THE ART OF LIVE

This very short 57 minute live album called Art of the Live is one of Queensryche's many live albums and I must say this is not one the best. It features mostly new Queensryche songs (Songs that are sometimes not the ones that I like) and the vocal performance by Geoff Tate here incredibly disappoints me. It is not very sang very well and at times very out of tune. Classic 'Ryche songs like The Needle Lies and Breaking the Silence are not performed at their best.

Caution: Do NOT buy this album unless you are a hardcore fan of Queensryche, instead of this, I'd recommend buying the amazing Operation: Livecrime dvd. That dvd is perhaps one of the greatest metal live dvds of all time.

This CD ranks much better than the DVD (which suffered from poor production and some crazy videography choices). But it says something that the best moments here are from songs created more than a decade earlier while the newer songs pale in comparison.

Basically the 80 minutes here are divided into three parts: 1) Tribe songs 2) earlier QR songs and 3) a two-song rockestra featuring QR and Dream Theater. The first section is exactly what you'd think it would be with pedestrian versions of pedestrian songs (only the stellar opener Tribe works really well). The second section offers great acoustic versions of the underrated My Global Mind and Roads To Madness - both work exceptionally well and are highlights of the disc. ANother highlight is the only live version available of one of my favorite QR songs, Anybody Listening.

The third section is historical because it teams two of prog-metals pioneers. Surprisingly both songs are rendered in exciting fashion with the musicians obviously enjoying the moment. Portnoy and Rockingfield take turns banging out the drum solo from Won't Get Fooled Again in glorios fashion. I only wish they had chosen different songs. When I saw this show in Atlanta they played the quintessential verison of the QR song Real World and followed it with the DT song Through Her Eyes. While I like Comfortably Numb and WGFA I would have preferred these QR / DT originals.

All in all not bad...but probably only for QR devotees.