CANTERBURY COMES TO LONDON - LIVE FROM THE ASTORIA

Canterbury Comes To London finds Caravan performing with the same lineup that made the Battle of Hastings album, plus Doug Boyle providing additional electric guitar here and there. This was recorded in between All Over You and All Over You Too, the two albums of rerecorded Caravan classics which the band produced in the latter half of the 1990s, but don't expect radical re-imaginings of the old material here - aside from some additional Zappa-esque guitar solos from Boyle, the songs are more or less in their original configurations, albeit with then-current equipment for 1997.

As it stands, the set is actually pretty good. Caravan seem to have accepted that the fans are largely here for their material from the first half of the 1970s, and so the set list is constructed as a sort of sandwich: a good chunk of classic- era Caravan material at the beginning and end of the set, then some newer songs slipped into the middle (as it turns out, all the newer tunes hail from the Battle of Hastings album). Though I wouldn't put it on the top flight of Caravan live albums, it's still a pleasant enough listen which proves that the band could still conjure the old magic onstage, even if their studio offerings from this period might have been a bit hit and miss.