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Classic Live Albums Part 6 - 1979 - 1981

Next, part of the sequence goes from 1979 through to 1981. Some great records here.

Rust Never Sleeps: Neil Young and Crazy Horse (Up to 1978)
Paris: Supertramp (29th November 1979)
Exit Stage Left: Rush (June 1980 and March 1981)
Stand In The Fire:Warren Zevon (August 1980)
Fleetwood Mac Live: Fleetwood Mac (Up to 1980)
No Sleep 'Til Hammersmith: Motorhead (28-30 March 1980)
Live Shots - Joe Ely (Feb 1980)
The Concert In Central Park: Simon and Garfunkel (19th September 1981)


RUST NEVER SLEEPS
Recorded: Mainly through 1978
Neil Young And Crazy Horse

I reckon there are at least three Neil Young live albums that deserve a place in any list of the greatest. This, 1991's Weld and the MTV Unplugged from 1993. There's a fair amount of overlap as well between the tracklists, but I''ll focus on Rust Never Sleeps since it contains classic songs close to the time when he wrote and released them. You can expect a little bit of cross-referencing however. 

He starts and finishes with what counts as the title track - 'My, My, Hey, Hey (Out Of The Blue)' at the beginning and 'Hey, Hey, My, My (Into The Black)' at the end. On Weld you only get the knackered-amped up '...(Into the Black)' part, but I think it's a slightly better version on the later album. Lyrically it follows the rather-difficult-to-justify-once-you-pass-50 sentiment of "it's better to burn out than to fade away". See also The Who's My Generation. Kurt Cobain wrote it on his suicide note, which apparently knocked Young for six and led to the rather brilliant 'Sleeps With Angels' album (according to Wikipedia anyway). Well, I love 'My, My, Hey, Hey' and will happily forget that I have led a safe, conformist life, never came close to burning out and will probably get old before I die. I would dispute the idea that Rust Never Sleeps however, a little prudently applied mental and physical lubricant can stave off the most corrosive aspects of growing old. 

It's one of a number of songs on here that don't appear on a studio album and apparently come from the unreleased album 'Chrome Dreams'. 'Pocahontas', 'Powderfinger' and 'Sedan Delivery' all originate there, along with the Unplugged song 'Stringman'. 'Pocahontas' makes it onto the Unplugged album and 'Powderfinger' onto Weld, so whatever the reasons for the album not making it to release, Young clearly values the songs and has kept them alive in concert. 'Pocahontas' is mirrored by Weld's 'Cortez The Killer', suggesting that Young sees himself as some kind of apologist for the fate of the native American at the hands of European conquests. 

Also turning up on both Rust Never Sleeps and Weld is 'Welfare Mothers', with an equivalent amount of crashing chaos on both versions. As for 'Ride My Llama', well your guess is as good as mine. If I had to call out anything from the other two albums it would be Young doing a Hendrix Star Spangled Banner job on Dylan's Blowing In The Wind (Weld) and 'Like A Hurricane' (Unplugged). The latter was a pub rock standard during my student days when The Borough in Sunderland Town centre had a band on on Thursday and Sunday nights. And of course you have to give a shout out to the visceral 'Rockin' In The Free World' on Weld. 

Funnily enough I never bothered to investigate the one hour of feedback that Young issued on the extended 'Arc Weld' album.

Band Bantz/Heckles and Coughs - There really is nothing. Rust Never Sleeps is very nearly a studio album, so far back in the mix are the audiences, and Young just doesn't seem to engage.

Next Track Off The Rank: The Weight by The Band. Canada, harmonica and strummed acoustic guitar must feature strongly in Spotify's algorithm.

My, My, Hey, Hey (Out Of The Blue)
Thrasher
Ride My Llama
Pocahontas
Sail Away
Powderfinger
Welfare Mothers
Sedan Delivery
Hey, Hey, My, My (Into The Black)


PARIS
Recorded:29th November 1979
Supertramp

Now look. I can't like everything, and Supertramp are, let's face it, quite fucking dull. I apologize to whoever it was suggested it, because this does have an iconic reputation among live albums. However the combination of everything being led by electric piano and Jesus-a-like Roger Hodgson's whiny, wimpy vocals makes it all rather pedestrian and boring. 

