LIVE DATES VOLUME 2

WE WANT ASH!!!

Seven years after their brilliant 1973 "Live Dates" double album comes this 1980 collection, six tracks made at Hull, Bristol, Wolverhampton and London. The same sparkling sound quality, the same amazing cover art, but a different set of songs and a different line-up, Laurie Wisefield replacing Ted Turner on guitar and vocals, but not at all to the band's detriment, especially on this live double set which includes a limited edition "free" album of "extra" live dates - some curious marketing techniques being applied here??

The album(s) contain reasonably strong (but not compared to "Live Dates" 1973) tracks from the mid 70's, namely "Doctor" and "No Easy Road" from "Wishbone 4", "Persephone" and good guitar solos on the instrumental "F.U.B.B." from "Theres the Rub", actually the best tracks on the album, "Runaway" , "Lorelei" and "You Saved Me" from "New England", "Goodbye Baby Hello Friend" from "Front Page News", "Way of the World" from "No Smoke Without Fire", "Helpless" and "Living Proof" from "Just Testing" and to my relief "Time Was" from "Argus". I found side 2 containing "F.U.B.B." and "Way of the World" the most interesting on the first album, and side 3 "Lorelei" and "Persephone", and as "Time Was" is/was on side 4 this "free" LP addition seems the strongest!

Overall a good live album though the material lacks the quality of songs on their earlier 1973 album, and I'm puzzled about the stop press album 2 being included seemingly at the last minute, which was covered by a sticker being placed on the front of a full gatefold sleeve??

Good but not essential.

Solid live album from British classic hard rock band, "Live Dates Vol. 2" encapsulates the good old twin guitar music style of the 1970s, marking the end of the era. Starting from 1981 "Number the Brave" WISHBONE ASH turned into awful arena rock dinosaurs, producing negligible records.

It appears that the German 2-LP version was released in Yugoslavia by Beograd Disk, but strangely enough, when I was looking for the cassette version (at the time I did not own a turntable) I found only the original album as the first half of the double-tape set (double albums on cassettes were available as two separate tapes).

So, the album kicks off with "Doctor" (from "Wishbone Four"), "Runaway" (from "New England") and two better tracks from the recent "Just Testing" album, "Living Proof" and "Helpless". There is nothing particularly progressive on this first side but very good and convincing hard rock music is performed with energy and style.

Second half contains two longer, 9-minute prog-rock inclined jamming suites, "FUBB" (from "There's the Rub") and "Way of the World" (from "No Smoke Without Fire"). Both are very good compositions with extended twin guitar solos, convincing bass and strong drums with frequent change of themes and rhythmic structure. They are real treat for prog rock fans, and even though WISHBONE ASH were never able to jump into the first league of progressive rock, with songs like these (and albums such as legendary "Argus"), they came rather close.