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Barclay James  Harvest - A Concert For The People (Berlin) CD (album) cover

A CONCERT FOR THE PEOPLE (BERLIN)

Barclay James Harvest

 

Crossover Prog

3.19 | 76 ratings

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SouthSideoftheSky
Special Collaborator
Symphonic Team
2 stars Live is for living

A Concert For The People (also known as Berlin) was Barclay James Harvest's third official live album. While Barclay James Harvest is certainly not among my favourite bands and this live album was not recorded during their strongest era, the result is pretty decent. Especially if you consider it as a live document representing that particular era of the band's history. It is, of course, completely out of order to compare this album with the band's classic first live album which I think is the band's best album period. On the other hand, I actually slightly prefer A Concert For The People over their second live album Live Tapes which is a pretty lifeless recording to my ears.

The selection of songs presented here is a good, but also quite short, representation of some of the better songs from this particular era of the band's long history. Newer songs like In Memory Of The Martyrs, Nova Lepidoptera and Berlin actually sit pretty comfortably beside older classics like Hymn, Child Of The Universe and Mockingbird. However, the studio versions of these songs are clearly better. I would have liked a couple of songs from the slightly underrated Eyes Of The Universe album, but I am happy that they did not include the supposed "classic" Poor Man's Moody Blues, a song I never liked! Sadly, there are also a couple of bad songs included here in Loving Is Easy and Sip Of Wine. I don't understand why Barclay James Harvest never managed to make a single album, live or studio (with the exception of Barclay James Harvest Live), without including at least one or two bad songs! Was it part of their trademark perhaps?

The sound of this album is not perfect, but it is still a listenable live recording. Short but decent. But I would not recommend this live album over the studio albums from which these songs were taken. And having this live album in addition to the studio albums is clearly only for fans and collectors.

SouthSideoftheSky | 2/5 |

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