LIVE IN NOTTINGHAM

A word of warning: this is NOT (I repeat: NOT) the long awaited (at least by ASIA fanboys like me) live recording from the 25th anniversary tour. Instead this appears to be a re-release of the 1997 album "Now: Live in Nottingham", which has originally been recorded in 1990. It seems that some clever record company who happens to own the rights for this record wants to make a few bucks in the wake of the imminent release of above mentioned anniversary tour album. In my case that stunt worked :-(

As I mentioned before, the concert represented here is from around 1990, therefore the songs are all from the first period of ASIA (pre John Payne). all the well known songs are contained from "Heat of the moment" to "Only time will tell". The guitar was played by Pat Thrall, though, as Steve Howe had already left the band to rejoin Yes. Doesn't make that much of a difference.

The sound quality is actually not too bad (different from Enso Kei, which is interesting for other reasons), the track list does not have any notorious omissions. Still, with the incredible number of live albums released by ASIA, this one is absolutely indistinguishable from any other. Oh, and the bonus tracks are not worth the buy either.

So who needs this album? In short, nobody. This is only for extreme fanboys and completionists. Two stars, because it isn't really bad, either. But it's no "Fantasia".