LIVE AT NEARFEST

The best of the progressive Strawbs!

This excellent live album includes many of Strawbs' most progressive songs ever, excellently performed in front of an enthusiastic audience at NEARfest in 2004. There is a strong emphasis on the bands best and most progressive period 1972-75 with albums like Grave New World, Bursting At The Seams, Hero And Heroine and Ghosts. The bands' masterpiece Hero And Heroine gets a particularly prominent position in the set list. And, to the delight of most Prog fans, they don't play Part Of The Union!

In addition to classic material from the mentioned albums, the excellent Burning For Me from the Burning For You album and the great Barren Land from the then most recent album Deja Fou gets played to great effect. Indeed, the only song here that I don't find great is Heartbreaker - a straightforward rocker by Dave Lambert.

The spoken introductions by Cousins are extremely emotional and moving.

The best live album by Strawbs for sure!

A chronicle of the band's 2004 headline appearance at the North East Art Rock festival in Pennsylvania, USA, "Live at Nearfest" represents a coveted performance by the exact same 5 members who were present for "Hero and Heroine" 30 years earlier. Not surprisingly, it accentuates that album and the new release "Deja Fou", but the selections otherwise span the 1972-1977 peak period of the group.

The sound quality is excellent and the sequencing of tracks was well chosen in the concert and adhered to in the compilation. For instance, the album begins with up tempo cuts before a quieter middle phase, yielding to some serious rocking (probably more so than any other band at the event) and a quiet finale. John Hawken's keyboards and Dave Lambert''s guitars both achieve nuances that are uncommon on live recordings, especially in "Autumn", "Burning for me", and "Down by the Sea". The acoustic guitar undercurrent reminds us from whence the band came, even laying a base for "Out in the Cold", the synthetic and acerbic "Round and Round" and the angry "New World" and its sequel "This Barren Land".

But Cousins' voice starts rustily and occasionally just can't reach the notes, particularly on the latter, even if his performance on "New World" is as fresh and fiery as ever, and the understated "You and I" seems to have been written for his "old voice". Considering the lineup was the same for the 1975 "Ghosts" album, we might have demanded more than one track, or at least one of its epics, while "Benedictus" has an unfortunate tendency to appear on the set list but not make it onto disk.

This might not be the best place to start, since Strawbs albums tend to flow as units, the individual tracks here orphaned, albeit sometimes in pairs. But for fans near and far, this is a significant live document, especially given John Hawken's subsequent retirement.

To come to full circle with the classic Hero And Heroine and Ghosts line up of the Strawbs, this 2004 headlining concert for NEARfest reunites the Strawbs with the great John Hawken. Returning with Hawken was his magical Mellotron with tapes borrowed from fellow Mellotron master and ex Moody Blues' Keyboardist Mike Pinder. Talk about prog royalty. And with the Strawbs focusing on four cuts from H&H, along with other assorted prog antiques and curios, a good time was had by all.

What really makes this particular concert stand out, aside from the band bringing their A game, was that Dave Cousins' voice was still effective at this stage and had very good range, albeit a tad deeper with just a touch of croakiness. This was to change quickly as the 2004 progressed up until the present day where Cousins rusty rasp has become too grating at times. So, take this rare gem for what it's worth. Cousins in good voice with inspired singing as well as inspired playing by Dave Lambert, Chas Cronk, Rod Coombes, and the already mentioned John Hawken who also dazzles on some mind blowing and very bass heavy (for a live recording) synth tones. Excellent recording, mixing, and song selection puts this live archive in the 4 star range.