LIVE AT DEEPLY VALE FESTIVAL 78

Bootleg quality live double set, recorded during one concert in 1978, but released for the first time in 2004 only.

Steve Hillage plays some spacey psychedelic jams, but drumming and electronics are heavily influenced by "new wave" coming. There are plenty of pleasant Steve's guitar moments, but sound quality is so terrible you can't enjoy them. With better sound recording, and shortened to one better structured CD, this material could be not so bad and possibly would attract Hillage guitar sound lovers.

But as it is, I hardly believe even fan can stay more than two hours of noisy flat sound, endless jamming and bad bootleg record feeling.

The only possible listener is Hillage albums collector.

Sourced from recently-rediscovered soundboard tapes, this festival concert from the Green Tour has a decent enough setlist, but the sound quality just isn't up to par. The bonus tracks illustrate that it is, indeed, a step up from the audience tapes of this gig that had previously circulated, but it's still only a half-notch above bootleg quality.

On top of that, more recent archival live releases from Hillage - both the standalone release of the Madison Square Garden concert from the L tour and the various live albums offered in the Searching For the Spark boxed set - stand head and shoulders above this one when it comes to audio quality. There's really no shortage of Steve Hillage live material these days - and as a result there's no compelling reason, unless you're a completist, to settle for a release with sub-par audio quality like this one.