REAL TIME (ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL)

It's a great pity that the classic lineup of Van Der Graaf Generator didn't have more live material captured back in their 1970s heyday, but Real Time find the group fresh off the release of Present doing what they can to correct that, offering up an expansive collection of live treats from their back catalogue plus a few cuts from Present. There's no major surprises here - nothing from after World Record or prior to The Least We Can Do Is Wave To Each Other - which is perhaps to be expected since the album is intended to celebrate this lineup of the group, thos (In the) Black Room from Hammill's Chameleon In the Shadow of the Night is featured.

There's a bonus disc on the Japanese version (also found in the Interference Patterns boxed set, which compiles this and most of the other stuff VdGG have released since 2005) which includes a few more songs and a big chunk of tune-up improvisations aptly entitled Gibberish, but none of these seem that essential (and aren't from the same show as the main body of Real Time anyway).

In any edition, Real Time has its rough edges - we're looking at a group of people who hadn't performed live together for a good long time - but it's good that we got this before lineup changes saw the VdGG story change again.