Customer Reviews

Berlin / Amsterdam

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I basically just want to disagree with the guy who said the New York concert is better than this one. I originally got the New York show first, in a super-excited state of wanting to hear more Soul Coughing. I was highly disappointed. The sound on that recording is tinny, and the whole thing sounds like... DRUGS. (That's probably not surprising.) The experience was so bad, it deterred me from evening bothering to listen to any of the other live Soul Coughing releases.
Months later, I decided to try out thie Berlin/Amsterdam complication.
By contrast to the New York show, the Berlin portion of this set sounds extremely warm and coherent. The songs all sound great, especially the seven-and-a-half minute version of Down To This, featuring an entire verse of War Pigs. It is, in my opinion far superior to the New York noise-fest.

Basically, if you're buying this album you're getting it for the quirkiness. Hearing M. Doughty attempt "Funky Town" is hysterical and darn near worth the price of this album alone. A couple of the Amsterdam recordings are great. But overall this is a bit of a disappointment compared, to, say, the New York concert. The audio quality is rather mediocre and the El Oso material in general sounds rather unpolished, not exactly in a good way.

Heck, it's still Soul Coughing and the songs are great. But this release isn't the best example of that.

I saw them live in Amsterdam once in the Melkweg, probably on November 8, 1998, and this concert had nothing to do with the North Sea Jazz festival, which then took place in The Hague, which is 50 km from Amsterdam.

Does anybody know if this is the Amsterdam show or the North Sea one?