Customer Reviews

Gone to Australia: On Tour 1975-1984

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

 

 

This album is one of the most regrettable examples of extreme "loudness war" mastering I have ever had the displeasure of analyzing. Besides the usual absurd raising of volume levels with complete disregard to the dynamics of the songs, there are nothing less than 24477 clipped samples on the left channel and 18536 on the right channel. This happens when the sound levels go beyond the limits of the audio CD specifications and parts of the sound wave are "cut off" - or, in other words, the waveform literally flatlines and any sound at those points is simply lost. Even in the parts where clipping does not occur, the absurd raising of the sound levels results in some very uncomfortable listening. Again, these audio "engineers" should definitely go work in some other field more adequate to their abilities like dog walking or whatever, where they can't slaughter music like they have done here.

Steeleye Span is & has been a great live band but you couln't quite tell so by their live recordings. Gone To Australia is another good but flawed live album. Like Tonight's The Night, Live at Last & the Journey there is great material but the emphasis seems to be on slower songs. This CD is worth having, but probably not as an introduction. To personally solve the problem I just made a compillation disk of the live material & got one great car CD.

Hard-rock intensity indeed! I`m sure that fans of HARD-rock would dismiss Horslips just as readily as fans of folk-ROCK, like our earlier contributor, might write-off Steeleye Span.
Horslips, and the other bands mentioned, are not in the same genre as Steeleye Span, anyway, so what`s the point in comparing.

Gone To Australia is not a good introduction to Steeleye Span, in my opinion, as it contains too many tracks from the album Sails of Silver(1980), on which most of the tracks were self-penned and, admittedly, writing purely original material, as opposed to adaptations of traditional songs, was not their forte.
The sound quality is mostly good, though(unlike on a certain Horslips live album). There are good versions of some of the Seventies material.
Steeleye Span never purported to be heavy-rockers. I discovered Steeleye Span`s music only quite recently, after having been raised on rock music(incl. Horslips) since I was a kid, and I find the lack of long and showy guitar solos refreshing. The subtlety and restraint with with this band has always approached its music is to be admired, and guitarist Bob Johnson could make just as much noise as any of the folk-ROCKers if he had so chosen. But he didn`t so choose.
Time after time, year after year, Steeleye Span has somehow managed to take old, forgotten and obscure songs and adapt them in such a way that even though they are completely re-invented, the way in which it has been done is so subtle as to fool the unknowing into thinking that the Steeleye version is the original version! That`s how good they are. But what the uninformed don`t realise is that so many of the songs that Steeleye recorded over the years had never been recorded before, even acoustically. If it weren`t for bands like Steeleye Span and Fairport Convention, all of these wonderful songs would still be hidden away in dusty old manuscripts.
Anyway, the point is this, it is patently ludicrous to slate a band like Steeleye Span, who after all gave this wonderful musical heritage back to the people, just because they don`t sound like Horslips, a band who, to be fair, were pretty hit-and-miss, possibly more hit than miss. At least Steeleye Span always knew what they wanted to do, and they got on with it consistently over the years.
So, if you don`t appreciate Steeleye Span and would prefer to listen to Dearg Doom whilst playing air-guitar in front of a mirror(LOL), you have every right to do so. But don`t compare the two, please. Any band who would concoct, play, record, and release the likes of Short Stories-Tall Tales is not worthy of comparison with the sophisticated musicians that are Steeleye Span.
By the way,for anyone new to, but interested in Steleye Span, the best albums are those from 1972-1978 inclusive. Also, Tonight`s the Night, and In Concert, are good live albums.

Hard-rock intensity indeed! I`m sure that fans of HARD-rock would dismiss Horslips just as readily as fans of folk-ROCK, like our earlier contributor, might write-off Steeleye Span.
Horslips, and the other bands mentioned, are not in the same genre as Steeleye Span, anyway, so what`s the point in comparing.

