ADIÓS SUI GENERIS

A highly iconic album. This is the farewell show at Luna Park, which had a huge audience, possibly a record at that time. The music focuses on the electric and symphonic side of Sui Generis with Charly using much more electric piano and minimoogs than pianos. Some songs are new, some are just to interact with the audience ... though I'm not a fan of those. For the rest, think of Yessongs. More loose, longer, and with a sound quality that leaves a bit to be desired.

The highlight for most is of course the twenty minute instrumental section of Un hada Un Cisne or to be more specific, Charly Garcia's keyboard solo. It begins with Grand Piano which its most enjoyable moment is when he reprises and improves on Posludio from the debut album. Afterwards, he plays harpsichord and sounds like a Wakeman-Emerson hybrid in it. Then, he probably heard too much of Wakeman's Six Wives haha. Basically, synth showmanship heavily influenced by Wakeman. After some uninspired bass/guitar soloing, Charly plays an avant-garde synth solo that goes into cacophony near the end. Sounds like those Rondo songs from Emerson live. Another example of Charly's synth showmanship is in the extended Tango en Segunda which has a very long synthesizer solo reminiscent of mid-70s Wakeman (White Rock, Arthur) keyboard work.

A Historical album for sure, but it's not really essential. I say stick with the studio albums, especially the last two.

This is a great album. Both on the musical side and because of the emotion it's filled with. Being a big fan of Sui Generis I was quite moved just by looking at the setlist the first time I was getting ready to listen to this album. The band's classics, which they were obliged to play on their farewell concert have such a massive response from the audience that it sometimes even make it hard to hear the music after the first chords (largely because the poor recording quality).

Focusing on the musical side, they gave a certainly different approach to the usual classics such as Canción para mi muerte, Aprendizaje, Natalio Ruiz and Rasguña las piedras. Charly uses their newly acquired synthetizer and moog, giving the old songs a much newer feel (Also noting the musical direction he was moving towards to). In my opinion this versions are good, but I'll stay with the "cleaner" and "more innocent" sound of the classics. The more recent tracks from the Album "Instituciones" are more adequate to the equipment used in the concert as it helps recreate the climate and atmosphere of the lyrics, which are very dark and powerful.

On the vocal side, the vocal harmonies are sublime as in every Sui Generis record, and even more "full" with the addition of the bassist Rinaldo Rafanelli (whose track "La niña juega en el gran jardín" also proves his great ability as a singer). Charly even ventures into singing higher notes that add to the power of this presentation. He really sings for his life in this concert.

There are also quite a few bits of improvisation which show Charly's musicianship in the keys and his chemistry with the audience. He goes crazy with the audience in "Zapando con la gente" in what is to me the climatic highlight of the album.

The conversations going on between the band and the audience in between songs is really touching, as they all new that after that show they would disband. I think that this album marks a key moment in the argentinian and latinamerican music history, and even though it's not a demonstration of extremely superb performance or composition, the mix of emotions that so many people at Luna Park experimented those sold out nights are perfectly captured in this record, and that's why I can't give it less than 4 stars.