ABSENT LOVERS - LIVE IN MONTREAL, 1984

I was fortunate to have witnessed the tour before this one--the Beat Tour--the one with one of the most amazing and memorable openings of any concert evert: "Neal and Jack and Me." The tour captured here, of course, contains a lot of material from the year's earlier release, Three of a Perfect Pair--this incarnation of the band's last studio release for ten years. I must say that the 3oaPP stuff comes off much better live than it did on disc--IMHO, there's a life and emotionality coming through here from the stage performances that is lacking in the studio versions. I love the extended version of "Indiscipline" as well as the use of "Elephant talk" as the finale. Perfect! My favorite stuff remains the songs from Discipline--each one a step above the others, in my opinion, but anything and everything preserving the interplay of that amazing rhythm section of Bill Bruford and Tony Levin is worth hearing any time, any place.