Gone To Australia is not a good introduction to Steeleye Span, in my opinion, as it contains too many tracks from the album Sails of Silver(1980), on which most of the tracks were self-penned and, admittedly, writing purely original material, as opposed to adaptations of traditional songs, was not their forte.
The sound quality is mostly good, though(unlike on a certain Horslips live album). There are good versions of some of the Seventies material.
Steeleye Span never purported to be heavy-rockers. I discovered Steeleye Span`s music only quite recently, after having been raised on rock music(incl. Horslips) since I was a kid, and I find the lack of long and showy guitar solos refreshing. The subtlety and restraint with which this band has always approached its music is to be admired, and guitarist Bob Johnson could make just as much noise as any of the folk-ROCKers if he had so chosen. But he didn`t so choose.
Time after time, year after year, Steeleye Span has somehow managed to take old, forgotten and obscure songs and adapt them in such a way that even though they are completely re-invented, the way in which it has been done is so subtle as to fool the unknowing into thinking that the Steeleye version is the same as the "original" version! That`s how good they are. But what the uninformed don`t realise is that so many of the songs that Steeleye recorded over the years had never been recorded before, even acoustically. So the Steeleye versions are the ONLY versions, in many instances. If it weren`t for bands like Steeleye Span and Fairport Convention, all of these wonderful songs would still be hidden away in dusty old manuscripts.
Anyway, the point is this, it is patently ludicrous to slate a band like Steeleye Span, who after all gave this wonderful musical heritage back to the people, just because they don`t sound like Horslips, a band who, to be fair, were pretty hit-and-miss, possibly more hit than miss. At least Steeleye Span always knew what they wanted to do, and they got on with it consistently over the years.
So, if you don`t appreciate Steeleye Span and would prefer to listen to Dearg Doom whilst playing air-guitar in front of a mirror(LOL), you have every right to do so. But don`t compare the two, please. Any band who would concoct, play, record, and release the likes of Short Stories-Tall Tales is not worthy of comparison with the sophisticated musicians that are Steeleye Span.
By the way,for anyone new to, but interested in Steeleye Span, the best albums are those from 1972-1978 inclusive. Also, Tonight`s the Night, and In Concert, are good live albums.

This is my least favourite live CD by the band. As the concerts were part of the Sails of Silver Tour, there are no less than 5 tracks from that album. Sails of Silver was a departure for the band as most of the tracks were `original` and, as a result, it lacks the magic and charm of the earlier albums.
There ARE, however, good live versions of some of the earlier material on this CD; Black Jack Davey, Alison Gross, Bach Goes to Limerick, Blackleg Miner, and a couple more.
The ubiquitous All Around My Hat is included here, as well. No surprises there. There is only one live Span album that *doesn`t* have that song! Perhaps the record companies think that any live or compilation CD *without* the Hat song won`t sell??
I have so many versions of this song by now that it`s lost its appeal through sheer overkill, and I`m disinclined to listen to *any* of the versions, apart from maybe the original studio version.
Gaudete, the other "hit", is here again, too, although, it`s only on *two* other live Span CDs. So, not quite as common.
The obligatory Thomas the Rhymer was not left out, either. The version here is the weakest I`ve heard. It sounds like the drummer was in another building altogether.
To be fair, the main reason that I was so disappointed with this CD was the fact that, several months before its release, it had been (erroneously) hyped as being an exciting new collection of live recordings from the seventies of tracks that had never been available before, including tracks that the band had never included on any album, in any form, live or studio recorded. New(old) material, in other words. Too good to be true, I had thought, and I was right.
The thing is, genuinely rare archive material does exist but, because of record company restrictions, we`ll probably have to wait until the band are completely defunct(they`re split now but may get back together in the future)before any of the really interesting archive recordings are allowed to be published. Over the years Steeleye performed many other great songs at concerts that have never been available to listen to(apart from on old bootlegs), so, for now, we have to make do with yet more versions of the same old numbers....

These guys CAN'T be THIS overrated, can they? Contrary to what you may have read, this is NOT folk-rock; it is ELECTRIFIED FOLK. Merely adding electric guitar and electric bass to folk music does not transform it into rock. The electric guitar and electric bass are so gentle and laid back, you would hardly know they are there. In fact, if you removed the electric guitar and electric bass from the recording, there would be virtually no difference in the songs, that's how little intensity there is. This stuff is about as exciting as a ballerina with lead boots. This is all very mediocre, nondescript, run-of-the-mill, and BORING. The musicianship is merely adequate but not outstanding. At no time do you sit there and say, "Whoa, that fellow can really play!" The song structures are very simple and very similar to each other with a simple repeating melody with repeating verse and either no solo or a short solo in the middle or the end of the song. There is little or no musical exploration or development of musical ideas, very little, if any, interplay among the instruments and no variety of instruments. And with the exception of 'Allison Gross', none of the songs has a catchy melody. There is simply nothing which stands out or sticks in your head about the song structure, the playing of the instruments, or the melodies of the songs. In short, there is nothing interesting going on musically resulting in a generic, bland sound. If you would like to hear what true folk-ROCK sounds like, with hard-rock intensity injected into folk songs with virtuoso musicianship and distinctive, non-generic styles, try Horslips, Tempest, Boiled in Lead, Blackmore's Night, Fenja Menja, Hagen and even Hedge School. To be fair, I haven't heard a lot of Steeleye Span, but based on this recording, they have to be one of the most overrated groups I've ever heard.