PFM - 10 ANNI LIVE 1971-81

A couple of weeks ago I could place my hands on the last CD of this collection, because the store owner sold the 4 disks individually, it took me almost 6 months to complete the box set and to be honest I don't know if it was worth the effort and the price paid.

A real box set ot collection IMO must combine studio classics, rare B-sides or radio sessions, and some live performances, but in this case it's only a compilation of 10 years of live concerts.

The individual songs are excellent, taken from the best PFM era 1971 - 1981 we can listen many classic masterpieces by a band who were always strong on stage, but on the other hand, the production sucks, some of the CD's have bootleg quality and many tracks are repeated 2 or even 3 times which could be acceptable if we were talking about different versions in English and Italian, but tracks as "La Carroza di Hans" are sung only in Italian and "William Tell Overture" is a short instrumental repeated almost exactly in three CD's, it's really a waste of money to have almost identical versions.

The sound is almost in an excellent bootleg quality, but this is not enough for such an ambitious project as a 4 CD Live Anthology.

The best CD IMHO is N° 2 "L'Experienza Americana", recorded in New York and Cleveland in 1973-1974 from "The World Became the World Tour", album in which can be appreciated the effort that the band had to do in order to be accepted in USA, daring to play "La Carroza di Hans" in Italian, something not very common in the early 70's and of course the excellent version of "Four Holes in the Ground".

It's great to have the complete 4 disks set for a compulsive collector like myself, but I'm not sure many fans are willing to expend 100 hard earned bucks in a box that doesn't represent a clear perspective of the band because it's limited to live concerts.

Very hard to rate because the music is outstanding, but would be better for the band to break the box and sell the CD's separated or make a two CD compilation, so I'll give 3 stars even when I don't recommend this set to everybody.

If you are a PFM newbie, stay away from this box and buy the first three classics before anything (Storia di un Minuto, Per un Amico and Photos of Ghosts), then if you really like the band you can go with later albums like "Chocolate Kings", Jet Lag"or "Passpartú", if this is not enough for you, only then buy this collection ideal for die hard fans and obsessive collectors.

Not worth the money, or the wading through all the "jams", and putting up with the questionable sound quality. I think I could distill all of this material down to one good disc. I haven't heard the recent live stuff ( I noticed that the Japan shows album from a couple of years ago had tracks that were never done live back in the 70's) . Maybe that is the way to go.

Great box including the best period of PFM. Terrific covers of King Crimson and Jethro Tull in the CD#1, showing what an influence these bands were for PFM, but unfortunately the sound quality is poor. The other 3 cds have better but far from stunning sound quality. There are some songs with 2 versions, but contrary to other reviewer I enjoyed the subtle differences and the long jams. Excellent live performances of all musicians. Almost all material is good, except the last song in cd#4 (Chi ha paura della notte), an uninspired and excessively poppy mainstream song, completely distinct from the other 50 tracks! I appreciated the "fusion" material from JET LAG and PASSPARTU albums (CD#4), which I never had heard of, clearly influenced by the outstanding Weather Report. Despite the abusive price and other minor points, it is surely a must for true fans of European prog and particularly PFM. ***3/4 stars

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!!