It’s snowing right now, and I had to shovel the snow from in front of my
building earlier tonight. I’m a bit out of shape, but it felt great just to get
outside and do something physical. If I have to do it all week the novelty will
fade quickly, but for one night it felt pretty good.
On with the music!
Disc 1333 is… Setlist: The Very Best of Blue Oyster Cult
Live
Artist:
Blue Oyster Cult
Year of Release: 2010 but
featuring performances from 1974 - 1981
What’s up with the
Cover?
The glory days of Blue Oyster Cult when all five members were still in the band
and Buck Dharma still had hair.
Using my incredibly keen eye for detail, I will surmise this is the band
performing the instrumental “5 Guitars”.
How I Came to Know
It: My friend Ross bought me
this album as a gift. Thanks, Ross!
How It Stacks Up: This is a compilation of live performances
over eight years, so while it is cool, I won’t stack it up against other Blue
Oyster Cult records.
Ratings: As long-time readers will know, “best of” records and compilations don’t get
ratings here on the CD Odyssey.
Legacy Records decision to include Blue Oyster
Cult in their live compilation series, Setlist, couldn’t have to come to me at
a better time. I’ve soured a little on Blue Oyster Cult in concert in recent
years, and this Setlist compilation was a timely reminder that these guys were
once the kings of the live rock show.
This record is primarily a compilation from
three of their iconic touring periods, each of which is represented by a live
album that came out at the time: 1975’s “On Your Feet Or On Your Knees”
(reviewed back at Disc 716); 1978’s “Some Enchanted Evening” (reviewed at Disc 391); and 1982’s “Extraterrestrial Live” (reviewed back at Disc 930).
If you saw Blue Oyster Cult on even one of
these three tours, you have witnessed greatness. I didn’t get to see any
of them. My brother saw the 1981/82 tour, but I was too young to accompany him
to the big city at the time. It ate me up inside to hear his tales of a massive
fire-breathing Godzilla and the revving of a motorcycle’s sword-pipe exhaust directly
into the microphone until, like on “Cities on Flame” your ears melted.
How I longed to have my ears melted back then but alas, it was not to be.
I did get to see them more recently, once in
the early nineties and twice since. It was fun every time, but my only relic of
their heyday is a second-hand “Black and Blue” tour shirt from a tour where
they co-headlined with Black Sabbath. I know there’s some shame in having a
tour shirt from a tour you didn’t attend, but damn it I’m keeping that one.
1975, 1978 and 1982 were great years for the
band, and Setlist does an admirable job of pulling solid tracks from each tour.
A lot of these are direct from my other live albums. It was nostalgic fun to
hear them again, mixed together by someone who clearly had an ear for a true
Blue Oyster Cult fan, and had somehow not had their ears melted off by a City
on Flame or an on-stage Harley Davidson.
Three of the twelve tracks were new versions
for me. There is a 1977 version of Godzilla from their “Some Enchanted Evening”
tour. I’ve always thought the original live album version of this is the best
BOC ever did, but the Setlist choice is a solid second choice and a welcome addition
to my collection.
However,
the real treasures are two songs I had never heard live, “The Vigil” and
“Flaming Telepaths”. “Flaming Telepaths” is one of my all-time
favourite Blue Oyster Cult songs and this version (from 1981) is excellent. It
loses a bit of the weirdness I love from the studio version, but it makes up
for it with some rock crunch.
The real prize, however, is “The Vigil.”
“The Vigil” is off of BOC’s 1979 album “Mirrors.” That record gets short
shrift from fans because of its lighter production, but I’ve always loved it
and felt it was underrated. It gets ignored on most setlists, with BOC pretty
much sticking exclusively to “Dr. Music,” so I’ve longed to hear some of
the other songs played live. Setlist made that dream come true, at least for “The
Vigil”.
I was not disappointed, the live track has all
the complicated glory of the original track, but with an extra minute of
absolutely essential noodling. One extra minute of noodling on a track already
six and a half minutes long is exactly the right amount of noodle I want in my live
show.
My recent beef with Blue Oyster Cult has
nothing to do with their performances. Yes, they are down to only two original
members (Lanier has died, and the Bouchard brothers have moved on) but they
bring in solid musicians who appreciate the music, and Buck Dharma and Eric
Bloom both still own the stage. My issue is that they hardly ever change their
setlist. I’m always getting pretty much the same 75 minutes of music, with
small variations. For a serious fan, that gets annoying.
This Setlist record gave me every serious fan’s
concert desire: a couple of deep cuts. Let the rubes have their reapers and Godzilla,
but let them damn-well stand their in quiet confusion while we long-haired
veterans keep our vigils and sing of flaming telepaths. We’ve earned a few
minutes, and the band will be back to melting your ears in a more familiar way before
you realize they were gone.
Best tracks: I like all of them, but the Vigil is particularly
special as noted above
No comments:
Post a Comment