PFM - 10 ANNI LIVE 1971-81

The present box set deserves another half star at least, in spite of its weak production...well, first of all it doesn't include true unpublished songs live on stage, because They have focused their choice around some jam sessions, during their best concerts within 10 years of fertile activity, all over the world .such an improvisational stuff has been sometimes replaced by pleasant songs and this fact has been criticized: of course their simple tunes make the box set more accessible...therefore, by reminding you of the early period, in which PFM opened the concerts of Gentle Giant supporting them in a splendid way, I point out the importance of their cover songs and in particular "21st century schizoid man" by King Crimson or "Bourrèe" by Jethro Tull, because here the interplay (especially between Maurizio Pagani and Mussida), supported by Premoli on bass guitar, was fantastic!! Then the immortal "La Carrozza di Hans" (still nowadays played live by PFM), without forgetting the other ever-green song of classical music, entitled "Dove. quando", are always important must-have!! Even though often They paid their tribute to the old Genesis or King Crimson, it's not so important.as a matter of fact CD #2 has been recorded in the USA in the early seventies, including a lot of excellent solos such as that one of "Four Holes in the ground", which reminds us of the best performances from a few English "heroes" of prog music. but also the other jam sessions included into CD #3, recorded in the other countries and always starting with the same track, are such a perfect Italian reply to the famous "Albion land", which generated a lot of immortal progressive rock stuff. At the end all the remaining tracks (regarding of their performances since 1975 and later) included into CD #4, in spite of containing minor episodes, such as that one inside "Jet lag",were characterized by the presence of a remarkable musician with his excellent violin, Mr Bloch, and for me that's quite interesting anyway.instead I don't like the last three tunes, coming from " Performance" (dated 1982), witnessing their inevitable decline, but it's a minor question, because almost all the best material has been collected here!!