for about twenty-five minutes, so this shortened version was a pretty good idea since this long piece of music was a bit inconsistent and was lacking in interesting moments to hold the listener's attention for this long period of time. So, alomost ten minutes is a good compromise I guess. It is another one of the good versions here (but there are not many like this, unfortunately).

Although recorded at several venues, the overall sound quality is very good. One can hardly feel the difference actually. Still there are some very poor moments or just average ones on this live album.

The harder side of several tracks is also something difficult to bear (at least for me). I like TFK while they play their wonderful and so melodic music and the treatment applied here is not very convincing. There will be better live albums from TFK, so if you would like to have only one, I can not recommend this one.Two stars.

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