LIVE IN THE USA (LIVE SERIE'S SO FAR)

Business as usual I should say : "Nowhere To Hide", "Evergreen", "The Spirit Of The Past", "Winter Mountain", "Shrinking Violet", "Dark Before Dawn", "Never The Rainbow" and "Mother Nature" were already featured on their excellent "The Story so Far". Most of them as well sit on "Live At The Canterbury Fayre" as well as on "The Fiddler's Shindig".

All these songs are very good ones of course. They belong to the best of their repertoire. What is a bit different here, is that we get more of the nice introductions from Heather between the tracks, which is always pleasant.

"Never The Rainbow" is played rather hard here. This live release is a limited edition and is out of print (at least through MA official web-site) and sells not for cheap on the traditional on-line retailers (over 25 US$ + shipment). The sound quality is almost perfect and the band is in great shape, delivering a fantastic performance, I must say.

One of the highlight is "Shrinking Violet". Really exceptional. "Noise From My Head" which is almost an unreleased album track (featured only on their excellent studio compilation "Catch The Spirit") is the weakest number on this live album. "Please" was only featured on "Canterbury Fare". Another good song : a bit spacey in the first half and fully melodic and catchy after this.

"Mother Nature" is the central piece of this live set and clocks at over fifteen minutes. The crescendo is really extraordinary : long (four minutes) very slow intro before liberating all the power of the band while on stage. Superb duet between Heather and Bryan. Not to mention his guitar work with melodic background vocals. The guitar finale is truely wonderful.

This band sounds really better live. The usual and extremely powerful guitar breaks form Bryan Josh are as efficient as always. But almost all these numbers are beautifully played.

This album sits just behind "The Story so Far", which remains the live reference. Four stars.