NIGHT AFTER NIGHT

The general rule is that supergroups never work as expected, but despite loosing two key members (Bill Bruford and Allan Holdsworth) after a strong self titled debut, UK managed to turn successfully into a power trio and recruit the brilliant drummer Terry Bozzio who's style and technique worked so well that honestly I never missed good old Bill.

Despite the majority opinion, I like their second album "Danger Money" much more than "UK" because it's more Symphonic and the trio worked better than a quartet.

After the success of this album the only challenge missing was to release a good live album, so under this circumstances "Night after Night" was released.

"Night After Night" is basically a blend of the two first recordings plus two new tracks so lets focus mainly in this tracks rather than in the others that should be reviewed in their original versions.

"Night after Night" opens the album with great strength and all the power this trio was capable of offering, from the keyboard intro it's obvious this guys knew how to rock, the voice of John Wetton at his peak is simply outstanding and Bozzio makes also an excellent power drumming work that adapts perfectly to what they pretended mostly a Rock song with few changes but solid sound to put the audience in the mood for great music.

Before I talk about the other new track, I must say that the live version of Rendezvous 6:02 is superb, the keyboard playing is stronger than in "Danger Money" and with an inspired Wetton, the song sounds as never before.

Still we have to listen the excellent "Nothing to Loose" before the second new song "As Long as you Want me Here" a nice blend of Hard Rock, Symphonic and a touch of Jazz Fusion, the skeleton of the song is in the rhythm section with Wetton and Bozzio precise plus some nice jazzy piano by Eddie Jobson, but we can't stop mentioning the solid backing chorus for John's voice, surly not the most Progressive track of the album but quality shines despite the genre and this is good Rock.

The rest of the tracks are at least in the same level of the studio albums (Even the ones recorded with Bruford and Holdsworth) and that is something we can say about few bands, because the real musicianship of a group can only be fully appreciated on stage, where you can't correct the mistakes and this guys passed the test with an "A".

But the curse of supergroups reached them and never recorded another album for the disappointment of the numerous fans that UK gained in their very short life.

Four stars for the only chance to listen UK on stage, an experience that I never regretted.