"Wild Child" and "Fallen From Grace" were two of Brigade's standout tracks and both rise in grace higher live. Basically, Brigade live, with a new song and a few old songs mixed in, performed live at Worcester, MA at the Centrum on 28 November 1990.
The two Heart selections are the heaviest ones from that album--"If Looks Could Kill" and "Shell Shock." If they'd included "The Wolf" and "All Eyes", the house would probably be rocked beyond tolerance. "Shell Shock" gets its rightful due live, but the speeded up heavy guitars in fact this version of "If Looks Could Kill" really outstrips its studio counterpart.
For a breather, they perform one of their favorite songs from Little Queen, "Love Alive" which becomes a powerhouse with Denny Carmassi's drum power. They keep the acoustic guitars for "Under The Sky", a new favourite of theirs and mine, with the dreamy feeling of "lying on your back, looking at the stars" as Ann says in introducing the song.
I described "The Night" with its heavily punctuated power chords. Well, the only way it could be outdone was it to have been done live. With the beginning power chords from Zeppelin's "Good Times Bad Times" introduced, followed by bluesy guitar solo, the song proper begins, and yes, those power chords are pounded.
There isn't too much variation in the Bon Jovi-like "Tall Dark Handsome Stranger" or "Call Of The Wild" from Brigade or "Who Will You Run To" from Bad Animals. These are the few weak moments in this album.
"How Can I Refuse," from Passionworks is really given the rocking treatment with the chugging guitar intro. Given the unjustified roasting Passionworks got from the critics, it's at least gratifying to see at least one of its songs represented live.
The new song "You're The Voice" is a power ballad whose guitarwork gives it a Brigade-era sound. The importance of making a difference is the theme here, with peaceful overtones: "We're all someone's daughter/We're all someone's son/How long can we look at each other/Down the barrel of a gun?"
Howard Leese's guitar solo, "The Way Back Machine," serves as a prelude to the ferociously done "Barracuda" which makes it more a shark than a Barracuda. The best track here.
The song selection here clearly favours the Brigade album, but whether or not one liked Brigade, this live album proves that Heart can still rock and roll and live treatments of studio tracks that were heavy before give them a major rousing makeover. My only question was, after this song, was there a lake or somewhere they the audience could cool off? Great live album, despite its weak spots.
I have quite a few older Heart albums on vinyl and when this live disc came out in 1991 I picked it up to have a bit of an overview of the band up to this point on CD. The album was recorded on the band's "Brigade" tour with the big hair 80's era lineup of The Wilson Sisters, Howard Leese, Mark Andes and Danny Carmassi. Overall this is a good live release. The sound is very good, and the band is in fine form. Ann Wilson's voice is marvelous as she never hits a bum note. Here range is as good live as in the studio and is truly one of the greatest female singers in rock n roll. The music is culled mostly from the band's 80's material, which is decent, but probably not on the same level as their 70's stuff. The highlight of the album is a great version of their almost progish "Love Alive". It is still a great song and done very well here. A new (at the time) song called "You're the Voice" is also included as a bit dated world anthem type of ballad. My main beef with this album is twofold. A lot of the keyboards on the disc have a very dated 80's sound to them. I guess this is to be expected, but not listening to this album in a long time, it really stood out to me. The other thing is the crowd noise. The crowd is mixed really high in the recording and there seems to have been a preponderance of girls screaming at the top of their lungs. One voice clearly stands out in between just about every song. Her shrieking is really really annoying. Other than that this is a good live release, but if you are looking for live Heart I think "The Road Home" is the better of the two.
This live album has some hidden gems like Love Alive, Who Will You Run To from Bad Animals and Shell Shock from the Heart album. The highlight of this album is their version of You're the Voice, which was originally done on by Australian superstar John Farnham on his 1986 album Whispering Jack. Anyone who loves this song should check out his version. The song was originally written by Chris Thompson of Manford Mann's Earth Band and become a world-wide hit -- except in the United States.
I borrowed this from a friend and had to have the songs on it for myself. I have many of there other cd's.
"Nothing But the Best: Radio Classics " I love this Albumn. I highly recommend it to fans of White Heart Christian rock.