Even the swearing is pretty low-wattage, "Bloody well right", "Bloody marvelous". All the well known songs are here - except go-to TV telethon song 'Give A Little Bit' - and in isolation all of these are just about fine. When they crop up on the radio, you think, 'Oh yeah. I know this one'. But it's all rather too clever-clever. 'The Logical Song' is ultimately quite irritating and 'Breakfast In America' is just too arch. On the plus side, 'You Started Laughing' has a promising sad-sounding delicate intro. They attempt a touch of gravitas by closing with 'Crime Of The Century', but you'd be better off listening to anything by Pink Floyd instead.

Band Bantz:  I could do better with my O-level grade C French than they manage. The preamble to 'Breakfast In America' is every random French-sounding foodstuff listed out. Mousseline, Langoustine, Creme Caramel, Beaucoup de Vin, and a few Italian dishes as well. These continentals, they're all the same. 

Heckles And Coughs: The not notorious for being easily pleased Parisians are enthusiastic about it all so maybe I'm missing something. 

Next Track Off The Rank: Rikki Don't Lose That Number by Steely Dan. Different league.

School
Ain't Nobody But Me
The Logical Song
Bloody Well Right
Breakfast In America
You Started Laughing
Hide In Your Shell
From Now On
Dreamer
Rudy
A Soapbox Opera
Asylum
Take The Long Way Home
Fools Overture
Two Of Us
Crime Of The Century

EXIT STAGE LEFT
Recorded: June 10-11 1980 and March 27 1981
Rush

On the rare occasions that the subject of New Order comes up in conversations here at RockOdysseys HQ, Mrs R.O. always dismisses them as 'a bloke's band'. You have to bear in mind our particular vintage. We were students in the heyday of Bernard Sumner , Peter Hook and co, and what I always take this comment to mean is that they were definite favorites of males of our age because they represented 'serious' contemporary music (depressing, Mancunian and mostly boring). Now you may be wondering why I raise this in a piece on Canadian rock darlings Rush? Well I would contend that the epithet 'bloke's band' was pretty much made for them. Their proposition is intricate lead guitar work, fiddly basslines and complicated drumming (with more cow-bell action than is really warranted). No woman really likes that kind of thing, which is a sweeping generalization of the worst kind, but I doubt any female would consider it a serious insult to to their sex, nor to the fight against the patriarchy. 

Rush do sometimes cross the line into the turgid and a live double album, I'll admit, tried my patience a bit. Which is a shame because I love hearing 'Spirit Of The Radio' and 'Tom Sawyer' on the rare occasions they make it onto the radio. But you can have too much of it, and Geddy Lee's nasal shriek is fine for a while, until you start to worry that he's going to give himself a sore throat or at least blow out his sinuses. 'Xanadu' is included too. Samuel Taylor Coleridge's 'Kubla Khan' is irresistible to nitwit popstars because it speaks to their sense of power and pompousness (they never do 'Ozymandias' do they?), but at least Frankie Goes To Hollywood showed some self-awareness and mischief by changing the words to  "In Xanadu, did Kubla Khan, stately pleasuredome ERECT!". 

But don't get me wrong. Rush are great in the right context and I'd recommend listening to this double album one side at a time, or simply go for 'Spirit Of The Radio', 'Xanadu' and 'Tom Sawyer' and skip the rest. 

Band Bantz: 'Red Barchetta' is "a song about a car". See? Bloke's Band.

Heckles And Coughs: They take the vocal duties for the appropriate parts of 'Closer To The Heart' and Neil Peart's drum solo on 'YYZ 'brings them to raptures. The question that has nagged me for about 40 years now is, how do you pronounce 'Peart'? is it "pert", as in "bum", or "part" to rhyme with "fart"?

Next Track Off The Rank: Jump by Van Halen. 

Spirit Of The Radio
Red Barchetta
YYZ
A Passage To Bangkok
Closer To The Heart
Beneath, Between & Behind
Jacob's Ladder
Broon's Bane
The Trees
Xanadu
Freewill
Tom Sawyer
La Villa Strangiato


STAND IN THE FIRE
Recorded: August 1980
Warren Zevon

Here's a fun game to play with your mates when you are down the boozer and 4 pints into the evening. Think of a word that has only ever been used once in a popular song. If someone can think of another song that uses the same word, you lose. My banker for this would be 'brucellosis' which turns up in Zevon's 'Play It All Night Long', but I'd like to think that if I discovered that someone else had managed to shoehorn it into a song, I'd be happy to take my forfeit and would immediately seek it out. 

