Live [Bonus Version]

Personnel: John Fean (vocals, guitar); Charles O'Connor (vocals, mandolin, fiddle); "Irish" Jim Dockhart (vocals, flute, tin whistle, keyboards); Barry Devlin (vocals); Eamon Carr (drums).
Audio Remasterers: Horslips; Peter Mew.
Photographers: Fin Costello; John Walsh ; Ian Finlay; Larry Doherty.
This live two-CD set is only partly successful in capturing the group in the middle of its history, circa 1976-77. The 18 songs here represent their rock and folk-style repertory very well, and the group plays really hard, but the sound is all wrong. For starters, there's too much room ambience (i.e. echo), and the guitar and violin, fine as they are, are recorded too close, the vocals and drums a bit too distant, the bass practically not at all; the overall sound is pretty ragged. There are good performances here, such as "Stars," a superb straight-ahead rocker, but its imperfections make this sound more like a bootleg release than an authorized live performance -- no, we're not looking for the redubbed "perfection" of Frampton Comes Alive, but it seems as though someone should have checked some microphones and twirled a knob or two before the show began. "Hall of Mirrors," which originally appeared on the first album, is a bit of a mess, with the vocals mixed way too far down and the sound never pulling together. Even a rousing dance number like Charles O'Connor's fiddle showcase "The Silver Spear" seems overly raw here. Other familiar numbers include "King of the Faeries" (done a little heavy-handedly) and a 15-minute version of "Furniture" off the first album, which here becomes a canvas upon which the lead players showcase their longest solos -- it never quite achieves the mix of majesty and guitar pyrotechnics needed to sustain and justify that length on record, though at the actual concert it probably seemed really cool. A lot of the rest of disc two is filled with unfortunate sub-Jethro Tull meanderings. (Irish import) ~ Bruce Eder