CD Odyssey Disc 391: Blue Oyster Cult

Ladies and gentlemen, the return of Blue Oyster Cult to A Creative Maelstrom!  I'm so excited I delayed this review just so I could listen to them for a while.

Disc 391 is…Some Enchanted Evening

Artist: Blue Oyster Cult

Year of Release: 1978

What’s Up With The Cover?:  This cover used to fascinate me as a kid.  As an adult I still find it very cool.  A mysterious undead creature rides across a desert landscape.  I love everything about this cover, from the contrast of the blue sky against the red mountains in the background, to the script artfully spelling out the name of the band and album.  Blue Oyster Cult often hides their band's iconic symbol somewhere on the cover, and here we find it making up part of the horse's bridle.

You might think this is Death himself riding across the desert, what with the skeletal visage and the scythe etc. but clever readers will note that based on the picture as presented, I went with the generic 'mysterious undead creature.'  Ten bonus points if you can guess why.

Although not the cover art, here's a photo from inside the CD I couldn't resist sharing:

So cool, they're almost not, but then still are.  Except for Eric Bloom - you can't wear your own tour shirt, dude.

How I Came To Know It: We are talking about one of the most influential bands in my life.  I've known this record since my brother brought it home from the store the year it was released in 1978, and I've been listening to it ever since.

How It Stacks Up: I have eleven studio albums by BOC and three live albums (not one live album as wrongly noted back when I reviewed Cultosaurus Erectus at Disc 206).  Of the three live albums, "Some Enchanted Evening" is the best, narrowly edging out "On Your Feet Or On Your Knees."

Rating: 5 stars

A brief interlude of instruments tuning up, followed by the challenge:  "Atlanta, Georgia:  are you ready to rock and roll?  Well please welcome, from New York City, Blue...Oyster...Cult!"  If there is a better live album opener, I can't think of it right now.

Then the band lights in with "R.U. Ready 2 Rock" a song that is respectable as the Side Two opener on their new (for the time) album "Spectres," but is somehow magnificent as the launch point for a live album.

The original live album only has seven tracks, each one a classic example of how to do live music right.  Right after you are warmed up with the opener, they launch into one of greatest guitar riffs ever, with "E.T.I. (Extra Terrestrial Intelligence)."

The segue also demonstrates the delicate balance of a live album's music and crowd noise.  A little cheering from the local Georgians and they cut them off at just the right point with the opening notes of the second track.

From there we get "Astronomy", at 8:29 a respectable minute and a half longer than the studio version off of "Secret Treaties" giving you a bit more of Buck Dharma's guitar mastery, but not so much as to slip into shameless noodling (are you listening, Dire Straits, Led Zeppelin?).

On the regular length album, the requisite remake is MC5's "Kick Out the Jams" which is the best version of this song I've heard, including both the original and Rage Against the Machine's much later effort on "Renegades."  The energy of the band live flows out of this album in what I can only assume is some form of alchemical process lifted from the writings of the mad wizard Alhazred (if you know this reference, congratulations - you have another reason to enjoy B.O.C.).

Like any good live show, the crowd pleasers ("Godzilla" and "(Don't Fear) the Reaper") come late in the show, with the crowd already revved up.  The "Godzilla" live version is better than the studio track on "Spectres", which itself sets the bar pretty high.

The concert closes with another remake better than the original, this time an homage to The Animals' "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place."

Throughout the album, the energy never falters.  I've heard this album literally hundreds of times, and every time I feel like I'm at the concert all over again.

My copy of this album is the 2007 Legacy Edition re-issue, which has seven extra songs, making it twice as long as the original.  Ordinarily, adding all these extra tracks to the original album would enrage me.  However, live albums are a different animal (for another example listen to the extended version of Johnny Cash's "Live at San Quentin".

Like that album, the songs added here were played at the original show, and only edited off for length, not because they were filler.  Many of these tracks are concert staples for B.O.C., including "ME262", "Harvester of Eyes" and "Hot Rails To Hell" which they still play to this day.

There is also a pretty wild instrumental called "5 guitars" which has one of the most amazing bass solos you will ever hear.  That's right, dear readers - this album has a bass solo that kicks ass.

The extended tracks also feature another B.O.C. cover classic, "Born To Be Wild" although this version isn't as strong as the one off their first live album, "On Your Feet Or On Your Knees."  I can only assume they wanted to leave you wanting more.

The Legacy Edition also comes with a DVD called "Some Other Enchanted Evening" which is a bootlegged DVD of the concert tour.  Watching it made me appreciate just how incredible these guys were in the day, when all they had was their skill, stage presence and a very primitive laser show.

I've seen Blue Oyster Cult live twice - neither time with any lasers.  Once in around 1993 in a Victoria night club, where I was underwhelmed with the sound mixing, and once in Vancouver in 2008 where they were good, but didn't play long enough.  By contrast, "Some Enchanted Evening" is BOC in their heyday, with all five original members playing flat out.  In 1978 there were few if any live acts that had the visceral energy of these guys.

I don't usually give live albums five stars, but "Some Enchanted Evening" represents everything that a live album should be.  It has great sound quality, amazing performances, and a perfectly chosen set list to keep you immersed in the concert experience throughout, even when you're listening on headphones as you walk to and from work.  The songs are great, and when it is over - just like at any great concert - you feel both elated and wishing they'd come out for one more encore all at the same time.

Best tracks:  All the tracks are great and I couldn't pick out one over the others.  Of the fourteen, the only one I'd lose is the alternate version of "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place" at the end of the album, and not because it is bad - but because I generally think repeating tracks on a record isn't called for.  It wasn't enough to knock them down from five, though.