'Play It All Night Long' doesn't even feature on the original release of this, but is one of a number of bonus tracks released on a remastered version in 2007. In fact these four tracks were almost the highlight of the album for me, which is saying something because this is a dark joy from start to finish.

In an earlier post I suggested that Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull was the Medieval Court Jester of Rock (or at least he thinks so), if so then Zevon must be something like the Bill Hicks. His songs are darkly funny. Take 'Play it...' for example, your have to wonder whether he thinks Neil Young rather soft-pedaled in his attack on Alabama and so decided he was really going to go for the jugular. There's incest, PTSD, drinking to oblivion, elderly incontinence and dementia - "sweat, piss, jizz and blood" indeed (oh, and the cattle have the obscurely named disease). But he also somehow seems to communicate a grudging admiration of the stoic acceptance and the will to keep going on "we'll get by somehow". There's also 'Excitable Boy', where a psychopathic youth follows a trail of destruction ending in rape and murder, while everyone shrugs their shoulders and puts it down to him just being an "Excitable Boy". And there's pretty much more of the same on 'Poor Poor Pitiful Me' where, of course, it's all the fault of the women.

The version of 'Werewolves Of London' on this features some adaptations, with some of the action being displaced to California and cameo appearances from Brian De Palma mutilating the little old ladies, James Taylor being sought by the lycanthrope and Jackson Browne with a perfect heart. I never heard the 'R' at the start of "Rah-hoooo!" on the howls before now either.

But there is light as well, usually around the redemptive power of music. So 'Mohammed's Radio' tells of how a night-time radio station lifts people out of the daily grind and bonus track 'Johnny Strikes Up The Band' is simply a joyous celebration of dancing to rock and roll. 

Band Bantz: 'Hasten Down The Wind' is the last bonus track and Zevon explains how he was in bad place when he wrote it, but is now glad to be alive. During the song he asks for the house lights to be raised so he can see his friends. It's a touching moment during a great song.

Heckles And Coughs: He asks what they want to hear just before 'Johnny Strikes Up The Band'. Whether they actually asked for it is unclear. This was recorded in The Roxy Theatre in West Hollywood. It feels intimate and closes with a chant from the audience of "Zevon, Zevon, Zevon, Zevon"

Next Track Off The Rank: Go Back Home - Steven Stills. Spotify places Zevon alongside the likes of CSN&Y, Little Feat and Jackson Browne, so clearly he's pigeonholed as a 'California' artist.

Stand In The Fire
Jeannie Needs A Shooter
Excitable Boy
Mohammed's Radio
Werewolves Of London
Lawyers, Guns And Money
The Sin
Poor Poor Pitiful Me
I'll Sleep When I'm Dead
Bo Diddley's A Gunslinger

Bonus Tracks
Johnny Strikes Up The Band
Play It All Night Long
Frank And Jesse James
Hasten Down The Wind
  
LIVE
Recorded:1977-1980
Fleetwood Mac

This was cobbled together from the Rumours and Tusk tours, and, you know, Fleetwood Mac are nothing if not polished, so you can reasonably expect that cherry-picked performances from a three year period are going to be pretty good. I did find 'Dreams' a bit underpowered with neither Nicks or Buckingham being very convincing, and she's as unintelligible as ever on 'Rhiannon'. 'Go Your Own Way' is a bit of a shambles, but they redeem it with a decent version of 'Don't Stop' afterward.  The closing version of the Beach Boys 'The Farmer's Daughter' seems a little tacked-on, and although no doubt it is Live, it doesn't really sound it.

The only nod to the pre-Nicks/Buckingham era is a version of Peter Green's 'Oh Well', but it's - well, what's the opposite of 'stripped back'? Overdressed? There's quite a lot of (cow)bells and whistles added on, but it works pretty well and is a good performance from Buckingham. No quite so sure about whether he pulls off a punk attitude on 'Not That Funny', he's rather like someone who's learned to do a Mick Jagger impression by correspondence course, and the quiet bit in the middle just becomes tedious, especially when the screaming starts. But when you've got an ego the size of a planet you don't really care whether you're actually being entertaining so, sorry folks, he will be drawing this out for 9 minutes. His performance of 'I'm So Afraid' is also rather overwrought and florid.

I do like 'Never Going Back Again', but it's a song that fails in live performance. The precision that makes it so special on the studio version can't be achieved and it seems diminished here. The best tracks, as always, owe the most to Christine McVie, so 'Over My Head' provides a nice smooth contrast to Nicks' subsequent abrasive 'Rhiannon'. 

