cdreviews2

: When I’m Up: My fave thing about this song live is the wind down that Alan does at the end...how his voice sustains on "no," and then trails down on the word "down"...it’s so clever, so cute! I’m glad to hear it here. The massive singalong at the beginning of this track is really impressive as well. I’m very fond of how they use the audience as an instrument here...how the collective audience voices do just that--function collectively--and how they interact with the other instruments as if choreographed. This is a far cry from the random crowd blathering that can mark, and mar, a live album.
: And how come we haven’t been able to place the locale of this song yet? Someone somewhere should step in to claim ownership of that scream!
: Everything Shines: I can hear the other Push Stars fans rising up to beat me down on this...but I actually think I like this version better than the original. In places, anyway. I like the accelerated pace. Chris Trapper is a gifted, gifted lyricist, but he has a fondness for pensive, ponderous tempos that I don’t share. Sometimes it works ("Moving Target" is high among my Push Star faves), but in this instance I think the song benefits from a racing sensation.
: Bob’s accordion additions are peerless.
: I also like the sharp separation...the flicker of silence...between the verses and the chorus. That musical break, that frozen moment...I think it’s a marvelous touch. I also like the staccato-sounding bouzouki (?) intros.
: I think my fave moment, though, is when Sean echoes Alan on the line "I need your song." Such a beautiful plaintive quality, as if one of the voices is a physical one and the other one is a mental one...like hearing words in your head from memory. Nice:
: Goin’ Up is ever its glorious self. It’s in my Top 5 all-time GBS faves in the studio version, and yet as good as it is recorded, it is always better live. I’m glad to have this version.
: I like how it includes all the usual tidbits... "Great Big Sea Live in _______," "the biggest kitchen party anywhere in ________," "Have a dance, for God’s sake!" These elements belong here, feel smoothly integral to the whole concert feel of it...and yet he surely didn’t do each of them EVERY time. Plus it has the "rock star" ending. A wisely chosen version.
: I’m so, so, so glad they included the Toronto banter in here! Such a funny moment, such memories. I do wish they could’ve included the next part of the sequence...Alan’s response, "Yeah, when that guy tried to sell me a ticket, I said ‘No way, the band sucks!’" But completing it in my head is, in some ways, better. It reminds me that I was there.
: There’s a nice mellowness to the low whistle part in Boston and St. John’s, and the blending of voices has a beautiful, soothing quality. I’m not always comfortable watching this song live, since it gives the impression of being intensely personal (as others have observed before me). Unless you’re someone who goes moony-swoony on Alan at a moment’s notice, there’s not much to DO here, when hearing it at a show. But I’m reminded now why the song impressed me when I first heard it, and it’s in that tempered pleading quality, the sweetness of it with just the faintest hint of restraint, vocally and sentimentally. I like it again.
: I remember hearing one of the GBS opening bands observe that GBS is such a fantastic live act because they know how to pace a show, when to bring the audience UP and when to let them relax. That struck me as a highly perceptive comment at the time, and it comes back to me now. It holds true for the album as well, and B and St. J is a good example of the innate rhythm that stretches across the shows--and this CD--as a whole.
: I wish that The Night that Pat Murphy Died had been one of the "girls got loaded drunk" versions, though if this is in fact from Debut 2000, then I can understand why they went with this one. Here is another one of those places where I’m hearing nuances in the accordion playing that I don’t often catch live, and I’m fascinated by it. I do wish I could hear a bit more crowd noise during the track on this one. It sounds almost too clean in the musical portion. You know there had to be more singing along than that! The same holds true for...
: Consequence Free: This song falls in and out of my favor in mad cycles, but I see now that its exclusion would have left a gaping hole in the album. It needs to be here, and it surely makes me want to jump up and dance when we reach this stage of the CD.
: I’m always a fan of Alan’s little vocal nonverbalizations...sighs, grunts, sharp breaths...and there are a few really fetching ones in here. They break up the musical line nicely, make it seem more spontaneous and human. I’m also hearing more of Sean’s voice than usual, and it interchanges nicely with Alan’s throughout the song, but especially on the "fall."
: I have a special nostalgia for this version of Captain Wedderburn because I was at that show. *sigh* Though I find Harmer’s voice a little too waify at times, I think this song definitely benefits from the second voice. As I was saying elsewhere earlier this week: We talked in here, at the release of TURN, about the decidedly slimier versions of this song that float around the world of oral tradition. It is, in my view, the careful verse selection and vocal delivery that render the version on TURN sweet rather than slimy. This version one-ups that one for interpretive singing. Harmer’s voice intensifies this sweet quality, and the verbal/sexual/emotional exchange implicit in the riddle format is heightened by the second voice in very effective ways. The twinge of vocal suggestivity on certain lines--"you and I in a bed must lie"--gives the song an almost-saucy, as well as sweet, dimension. I like the layers.
: I have to complain for a minute here. As "Old Black Rum" starts, I realize that this review is taking me frickin’ forever to write, because I keep stopping to dance. Also because I just can’t bear to listen to any track by itself. This is an album that demands to be heard straight through from beginning to end, and any parceling up is a musical blasphemy.

: I am wishing I could hear some of these tracks side-by-side with the studio versions, for better comparisons. If anyone wants to send contributions to the buy-Trinna-a-multiple-disc-CD-player-with-remote fund, in the interest of having even LONGER writeups in the future, I will gladly accept them. :-)