THE LAST STEPS

I bought this CD a few years ago at the now-defunct Tower Records of Austin, TX. Always ready to snap up anything by GG, I expected another great live album, much like "Playing The Fool", "Out of the Woods", or "Out of the Fire". The sound quality is, unfortunately, abominable. Fortunately, I talked the Tower employee into taking it back as defective. You've got to be really desperate for more live GG to bother with this dreck.

The sound quality is rather poor, but the band offers us a dynamic and interesting live set in their last days. A interesting mix of old and recent songs, much more easy listenable and popish. Anyway, they deserve our time spent hearing this live album.

I think this is an interesting document of Gentle Giant live, when the band was fading out. Most songs came from the much hated "Civilian" album, which is, IMHO, one of the first prog-metal albums in all time (which doesn't save it; "Civilian" is a boring, uninspired record). The sound quality is poor, but this doesn't mean that "The Last Steps" is inaudible. The major problem is the band's performance; they sound tired, sometimes seems they're fulfilling contractual obligations. But the packaging is good, and "Memories of Old Days" is always a pleasure to listen to. If you are a GG collector, you must have this album; if you're not, there's a plenty of official great GG live recordings at CD shops ("Playing the Fool" is, BTW, the best of it all).

I purchased this from a used CD store, so I thought this was a bootleg when Ifirst listened to it. The sound quality on this live CD is terrible , so this is for the GG collectors only. Their is a lot of distortion on the recording and the higher notes seem cut off at times (Maybe the conversion to CD was done poorly ?). Fortunately the songs are good enough to allow you to enjoy the CD despite the poor quality. Especially if you have no other GG CD's like me.

I think the previous reviewers have put this album in the wrong context. Sure, GG made som awful albums starting with The Missing Piece, after lots of pressure from their record label. But this last gig proves that they were still Gentle Giant. Most should find the post Missing Piece material sounding better than on the studio albums. Old songs are also given new heavy arrangements. The band is as creative as they allways were, if a bit on the polished and heavy side. Also Dereks vocals, a personal pet peeve, are good on this recording. A graceful ending for Gentle Giant. Essential for any Gentle Giant fan that actually listens to the music.

Allright, this CD has not such a sound quality as for example PLAYING THE FOOL or BBC RADIO 1 IN CONCERT, but it is not as worse as for example such bootlegs like ARTISTICALLY CRIME or ENDLESS LIFE. However, this review should be about THE LAST STEPS and not about any other album.

First I want to say that I like the order of the songs here a lot. Of course THE LAST STEPS does not contain as much killer-stuff like PLAYING THE FOOL (damn, I'm talking about other CD's again) but the songs of CIVILIAN have much power, for example "Convenience (Clean And Easy)", "Underground", "All Through The Night", "It's Not Imagination" or "Number One" are very, very rocky tunes, if you ask me. I know that the same usually applies for "Underground" but unfortunately you can't hear the guitar that much and the drums are a bit too loud here, in my opinion. "Free Hand" blows you away, the beginning is so beautiful, "Knots" has a new live-ending which is pretty cool (though I prefer the fade in into the guitar duett as they used to play it in their earlier years), "Playing The Game" is a bit too calm on the CD. Very disappointing was the fact, that my loved "Memories Of Old Days", one of my favourite GENTLE GIANT songs, had such a bad sound quality. By the way, it was very interesting to hear "Giant For A Day" live (it was the only song of the same titled album the band used to play live) and the intersection into the a bit psychedelic "Inside Out" was felicitous in my opinion. It is great, that GENTLE GIANT also played more old stuff than on other gigs (like "Free Hand", "Playing The Game", "The Advent Of Panurge" or "Knots"). Also pretty cool was the drum bash after the title "Underground" which reminds you on the old days of the band.

I have to admit, that the sound quality is not as good on THE LAST STEPS as on other GENTLE GIANT-live-albums. If you don't have a live-album of that awesome band and want to buy one, then you should not start with this CD, you better start with PLAYING THE FOOL, EXPERIENCE, KING BISQUIT FLOWER HOUR LIVE IN NEW YORK 1975 or BBC RADIO 1 IN CONCERT. But I also can't deny that this CD was often rocking me, that I liked the setting a lot and that I was positively surprised about the power of the later Gentle Giant songs of the CIVILIAN and GIANT FOR A DAY albums. So I will give this CD 3 stars...

Excellent performance even though audio quality is poor . Nevermind!

I have collected many Gentle Giant bootlegs even though I know that most of them the record quality is really bad. I don't really know I keep buying it at secondary market - because I cannot afford bootleg retail price which typically very high and unreasonable. Lucky I live in a country where most people do not like bootleg records except my die hard Led Zeppelin friend - Tatan A Taufik who has more than 150 collections of LZ bootlegs. Unbelievable!