So this is all fine, but just that. There are good songs that we all know and they're very competent and know their business, but it's not really uplifting, or saying anything interesting. 

Cover photo: How times have changed. Now it is de-rigeur to get a selfie of the band with the adoring horde in the background. Back in 1980 you had to rely on a bombed-out roadie who might well be unable to hold the camera still. Looks like Buckingham would rather show the audience his arse.

Band Bantz: Christine McVie comes across as rather diffident in her intros. Almost apologetic for not having done anything from Tusk so far as she introduces 'Over And Over', which she helpfully tells the audience is track 1 on side 1 - just in case they want to go away and look it up. 

Heckles and Coughs: They go wild after 'I'm So Afraid'. I might have required a nudge before I reacted. The applause after The Farmer's Daughter defines the word 'desultory'

Next Track Off The Rank: Ohio by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.

Monday Morning
Say You Love Me
Dreams
Oh Well
Over & Over
Sara
Not That Funny
Never Going Back Again
Landslide
Fireflies
Over My Head
Rhiannon
Don't Let Me Down Again
One More Night
Go Your Own Way
Don't Stop
I'm So Afraid
The Farmer's Daughter

LIVE SHOTS
Recorded: Feb 1980
Joe Ely

This one has a long history in the RockOdysseys context. When I first put out the call for great live albums to cover this was a slightly leftfield suggestion that I was assured would repay my attention. However it's unusual these days in that it's not available on Spotify. I looked on Amazon but the only versions available were coming in at over 100 nicker - which suggested it was either insanely rare or so good you had to pay top dollar to hear it. In the end I had resigned myself to go for a different Ely Live album. But, when the time came I checked online again and lo and behold, there it was, second hand for £1.98 plus post and packing. So this is also rare in that I actually bought the bloody thing in order to hear it.

The recording was made in London when he was supporting The Clash in 1980 on their tour for London Calling. He seems an odd choice, God knows what the fanbase made of Ely's fairly conventional brand of rock and roll, Southern boogie and country and western. However, they're certainly respectful enough, and the Clash were never straightforward punks anyway. I've pinpointed the date as February 1980 from online archives of the Clash's tour dates and it will have been either at the Electric Ballroom in Camden or down in darkest Lewisham. 

So knowing most of this before I started didn't really prepare me for what Joe Ely had to offer, which goes from Jerry-Lee style piano thumping rawk of 'Fingernails' to almost Hispanic croons like 'She Never Spoke Spanish To Me'. He also delivers two songs that refer to 'Honky-Tonk' which got me thinking that I've never really properly understood what is meant by the term. I mean, I can recognize it when I hear it - piano-based southern rock - but Wikipedia reckons that it might just be a onomatopoeic description of the music played in a certain kind of Southern bar. The two songs in question are 'Honky Tonk Masquerade' and 'Honky Tonkin'', in which Ely is ably assisted by Carlene Carter. 

He's good though, there's no doubt. There's a searing guitar solo on 'Johnny's Blues' and he really does give The Killer a run for his money on the piano. The recording is clean too, so it's a pleasure to listen to. 

The version I got has four bonus tracks, the Texas Special EP, which, rather like with Zevon's Stand In The Fire are sometimes the most enjoyable. They include the rather daft 'Crazy Lemon' and a cover of 'Not Fade Away.

Band Bantz: Ely gets the crowd going a little with some light howling during 'Long Snake Moan'.
 
Heckles and Coughs: The urban warriors that were following Joe Strummer and co around the capital are quiet as mice, possibly dumbstruck by the idea that not every song needs to be a howl of righteous anger. 

Next Track Off The Rank: Well, there isn't one, since it's not on Spotify.

Fingernails
Midnight Shift
Honky Tonk Masquerade
Honky-Tonkin'
Long Snake Moan
I Had My Hopes Up High
She Never Spoke Spanish To Me
Johnny's Blues
Fools Fall In Love
Boxcars
Crazy Lemon
Not Fade Away
Treat Me Like A Saturday Night
Wishin' For You
 
 
NO SLEEP TIL HAMMERSMITH
Recorded:1980 and 28-30th March 1981
Motörhead

No mucking around,  Lemmy's bass buzz starts straight up and he begins howling his way through 'Ace Of Spades', a song that defies any criticism for it's sheer brain-haemorrhaging excitement. Like quite a lot of Motörhead's songs the lyrics are pretty much a list of gasped out phrases. At the time of recording Lemmy was about 35, an age when many professional sportsmen are, if not at their peak, then certainly in their prime. Lemmy is too, but being a warty leather-clad rock and roll warrior takes it's toll on your vocal cords and your respiratory system. 

