DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME

Great live album by Spock's Beard. it's a pitty that there are no songs from albums like "Beware of darkness"! or "the Light". The mix of the Healing Colors of Sound is really great, 20 minutes long. They've done a great live job. "Gibberish" sounds perfect and "June" always will be a genius song. Spock's Beard will be always the best group by far of the last generation of prog Rock!

Don't try this at home, they are right!! The mixing is terrible and the production is weak ;so -despite of their remarkable choice regarding the recent albums- (well actually what a pity for the total lack of the early ones, such as "The light" and "Beware of Darkness"!!...), this live is to be forgotten.I like the majority of the stuff concerning their first period, but as from a certain point of their career (especially by talking about the music ideas of Neal Morse alone) since year 2000 something begins going wrong.

For the fans only, without complain anyway!!

This album starts with a chaotick intro which might be a good contrast if the rest would be great. But it is not. Every instrument is ok.. Good bass playing, nice organs, no problem with singing. Cannot blame the drummer either. The whole album is like quite good or ok but where is the beef? I cannot find the beef anywhere. Why are the boys playing and singing? Nothing progresses. Only the last 20+ track is a bit better and momentarily reaches aome level of quality. The overall feeling is CNCL (Could Not Care Less). As music I give this 3 stars because inspite of my critics this is listenable and as I said good but of these PA stars I must pick only two. This is only for fans etc...

Recorded on the last tour in Holland, this CD is only marred by the fact that it is too short by far at under an hour, but I have been assured by the record company that this was due to a problem with the quality of the tapes. That aside, here is one of my very favourite bands on stage and as I play this I can again see them in my mind's eye, as they were that wonderful night at the LA2. In fact, this CD couldn't possibly match up to that experience as it is only from being there that I realise that so much of their gig is missing from the CD.

But, and it is a huge "but" indeed, what is contained on this CD is more than enough evidence that the Beard really are one of the best in the world at what they do. They are all superb musicians, and with great vocals and wonderful songs how can these guys do any wrong? Spock's Beard appear to be one of the very few modern 'prog' bands that have managed to find a place in the hearts of the traditionalists. I have been in love with their music since I first heard the original American release of their debut, and they just seem to be getting better and better. Many of the songs on this CD are from the latest album, but they also mix in some of the older stuff, and change songs so that the original is only a basis for them to play around.

Any one of these songs will make most modern prog bands want to pack up and go home. "Gibberish" has some of the best multi-part vocals that will ever be attempted by a modern rock band, while "Day For Night" is a perfect opener with its' bombastic singalong style. This CD caused me a lot of problems in the sense that all of the time I should have been listening to other material I kept justifying to myself that I ought to play it just one more time.

If you want progressive melodic rock at its' very best then it just can't get any better than this. At least, not until their next album...

Feedback #58, May 2000

Don't Try This at Home is a live recording of a performance during a Spock's Beard tour through the Netherlands. It's not the best selection and it's clearly not the best production, but it does serve up some nice energy. Most of the live material I've heard from Spock's Beard is usually full of energy and they are quite capable of pulling off their complicated music live. This album just seems more like an afterthought than an actual release and it becomes more clearer when one notices that six live albums were released during the Morse era in a six-year period.

Besides the production, I still enjoyed listening to this album and really liked their performances of Mouth of Madness and The Healing Colors of Sound. Live at the Whisky and Nearfest and There and Here are better live albums. If your interested in acquiring a Morse era live album, I would suggest those. This one is good, but not essential. It's also the only one that has The Healing Colors of Sound performed live, so should be a worthwhile purchase for Spock's Beard fans. Three stars.

I don't know if there's something like an >Unnecessary Album of the Year< Award, if so, we have here a strong contender. This live offering contains two tracks from the third album and four of the fourth. You will find nothing on the live album you haven't heard on those studio recording - save for the embarrasing comments by Neal Morse he obviously considers to be witty. Neither production nor song collections are good and with a running time of 50 minutes the whole thing comes across a fragment - designed only to make money. An album the world doesn't need. Extremely poor - recommended only to the die hard completionist fan. 1 star. Favourite Tracks: -----------

Don't Try This At Home is a live album from US symphonic progressive rock act Spock´s Beard. The album was recorded on the Day for Night tour and predominantly features songs from that album. Compared to their first live album The Beard Is Out There ( 1998), Don't Try This At Home is a much better release and I have only a few things that I will say is on the negative side.

The song selection is a bit strange IMO as Spock´s Beard had at this time released four studio albums but only songs from two of them are present on Don't Try This At Home. Considering that the album is only 49:02 minutes long it´s a bit odd that the band didn´t add a few songs from the two albums that are not represented and at the same time added more minutes to the album´s playing time.

We get four songs from the ( at the time) new album Day for Night. The title track, Skin, Gibberish and the 20:00 minute long epic The Healing Colors of Sound. In addition to those four songs there are also two songs from the third album The Kindness Of Strangers ( 1997). In the Mouth Of Madness and June are the songs the band has selected from that album.

The performance is very professional and at times very inspired and it´s obvious that the band is having a good time on stage which in turn means that there is a good vibe on the album. The opener Day for Night is one of my favorite Spock´s Beard tunes and it´s delivered in great fashion on this album. In the Mouth Of Madness comes up next and it´s another great Spock´s Beard song. The Hit Skin is played in a much better way than the boring studio version. It will never be my favorite track from Spock´s Beard but this version is allright. Gibberish is one of the better songs from Day for Night and I like this version much better than the original. June starts with an acoustic guitar intro courtesy of Alan Morse before we enter the suckery ballad. They could have left that one out for my sake. The healing colors of sound ends the album and again this version is better than the studio version but the song is not a favorite of mine and I would much rather have heard some of the epic songs from Beware of Darkness.

The sound quality is good and I was actually quite relieved after listening to the poor sound quality on The Beard Is Out There.

Don't Try This At Home is an enjoyable album even though the song selection could have been better and the playing time could have been longer. A 3 star rating is deserved.