LIVE A PARIS

After a rather-missed 83 reunion giving a bland album Violoni D'Autumno, the band had gone their separate ways again, but at the impulse of a French fan in late 89, they reconvened for a one-off concert in Paris, which was to be including IQ and Magma. So the group accepted and rehearsed for a few weeks and played on that three-group event, which was recorded and the tapes were released by Mellow the following year with an artwork hinting heavily at their Vietato album, and (see below why) understandably so.

As guitarist Guidotti says, with Alvaro Fella's songs built around his lyrics, Jumbo did not differ much in studio than on stage, rather sticking faithfully with the original songs rather than transforming them and expanding their idea into improvisations. So this album is a rather faithful and almost complete rendition of their third album, the masterful Vietato with two tracks from DNA. Which of course pauses the dilemma of whether to acquire it or not: the faithful renditions being unsurprising, though as I would've loved to hear that Sig K suite live as a bonus.

So by hearing the tapes (knowing that Mellow has put out many inferior quality recordings), if the sound levels appear rather problematic: for one, the presentation and in-between track intros (all of them in French including Fella's comments) are much too low in the mix, and for two, the general volume level is much lower than most other albums. Outside these two problems, there is nothing really wrong or even ambiguous about the tapes from that night, but I would not say that it is flawless either. As you can guess, after so many years of not really playing, the group was not as tight as if it had been in a mid-70's tour. So certain automatisms are not evident, the drummer sometimes too loud or modern, there is a problem of saturation during Via Larga,

So the determining factor on whether you need this album is mainly financial (whether you can afford, since it can only be inferior in terms of sound than the studio version) rather than a case of unheard-of stuff. I'm glad I could rent it, but I'm still indecisive as to acquire it for good or not. But one thing for sure is that I would killed to be there that night.