LIVE IN LA

My first exposure to this concert was via a 1990 Westwood One in Concert double album with excerpts from a Chris Rea concert on one LP and excerpts from Rabin's December 13, 1989 show on the other. The 2003 Voiceprint CD had ten tracks (a few of which were medleys of two songs), totaling 65 minutes; the 2014 Varèse Sarabande reissue (which I'm reviewing here) adds "Solly's Beard" from an unknown date on the same tour. Interestingly, neither includes the song "Promises" which was included on the Westwood One show.

Anyway, I was a little disappointed upon my first listen to the LP. The songs were familiar to me: "Owner of a Lonely Heart" and "Love Will Find a Way," plus four tunes from Rabin's recent solo LP Can't Look Away - - which I assume was being promoted via the Westwood One show. The problem? Rabin and company (Lou Molino (drums), Mark Mancina (keyboards and backing vocals), and Jim Simmons (bass and backing vocals)) were obviously playing along to prerecorded tapes. The female vocals on the first two tracks ("Cover Up" and "Sorrow (Your Heart)") are lifted directly off of Can't Look Away, while there are at least three Trevor Rabin's singing on the third song, "Love Will Find a Way." (At one point, at the end of the first verse, there's an error, as the live Rabin sings "I don't need to be," while the prerecorded ones are singing "It's so hard to be." This raises the possibility that the keyboardist was triggering samples, in which case my "prerecorded tapes" assumption is incorrect.) Later, when the crowd sings the verses on "Owner of a Lonely Heart," it sounds like four or five tracks of the same four or five people singing in the studio (including Rabin himself). And somehow they all knew all of the lyrics! Plus it was evident even in 1990 that some of the synth parts were MIDI sequences.

Despite my complaints, when I had the opportunity 25 years later to buy the CD, I shelled out the cash.

The songs on Live in LA that weren't on the Westwood One record are "Heard You Cry Wolf," from Rabin's 1981 album Wolf; "Changes;" from 90125; and three songs from his then-current album: "Can't Look Away," an medley of "Etoile Noir" and "Eyes of Love," and "Sludge," which includes an interpolation of Gentle Giant's "Just the Same."

Come to think of it, the album might've been called Just the Same rather than Live in LA - - it's a collection of too-faithful renditions of most of Rabin's best 1980s material. On much of the album the instrumentation, in addition to the vocals, is note-perfect; I'd be willing to believe that any imperfections were fixed in the studio. But I guess that this has to be looked at as a promotional item as much as a live album: it was meant to be heard once on the radio to entice you to go to the store and buy Can't Look Away. And actually, that's my suggestion too.