CURVED AIR LIVE

To me the essential Curved Air albums are the first three albums, and I know most would agree on that. In December 1974, the classic lineup reunited (Sonja Kristina, Francis Monkman, Darryl Way, Florian Pilkington-Miksa), minus the bass player (as the original lineup always had trouble with keeping bassists, their first three albums featured a different bassist). The new bass player being American named Philip Kohn (I used to think Stewart Copeland was the first American in the band, but turns out it was Kohn). Apparently some of the original members were needing to pay back taxes, and despite the lack of sales, it still helped pay back their taxes.

As this album featured 4/5 of the original lineup, it should really come as no surprise that no material on Air Cut was featured, as they would require more rehearsing to get them familiar with the material, so it's all focused on their first three albums, and what a great performance this was. I was a bit put off by Sonja's singing, as she tends to scream, which she never did on the studio albums. It's as if she was taking after Janis Joplin, Ann Wilson, or Jenny Haan (Babe Ruth). It's like I was imagining her trying to steer Curved Air into heavy metal. OK, so the songs here take on a harder-edge approach, so they have a more rocking quality. Even Francis Monkman playing guitar like there's no tomorrow. "It Happened Today", except for Sonja's vocal performance sticks close to the original template, although in a more hard-edge fashion. "Marie Antoinette" really seems strange when Sonja does her screams here, as this is one of their more soft and gentle songs. "Propositions" really gets interesting because Francis throws in an organ solo that is actually him doing Terry Riley! It unsurprisingly bears more than a passing resemblance to A Rainbow in Curved Air, which makes perfect sense, as that album/composition is where the band got their name from. You could almost imagine Francis Monkman recording a solo album of Terry Riley-type minimalist music. No Curved Air with Darryl Way would be complete without "Vivaldi", a lot of it is the same as the original, although Sonja throws in a short vocal passage, and Darryl throws in "Sailor's Hornpipe" on his violin. The big reason to own this album is the songs are arranged a bit differently from the originals, but maybe not as drastic as Gentle Giant's Playing the Fool: The Official Live Album, as you still easily recognize these songs, but they given them a harder-edge approach and some nice jams not fount on the originals (and that neat Terry Riley reference on "Propositions"). I do find Sonja's vocal approach a bit over the top here, but that's probably because she's attempting to give these songs a harder edge, but doesn't quite work right. Other than that, a great live album, which surprisingly has quite a few surprises despite all the material came from their first three albums.