LIVE 1969

This record contains quite standard US-oriented psychedelic movement cover songs performed on stage, and the focus and skills of the group is not in my opinion as good as on their studio album, which contains their own compositions. Maybe the session was performed on some small festival or party, and the set was probably nice to experience when being an actual participant. The audio quality isn't very good either, being a late sixties concert taping transcribed from a vinyl I guess. From the songs, I could mention Jefferson Ariplane covers, a band and songs which I really love, but here the band doesn't reach the fury of the original performers, and also the lady singer's voice fits better to more tender tunes I would claim. "On the Road Again" continues American hippy traits with repetitive amplified blues, which is actually a circular reference as an excuse for the quite fun monotonous jamming sequence in the middle, this reaching some tribal heights and bringing some great elements here. The raw saxophone sound and slightly clumsy jazzy wanderings also remind slightly King Crimson's "Get Thy Bearings" capture from their Epitaph record. Traffic's "Mr Fantasy" starts as a slacker blues, but contains a faster psychedelic jazzy sequence, though the changes from the composed themes are slightly awkward. The male singer also performs vocals here, and saxophone is also present. The Neil Young composition "Cinnamon Girl" carries on the same phase with boys singing and rocking a quite bland performance. Judy Collins' song "Pretty Polly" introduces Vivienne again to the microphone, and this fuzzy capture of amplified folk gem with improvised passages is one of the personal highlights here for me. Tim Rose's "Morning Dew" is also quite fun aggressive tune contrasted with tender voice and joyful horn solo.

I was very curious of finding this record, as the studio album these fellows did hit like an axe to my head. I enjoyed this record also, but only partially, and would not detect it as very impressive masterpiece. Thus I would not recommend spending your money to it before pre- listening it first carefully. But I would suggest focusing your attention to this band's fine studio record instead.