ROCKED UP BEYOND BELIEF

During the last 8 years or so, three compilations of live Wishbone Ash tracks have been released under the "Tracks" name, capturing material from various stages of the band's long career. The presentation of these tracks has been somewhat haphazard, with no order or logic to the sequencing. In an effort to address this, at least in part, this 2 CD collection presents a group of live tracks from the 1970's on disc 1 and from the 1980's on disc 2. All the tracks here have therefore been issued before on one of the "Tracks" albums. They are not however evenly selected, with 14 of the 20 tracks all coming from the first of the three "Tracks" albums, 4 from the second, and just 2 from the third.

Whether the world needs another compilation of tracks from Wishbone Ash compilations is of course debatable in the extreme. With nothing actually new or rare here, it could be argued that this is simply another attempt to exploit the band's name for commercial ends. You'll get no argument to that proposition here!

Although the grouping of the tracks may at first seem like a step forward, when we bear in mind the many changes the band experienced within each decade, the logic of placing a recording from say 1971 beside one from 1979 becomes less apparent. The track "Front page news" (from the album of the same name) for example comes from a different era to "Blowin' free". One has to wonder too about the logic of putting recordings from numerous different concerts all over the world together in this way. The quality of the recordings is generally pretty good, but the constant variation in the sound can be distracting.

The tracks on the second disc are generally from albums released the 1980's, although the 16 minute closer "Phoenix" first appeared of course on the band's début album.

It is hard to see this as anything other than another attempt to cash in on Wishbone Ash's good name. Dedicated fans of the band will already have all the "tracks", and those with a more cursory interest will stick to the studio albums and the handful of genuinely worthwhile live collections.