LIVE

Generally seen as one of their prime achievement (GE was a band better on stage than in the studio), this Live album is one of my fave, both GE and amongst "Double Live" albums category. With its drawn famous and dramatic pose, spots and the blackbird in the corner, just the artwork tells you that you're in for a long strange trip, with extended version of some of proggiest of their material. Unfortunately these lengthy tracks are there at the cost of missing a few others that the fans might have wanted to hear. Three tracks from Moontan and three more from Contraband might seem a bit uneven a track selection, but it's the tour supporting the latter album and they don't detract from the rest of the playlist.

If keyboardist Robert Jan Stips is not part of the group anymore, the other clinger-on Eelco Gelling is still around but remains discreet in his rhythm guitarist role. The first disc is a mix of older tracks like the shortened 8MH, the unchanged Candy or the excellent Strange Wings and newer material (Mad Love Is Coming) from the recent Contraband album, but the best track is the excellent Vanilla Queen.

The second disc is made principally of more recent tracks (from To The Hilt and Contraband) with the excellent Fighting Windmills, showing that their better songs from later albums were still good, but less numerous. Then you get the unavoidable Radar Love (extended and allowing drum space) ending the set and the less-than thrilling Vince Taylor homage from the same Moontan album as an encore..

Somehow, it's a bit too bad that this 77 live recording is only their first live release some already 12 years into their career. They'll catch up with another double live in the early 80's, but the track=list of their concert had changed dramatically by then. Hopefully the group will one day release a live album recoded before Moontan time. In the meantime, this double Live album gives you a good idea of what GE was about on stage.

This live album carries a very personal note for me. I have been trying to get it for more than 25 years now but I always had other priorities. Ever since I used to hang out in the local disco club in early 1980s Sarajevo, dancing like hell to the sounds of "Radar Love", "Are You Receiving Me" and the live version of "Mad Love's Coming", I was emotionally attached to the latter song particularly. I still remember giving an empty cassette tape to a slightly older discophile acquaintance who was alleged to have possessed "original LP from the West". To my huge disappointing, he never got back to me with that tape, with or without the "Golden Earring Live" recorded...

... Quarter of century later, thanks to internet and all that stuff, I got it finally in the digital form and listened again to Barry Hay's introductory words "...I know, I know...maybe this year, maybe next year, maybe the year after, I know... mad love is coming...". But, of course, there's much more to it than just this highlight of my youth.

Disc 1 contains excellent versions of "She Flies on Strange Wings", "Mad Love's Coming" and "Vanilla Queen" and a competent crowd-pleaser "Candy Going Bad". "Eight Miles High" is perfectly measured down to 10 minutes thus re-arranging the unnecessarily over- extended studio version from the namesake LP from 1969. Lengthy guitar jams perfectly match this psychedelic masterpiece and I am sure that even Roger McGuinn would have endorsed this adaptation of his probably key piece of work.

Disc 2 is slightly less interesting but the versions of "Fighting Windmills" and "Radar Love" are surely adding new energy to the set. The bulk of the songs are taken from the best ("Moontan") and the latest album ("Contraband") by that time. This made it commercially justified but at the expense of some other worthy material (particularly from albums "Golden Earring/Wall of Dolls" and "Seven Tears") that was omitted.

"Golden Earring Live" showed great potentials and strong performances of the band on stage and is highly recommended in the sphere of the heavy "arena rock". There are elements of American country and southern boogie rock (introductory guitars to "Con Man" sound like taken off an ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND album) as well as extended psyche guitar jams. All in all there is plenty of material here that most prog and classic rock fans should enjoy listening.

PERSONAL RATING: 3,5/5

P.A. RATING: 4/5

My favorite live album. By this time, in the mid to late 70s, Earring had a two guitar lineup, which allowed lead guy George Kooymans more freedom as the other guy held down the fort. Barry Hay makes a great live frontman, confident and energetic, with just a dose of self- deprecating humor. The songs comprising this double live album are a journey from peak to peak to peak. "Radar Love" gets its definitive treatment ? it's stretched out to 12 minutes, but instead of boring us, it manages to capture the building intensity of the studio version and build the intensity even slower and greater ? exhilarating! The Byrds song "Eight Miles High" goes through ten minutes of guitar exploration, with the two guitarists soloing off each other, but with an inner logic that makes the time fly right by. There's one or two tracks I could do without ("Con Man"), but overall this is what I look for in a live album: it supplants the respective studio versions in every way, and makes you feel like you're right there at the concert.

Golden Earring was a beat group in the mid-sixties, a psychedelic proto-prog group around the turn of the decade and a more regular rockgroup with some Americana flair in the mid-seventies. To me it sounds like the band's sound was heavily influenced by Quicksilver Messenger Service's 'Happy Trails' record. The band was particularly good on stage and stayed that way well into the 21th century. It is strange then that there are so few live albums of the band playing at full force. 'Live' in 1977 features some of the band's stronger cuts and material from their by that time latest record 'Contraband'. The band is supported by Eelco Gelling (of Cuby and The Blizzards fame), one of the best Dutch guitarist of his generation. The band has a nice rhythm and blues rock vibe and the guitars sounds great here. Golden Earring was one of those bands that fluently improvised within its song formats and allowed the songs to grow on stage.

The first record opens with the wild and urgent 'Candy's Going Bad', what a way to get a rock party started. Especially the inciting pre-chorus gets me going. 'She Flies on Strange Wings' needs little introduction. It is a classic rock favorite. The version of 'Mad Love's Coming' is simply one of the best recordings of the bands career. A stellar tight opening section with the slightly overdrive twin guitars, the bluesy and expressive vocals of Barry Hay (as magical here as Jim Morrison was a decade earlier) and a great instrumental ending sections with great solo's and a thick hardrock sound. On their famous cover of The Byrds' 'Eight Miles High' the band also shows its instrumental prowess and quite frankly kills the album version of 1969. 'The Vanilla Queen' has some symphonic rock elements and is treated with some more extended soloing. The second vinyl is quite the opposite. To my ears all songs sound very dull, excluding the extended version of 'Radar Love' - which the band plays slightly more psychedelic and lively than the original.

The first record of this 2lp deserves a four star rating and I don't think the weaker second record should prevent you from picking up this still widely available lp. Just make sure you hear this version of 'Mad Love's Coming' at least once before you die.