This "The Last Steps" by Gentle Giant is basically a previously unreleased live recording of Gentle Giant's last concert in the USA, at the Roxy Theater in Los Angeles, California, in 1980. It is an official UK release from Red Steel Music, distributed by Terrapin. But, even though it's tagged as "official", the audio quality is nothing different with my other bootlegs like "Interview" in concert etc. I really do not care about audio this time, although I have never claimed myself as a die-hard fan of Gentle Giant. If you ask me, I am a die-hard fan of Marillion under Fish era full stop. But it does not mean that I stop my musical boundaries only to those symphonic or neo prog kinds of music - as you have seen how diverse my reviews have been. In fact, you can find many prog met reviews that I have posted right here at this wonderful site - a site of a free world democracy: you can say any opinion about prog music here.

Let's have a look on this album by Gentle Giant. All songs presented here are truly excellent. Do you still remember my review on "Civilian" which I praised highly their hard rock ever exploration in "All Through the Night" ? Oh man .. right here with this bootleg the band plays it brilliantly and very lively! I do not really care about the sonic quality but this song does deliver GREAT mood - very uplifting mood, really! If you like this track, I am pretty damn sure that you would agree with me that this live version is very dynamic. It seemed like the band played it wholeheartedly.

The next track is a title track "Free Hand" which is also performed wonderfully by the band. I can see the energy the band members indicated during the concert. Having seen the DVD "Giant on The Box" I am pretty sure that the band members have done great on stage. I feel like I am now watching them alive by imagining those gigs recorded at the DVD. "Knots" is also excellent.

Under "Playing The Game" (5:01) the band gives some more improvisations by letting guitar to perform longer solo. Well, I cannot elaborate song by song review. For me is very sure: if you love the band, you would definitely purchase this bootleg regardless the sound quality. It's bootleg, anyway, what do you expect! Oh by the way, I need to stress the performance of "Inside Out" which sounds really great amidst audio quality.

So, if I give this with two stars, it does not mean that this is a bad album at all but it's only DEDICATED to die hard fans. If you are not, you should not purchase this album. Keep on proggin' ..!

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW

A valuable edition to any Gentle Giant collection.

1st, - the sound is good to great, certainly not of bad bootleg quality of some other Gentle Giant recordings released - think a little less quality than Live at the King Biscuit Flower hour

2nd - these are probably the few live recordings from the Giant for a Day and Civillian lps they, made - like their other live recordings, they are a bit different (faster) so one can notice in a positive manner in the added difference.

3rd, - you get some other recordings of the critically underrated Missing Piece, which clearly showed how quality the song writing of Gentle Giant was - even if it was not done in a progressive rock format - the same applies to the Giant for a Day and Civillian lps, but the Missing Piece (in my opinion) failed because of the ecletic nature of Gentle Giant, where if recorded by any other prog band with mainstream tendencies, it would have been considered their finest moment.

it does not rank up their with Playing the Fool and King Biscuit, but is not of a bad bootleg qualit y of other recordings, plus having to listen to very rare performances gives it a 4 rating

This soundboard recording is aptly titled, for its source is the last ever Gentle Giant show. It's rather appropriate that it takes place at the Roxy in LA, for not only had Derek Shulman made Los Angeles his home by this point, but Los Angeles also the band suffer an awkward early experience at the Hollywood Bowl where their classic prog sound did not find an appreciative audience at all (not Gentle Giant's fault - in retrospect, putting them on as a support act for Black Sabbath seems to have been a poor move). It's rather nice to hear the band get a more respectful - even enthusiastic reception in LA here.

That said, the set may be worth more in historical interest than it is in terms of pure listening pleasure: the sound quality is not that great. (It's not completely unlistenable - but it's rarely better than just "OK".) The recording has most recently been released as part of the Unburied Treasure boxed set, in which context it's been tidied up about as much as is possible, and that still isn't exceptionally tidy.

Still, it's interesting to sample a setlist which leans heavily on Civilian and includes picks from The Missing Piece and Giant For a Day (and a light sprinkling of material from as far back as Octopus). With recent Gentle Giant albums not sounding much like Gentle Giant, it's actually surprising how well the setlist flows despite this.

It also helps that the band are in a jolly mood here. When so many bands disband acrimoniously, it's nice that Gentle Giant seemed to go out on a comparative high. No, Civilian didn't bring them back the success they had with their classic run of albums from their debut to Playing the Fool, but they seem to be playing to a very enthusiastic audience here. They may have found themselves in a creative cul-de-sac that they couldn't navigate their way out of after three studio albums casting about for a fresh direction, but considering the legacy they left behind and the more controversial steps they'd recently taken, The Last Steps shows that there was still some spark left in their newest material and the band's end was far from embarrassing.