However, they are relentless. You could say they're one-dimensional, but then you'd be missing the point. Motörhead are a hammer and everything looks like a nail to them. Mind you, they don't really try to stray too far from what they know, so it's all about life on the road, motorbikes and hard living. Don't come here for relationship advice. 

Side 2 begins with 'Ace Of Spades - Reprise'. Oh sorry, it says 'Overkill' here on the track listing but it's essentially the same song, at least at first. 'Capricorn' is possibly the most measured and thoughtful of everything on the album, which is to say it goes at a slightly slower pace and has what might be called a 'guitar break' in the middle.

The original issue ends with their eponymous song. Yet another headlong roar of guitars, drums and throat nodules. The 'Deluxe Edition' has loads more including outtakes of pretty much every track on the original record. Oh, and did I mention that the whole thing is amazing?

Band Bantz: Lemmy dedicates a lot of songs to various groups and people. 'Iron Horse' is for the "Angels", and '(We Are) The Roadcrew' is for...well you can guess. In a rare attack of clear enunciation, he pronounces the middle 'b' when announcing 'Bomber'. 'Capricorn' is "a love song that I wrote for myself" 

Heckles and Coughs: Well y'know, the audiences probably can't even hear themselves think, so speech is unlikely to be possible. Despite the album title all the tracks were recorded in Leeds and Newcastle and Hammersmith was not even a date on the tour (according to Wikipedia at least).

Next Track Off The Rank: Hush by Deep Purple. Which perfectly illustrates how a nice idea can eventually just get out of hand.

Ace Of Spades
Stay Clean
Metropolis
The Hammer
Iron Horse
No Class
Overkill
(We Are) The Roadcrew
Capricorn
Bomber
Motorhead


THE CONCERT IN CENTRAL PARK
Recorded: 19th September 1981
Simon And Garfunkel

I remember this being a big deal at the time, although as I was only 14 my knowledge of Simon and Garfunkel would have been sketchy. They would have been familiar to me as an act, and I'd have definitely known songs like 'Mrs Robinson', 'The Sound Of Silence' and 'The 59th Bridge Street Song' (although I would have almost certainly called it 'Feeling Groovy'), but I was hardly their target audience. However, this was An Event, and probably for all of the following reasons
 - It was free to attend
 - It represented the coming together of a famously estranged musical duo
 - It was a local act playing their local park
 - More than 500,000 people turned up
 - It was on the telly all over the world
 - They didn't disappoint

This last point is in some ways the most surprising, and what I mean by it is that they didn't insult the audience by playing anything obscure (although Art manages to winkle in 'A Heart In New York' off his new album - see Band Bantz below). Nope, this is like a Greatest Hits package. It's also a remarkably good quality recording. Goodness knows how hard it would have been getting decent acoustics in a venue like that, although I guess it's taken straight off the sound board for the record itself.

So, anyway, it's a joy from start to finish. You can't really go wrong with this collection of songs, and they're performed well too. 

Band Bantz: Simon's choicest moment comes when he thanks the organizers and city authorities and pledges that those selling loose joints will be donating half their profits. Garfunkel makes a point that 'A Heart In New York' is about the only non-Paul Simon song in the set. In fairness he doesn't sound too bitter (and it's a Gallagher and Lyle song anyway). At least he didn't resort to bunny-apocalypse song 'Bright Eyes'. 

Heckles And Coughs: There's more than half a million of the buggers and they're getting it for free, so no complaints, and you'd never be able to hear them if there were. Art asks if they're cold in advance of 'The Boxer', but no, they collectively confirm that they are fine. References to large crowds of people in the closing 'The Sound Of Silence' gets the expected response.

Next Track Off The Rank: A Horse With No Name by America. 

Mrs Robinson
Homeward Bound
America
Me And Julio Down By The Schoolyard
Scarborough Fair
April Come She Will
Wake Up Little Susie
Still Crazy After All These Years
American Tune
Late In The Evening
Slip Slidin' Away
A Heart In New York
Kodachrome
Bridge Over Troubled Water
50 Ways To Leave Your Lover
The Boxer
Old Friends
The 59th Street Bridge Song
The Sound Of Silence

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