FRIDAY NIGHT IN SAN FRANCISCO

This album consists of only four tracks recorded live plus one studio recording. The complete running time is just over 40 minutes. The whole album is all acoustic and all instrumental with only the three guitarists on stage. That means no bass guitar, no drums, no keyboards and no percussion. From this it should be relatively clear that this is a guitar album and not by any means a Prog album. The three guitarists play extremely well, and these performances are very good and slightly different from their studio counterparts, but not better than them.

Short Tales Of The Black Forrest, Mediterranean Sundance and the Fantasia Suite are all excellent compositions taken from Al Di Meola's three first solo albums. The performances here are all very competent and lively, but I much prefer the studio versions of all of these numbers. It is also the case that these pieces are much more interesting within the context of the electric and more progressive songs of those albums. The two tracks that I had not heard before, Frevo Rasgado and Guardian Angel are nice too, but certainly not up to par with the other three.

Friday Night In San Francisco is a very good acoustic guitar album that I enjoy a lot when I'm in the right mood for it. However, I can only recommend this album to fans of Al Di Meola and the other two guitarists. For the average Prog fan I recommend instead that you get the three albums, Land Of Midnight Sun, Elegant Gypsy and Casino. On these three studio albums you will find better versions of these numbers embedded in a much more progressive and exciting setting. Therefore only two (and a half) stars from me.