Customer Reviews

Don't Mess With A Big Band: Live

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

In a recent online poll Brian Setzer was voted "The World"s Greatest Living Guitarist". If you are skeptcal about this I urge you to check out the phenomenal new double disc album "The Brian Setzer Orchestra: Don't Mess With A Big Band". Recorded during the band's 2009 tour of Japan "Don't Mess With A Big Band" offers up 19 exciting and innovative tracks including some old time rock and roll, a few swing numbers and a boatload of Setzer's favorite genre rockabilly. I rarely buy "live" recordings but this one was a "must" purchase as soon as I learned about it.

Word has it that Brian Setzer has a huge guitar collection spanning many decades and brands. He is known to prefer the vintage models and Brian put a number of them through their paces during the group's tour of Japan. "Jaw-dropping" is the term the record company uses to describe Brian's guitar work on this album. I would most certainly agree! There are so many highlights on these discs but I would have to single out Brian's amazing interpretation of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's classical piece "Flight of the Bumblebee". "Honey Man" features what has to be the most amazing piece of guitar work that I have ever heard. Listen and see if you agree! Meanwhile, the balance of the orchestra is on top of their game throughout as well. As always the brass section is terrific and I actually enjoyed their work every bit as much. Among my favorite tracks on Disc One are "Batman" (the original ABC- TV series theme), the swingin' sound of "The Dirty Boogie" and the group's remake of the 1958 Eddie Cochran classic "Summertime Blues" which is quite true to the original. Great stuff!

But I liked Disc Two even more! From the earliest days of his career Brian Setzer's first love has been rockabilly and the entire second disc is devoted to this genre. Each and every one of these ten tracks is a winner. You can tell that the Japanese audience just eats up this stuff. "Gene and Eddie" is a tribute to rockabilly pioneers Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran. What a super tune! And Stray Cats fans will be happy to hear that several of the group's most popular numbers including "Stray Cat Strut", "Rock This Town" and of course "Jump, Jive An' Wail" are included here as well. I found that it is virtually impossible to sit still while this album is playing.

"The Brian Setzer Orchestra: Don't Mess With A Big Band" includes a nicely done 12 page booklet featuring s number of remarkable photos from the Japanese tour. My first instincts proved to be right. This is an album definitely worth owning and something I will listen to again and again. Very highly recommended!

Since the Stray Cats, Brian Setzer has known how to swing, wail, strut, and shout like nobody else around these days. Add to that mix the thrill and energy of a big band live, and you've got a 2 disc set that swings like nobody's business. It must have been a hell of a party, and I'm sorry I couldn't be there. But wait - I can!! Put this one, get some friends and your favorite beverage and you've got an instant rockin' party. Did I say you need to get this today?!?

I bought this CD hoping that the duplication of material from other live CDs would have had a different arrangement to give the songs a fresh sound, and I was wrong. This is a money grab and even the new songs (Batman theme sound awful). The person who mixed this CD should be fired...Twice! The snare sounds like a wet paper bag and the mix is muddy. I am a huge fan and felt cheated. Next time I will preview the songs on iTunes and save some money by only buying the ones I like. PS: The two disc set, is silly, seeing that all of this material could have fit on one disc.

I'm a huge Setzer fan and bought this expecting to find some orchestrated arrangements of some of the old Stray Cats songs that dont appear on other BSO recordings. But what you get is BSO without the 'O' on most of this section - hardly a sax or trumpet to be heard. I've already got live Stray Cats recordings - was looking for something different. Unfortunately you'll find nothing new here. Very dissapointing.

...they should never, ever, be allowed near a mixing board again-unless, of course, it's rap. Why? EVERY song on this album has the bass end overdriven to the point of distortion at any reasonable volume; further, songs that should feature BSO's phenomenal horns find them buried in the background; and, what is with the pathetic vocals on "Batman"? I have seen BSO at numerous venues over the years, both large and small, and the live sound quality has always been well balanced...for cryin' out loud, I've downloaded bootleg 96/128 kbps MP3s of BSO's live performances that sound a thousand times better!

Allow me to recommend the penultimate example of a live recording of exceptional quality: Joe Jackson's "Big World", from 1987. Recorded as a "studio" album in a live setting, it's very clear that these engineers had a clue what they were doing...unlike the clowns here, who turn this into an ugly sonic mess.

If Brian still has the original "un-altered" recordings, I would strongly suggest that he re-issue this album "as is"...

If you are a Brian Setzer fan or a BSO fan, you will not be disappointed with this CD set.

An awesome band...great music and a feel of the Big Band era! Wish I would have discovered Brian Setzer and his Orchestra long ago!

I purchased this CD because I have great respect for Brian Setzer as a guitarist, arranger, composer and vocalist. I'm glad I got this. If you're a Setzer completist, go ahead and get it. If not, there's nothing new on offer here. Surfdog has released enough "live" BSO material (Japan, Toronto, Christmas shows, et. al.). In the future, I'm only going to purchase new Setzer studio material. If you own no "live" Setzer, getting this will serve you well. It's a fine album.

I will start off by saying that I really like Brian Setzer and his music a lot. I have just about all of his stuff on CD. The problem here is that this live CD is mostly stuff that is all ready on his other live CD's. He has a lot of music that he could do live that would have been better. Why don't we ever hear "She thinks I'm trash" live, or maybe Radiation Ranch? There are numerous songs that BSO fans would love to hear on a live CD. They are hard to find on this one. It's a shame that the people who went to this concert heard pretty much the same concert they saw the time before that when he was there. If you read this review Brian, please do something about this. P.S. For the old fans out there, "storm the embassy" from the first Stray Cats album would be a good one. How about "rocking all over the place"? R. Lee

I'm a long-time BS fan going all the way back to the Stay Cats. This is not good work. This is thin, predictable, and one of the most boring CD's I've ever heard. There's nothing unique, clever, or memorable about any of the songs the way they're arranged. 3 chords. repetitive. song after song... after song. If this was a demo it wouldn't get past the first set of ears.