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59 of 65 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
It Sounds Better, But It Used to Be Perfect!, October 5, 2004
Just finished spinning the new BIPLH remaster and felt it warranted some detailed comment. First of all, everything about the packaging is terrific; I was especially pleased to see Mike Frankel's photos from one of the actual Fillmore East gigs where the album was recorded. ("Ah, so that's what they were wearing...")
BIPLH itself has been appreciably remastered, with heightened clarity and instumental image separation. Certain sounds that got smudged on earlier masterings, like Spencer Dryden's high-hat and Jorma Kaukonen's lightning-fast lead fingerings are brought crisply forward, making the live performance itself more staggering than ever. ("Some o' them chords," indeed.) The drums are the biggest sonic difference over the previous issue, but the group interplay in general is also easier now to separate in the mind's ear -- for instance, I found it possible to just focus on Paul Kantner's Leslie-fied guitar noodlings in "Bear Melt," which exposed the brilliance of his contribution to one awesome mother of a live performance.
I note, with some pain, that the sticky smudge which plagued the earliest issues of this album on CD during Jorma's introductory lead on "Plastic Fantastic Lover," is back -- though digitally glossed over. (But I can still hear it -- and it was fixed for the previous issue!) But the big sonic disappointment for me is how Jack Casady's bass comes off -- such a consistently brilliant performance, but why doesn't it reach down to my system's sub-woofer, even with the bass enhanced?
Jack's Guild Starfire II roars through my sub-woofer only on the last three numbers, the bonus tracks added to this remastered CD and allegedly intended for the original release but booted due to vinyl's time constraints. Here, suddenly, you can feel the bass as well as hear it. Why not for the bulk of the album? A mocking reminder of what SHOULD have been.
As for the three bonus tracks (all three from the Fillmore East and apparently, unlike everything else on the record, presented in the sequence they were recorded live), I suppose I can believe they were considered for inclusion, but it doesn't sound as though they were mixed for inclusion. Marty Balin's vocal on "Today" is fairly trippy and weak at the beginning; if he's half the perfectionist I think he is, he would probably have wanted to overdub this in the studio had it reached that stage of ultimate consideration. On the other two songs, "Watch Her Ride" and "Won't You Try", both beautifully performed (the latter remarkably close in spirit to the song's Woodstock performance), every member seems to be playing and
singing at equal volume, as heard on the Airplane's lamentable (and apparently completely unmixed) LIVE AT THE FILLMORE EAST album. These tracks also needed some additional studio fine-tuning, if only just to make a more pleasing and less combatative stereo setting for the band.
But the unpolished presence on these tracks on this -- the most virtuosic of all live '60s rock albums, in my opinion -- weakens the whole. Not enough for me to subtract a star, though.
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18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hello? May we know what the extra tracks are, please?, June 22, 2004
By A Customer
This is a great album. Having seen the Airplane many times in SF, both loud and soft, I can tell you they varied wildly as a live band. They could be too loud, off-key singing, terrible. BUT. On a good night, they were untouchable. This album is almost as good as they got - not quite, but close enough to give you an idea. Sure would be nice if Amazon listed the bonus tracks so we would know whether to buy another version of it! At any rate, if you don't have it and like the Airplane to any degree, buy this record. I think it was Casady who was quoted as saying something along the lines of "This was the first live recording of ourselves we listened to where we didn't all get up and leave the room!" Listen to "Its' No Secret" on the first album, then listen to it on this album and you'll see why they could tear your head off live.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
That loud rumble you hear is Jack Casady, July 30, 2004
When the Airplane recorded this blitzkrieg onslaught of out-of-control psychedelic rock, they were the biggest band in the US and, observed from a ballroom floor they were Great.
This particular set is played faster (amphetamines?) than most by JA, but you'll soon get the picture. We're talking sonic boom, here with an overlay of dueling vocalism, the likes of which have never been heard again.
This was a band with four vocalist/songwriters (Marty, Paul, Jorma, Grace), transcendental overdrive built in to the engine and more than a little craziness (Grace Slick, mainly). There is also the matter of the bass player known as "God" to his adherents, Jack Casady. He never fails.
I could go on, but hey, I'm a bit biased. This group was my favorite live group. For contrast, try JA's "Crown of Creation", an inky, dark slab of psychedelia from 1968. (By the way, Jorma Kaukonen is one of the great ones, then AND now).
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