Jefferson Airplane Album: “Live At The Monterey Fest”

I strongly disagree with the two reviews already posted here. This superb record is 'bona fide'Jefferson Airplane in full flight, not only playing ferocious live versions of classic's like "Somebody to Love", "White Rabbit" and "She Has Funny Cars", but also delivering an electric storm of scorching, freakin' psychedelic mayhems: an overwhelming, madly fierce cover of Fred Neil's "Other Side of This Life" and, mainly, a thunderous, earth-shattering live rendition of "The Ballad of You and Me and Pooneil",that is, for my money, simply the BEST single live track ever issued by the Airplane, full of feedback-drenched acid guitar assaults (Jorma Kaukonen), menacing bass explosions (Jack Casady), pounding drum beats (Spencer Dryden) and spaced-out, eerie howls by the Almighty Grace Slick!!!

This was taken from the 1967 Monterey International Pop Festival. It is about 38 minutes long.

The sound quality is fair to poor (although it is better than some of the other recordings from Monterey Pop). It is taken off of the tapes done for a TV special.

DON'T BELIEVE THAT CRAP THAT THE SOUND QUALITY IS GOOD FOR THE ERA. GREAT SOUND QUALITY RECORDINGS OF LIVE MUSIC HAVE BEEN MADE FOR DECADES BEFORE THIS. The sound quality is poor because the recording was never meant for an album release. It was recorded for a TV special.

This CD was released as a result of Ryoko unearthing the Monterey tapes and putting together a Monterey boxset, to capture flavor of that groundbreaking festival. About half of the music on this CD is also on the Monterey boxset.

The performance of the band is interesting, but not their best. However, I think the poor mix makes the band sound more out of sync than they really were. It is an interesting snapshot of the band, but I think there are better live albums out there. what is nice is that there are some songs done here that aren't on any other live albums.

Well, it only took forty years and a few months for this performance to be available to a mass audience. Gosh. Maybe Matthew Katz had a hand in this travesty. Who knows for sure? What is for sure is that this is a true blue classic-regardless of the less-than-perfect analog engineering; Owsley and the Dead's crew can probably take credit for that-and most-if not all- of the electric ambience at Monterey. This performance allowed the masses outside of the City to experience what only the tribes and wannabe tribal members had the fortunate luck to see on a week end after weekend basis: the triple Scorpio intensity of Gracie, Casady and Kaukonen and Dryden fusing professional musicianship with early psychedelic improv, the voice of Marty Balin-and that other guy, Paul Kantner. A cast of real characters: charismatic, intense, creative, unafraid, striking, LOUD. What's really nice is that there was still in existence, at this time, a palpable rapport between the Airplane and the audience best characterised by the expression, from either perspective that is, "My God Martha, these folks are having a real good time; look at that over there!" 1967: the acid age peaked and folk rock became transformed. This record reflects that shift as paradigmatically as you can get. Personally, it's nice to know that except for Spencer Dryden, all the principals are actively pursuing their muses. And that's what makes it a real special classic...in the beginning...