LIVE IN AMERICA

Last week, when I was visiting a local music store down here in my city, a young man approached me asking: "Excuse me, do you think this live album of Transatlantic is okay?". (I was actually surprised with the fact he was approaching me - how does he know me? Finally, he told me it's because the Pink Floyd "Wish You Were Here" T shirt that I used at the time. Hm . prog t shirt talks!). I thought for a while ... and finally told him "Yeah it's okay if you like live albums. However, I would recommend you to purchase their studio albums first". --- Quite honest with you, the readers of this beloved website, I have had this CD for so long in my collection but I think I only spin 3 or 4 times - not complete spin, it includes some skipping if necessary. To give an opinion? It's hard for me if I only spin less than 8 times to give a fair deal. It's becoming a burden for me if I recommend a prog album with minimum number of spins. I shared with him as well on this judgment. This CD I spin only by the time I received it and I was not impressed on my first 3 - 4 spins due to many medleys and jamming that took parts of Dream Theater, marillion, The Beatles, etc. I didn't like it. So I put aside the CD. Once I return home, I give another 4-5 spins of this double CD during the week, and this is my view ..

The opener "All of The Above" is a very long track. By design, it's a relatively complex composition combining all talents of the musicians involved By influence, it's basically a Spock's Beard track as it has all of similarity (about 90%) in style with The Beard music, and the rest is Flower Kings music. So you know who contributed a lot in this track - the singer, writer and keyboard player of The Beard - : Neal Morse. It's an energy driving track with various tempo changes and multi instrument solo. It's an excellent track. All musicians contribute their best. I especially like the part that features guitar solo followed with piano / organ solo with dynamic bassline and drumming at approx. minute 10 onwards. This part is really when I reached my ultimate musical orgasm with this song. Oh man .. what a very satisfying stream of music here! The excellent sonic quality produced by the CD has even made better impact to my listening pleasure. There are some transitions to quieter passages emphasizing more on vocals and guitar fills in bluesy style. This is a very enjoyable live track.

The next track is a medley : "Mystery Train / Magical Mystery Tour / Strawberry Fields Forever" that starts off with a kind of funky style with amazing bass guitar and drumming. The intertwining work between drum and organ is also very enjoyable. That's all about "Mystery Train". When it turns into The Beatles part . uuughhh .. so disgusting man . I hate the band played this - it's not better than The Beatles at all - no improvisation - so dull. And the singing? Really bad! Nah! I'm not going to say any good thing about this part - it's a lousy part! The band should take the music seriously and why bother playing The Beatles if it cannot do better?! It's enough man. If we want to give tribute to the legendary Beatles, do it better!

"We All Need Some Light" starts with a nice guitar opening in its simplest form. Overall this track is less attractive compared to studio version. A good track though.

CD 2 starts, again, with another tribute (read: cover) of GENESIS "Watcher of the skies / Firth of fifth". It's good performance but it's much better GENESIS performs this track. If you just want to get something different, you may like this track. But not me. I prefer Genesis themselves play this great track. Morse, Portnoy, Treawavas and Stolt: please stop playing tribute! It's so booooriiinggg ..!!!

I'm lucky that CD 2 still has one track of the band's material "My New World" that is performed dynamically by the band with great solos. I like this track very much, especially that it is combined with excellent sonic quality. The keyboard solo combined with guitar solo augmented with dazzling drum sounds is really stunning!!!

But again, the band made another medley that tribute (read: cover) their original band but . sorry to say it's all worse than the original versions. It has lost the soul and spirit of the original music, I'm sure about it. It is concluded with another cover for Beatles' "She's So Heavy". Lousy composition and performance - despite great musicianship of individual member of the band. Sorry, I have to be honest with my review.

Overall, some tracks are really excellent while some are really bad (my view). You are the final judge. If you do not have the studio albums, you'd better get them first. It's NOT a must to have this live set. Only when you have extra monies or you are truly a fan of the band or collector.. Keep on progging!"

Yours progressively,

GW - Indonesia