Customer Reviews

Live

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Reading the other reviews of this album I get the impression that the other reviewers are more familiar with the history of the band and are not actually judging this album on its own merits. There is nothing "tired" about these recordings. This is rock n' roll at its best. Fun and energetic, warts and all. If you want an album that sounds like it was recorded in the studio with a huge audience overdubbed, this is not it. If you want an album that lets you feel what it might have been like to be there on the first row when the rock still rolled, get this one.

Lots of people like to dis Ariel Bender, the Mott the Hoople guitarist between Mick Ronson and Mick Ralphs, but he dominates this live album, in a great way. He adds an interesting metallic touch to the Dylan/Stones nature of Mott the Hoople, and this album has a brutal edge. The medley from the English Hammersmith shows is worth the price of admission all by itself. It's more glorious noise from one of rock's greatest treasures, and if you think rock 'n' roll is more than a nice collection of notes and beats, you owe it to yourself to own this CD. Of course, it would have been nice if they had expanded the set list (a la Live At Leeds) when it moved from LP to CD, but that's life.

Hey kids, I gotta tell ya, back in '74 Mott may have been coming to an end, but they still rocked. This disc consists of two shows, one in New York where they played the Uris Theater on Broadway (the first rock band to play on Broadway) and a show at London's Hammersmith Odeon. The band tears through nuggets like "Angeline", "Walking With a Mountain" and the medley from the London show are a rollicking good time. If you dig Mott, this disc will not disappoint you.

The Glam-Rock makeover of the early seventies produced a handful of sparkly diamond studded masterpieces topped by the likes of David Bowie's "Ziggy Standust", Slades' string of storming anthems, and Marc Bolan & T Rex created the odd little gem. Mott the Hoople were right in there, too, and here their post humously released live album captures them on a couple of hot nights on either side of the Atlantic. Side one is taken from their week of sell out shows at the Broadway Theater in New York, the second side comes from their Christmas show at the Hammersmith Odeon.

Side one opens up bursting out the gates with rocking barrel house piano and crunching guitars introducing the infectious "All The Way To Memphis", one of a handful of great rockers from the English Quintet. Frontman Ian Hunter, he of the charmingly roguish dylanesque sneer ("I felt sooooo ashamed") wears his heart on his glittering, shimmering sleeve with songs such as "Rose" and "Rest In Peace", whilst the slag-rap in the middle of "Angeline" is a great example of audience participation and cockney humour.

This is creative, challenging hard rock that transcends the usual limitations of the genre and here, in the bands natural habitat, the stage, with a baying crowd of the converted, they live the life to the full.

The boys in the back line keep the foot flat on the floor, allowing the frontline to really go for their lives. Master of this (continuously trying to steal the spotlight from the others) was the ultimate Rock `n' Roll show man lead guitarist Ariel Bender. He succeeds in splendid style on the rockers like the fabulous Medley of Mott classics from Hammersmith that closes the show or the song that would always be associated with Bender's contributions to Mott the Hoople "Walkin with a Mountain".

If you want an album that sounds like it was recorded in the sterile atmosphere of the studio, then this huge audience participation plastered over the top of them is perhaps not the album for you. But if you like to take your music raw and feel as though you're right there in row A seat 10 then step right up because this is the little cookie for you. This album was recorded when the world of rock rolled with a passion often missing these days. Do yourself a favor and get yourself a slice of hot Mott to add to your collection.

As one of your reviewers said, why this band didn't go farther is kind of a mystery. This album was not released "post humously" as another reviewer said (no spellchecker?); I had this album at that time, when they were HUGE. My friends went to see Mott in New York with the New York Dolls back then, when every band had dummies hanging from the ceilings, etc. for theatrical effect, much like Bowie and others. So I got to be introduced to them before most people I know. Mott the Hoople's stuff is a bit different LIVE than on the albums; if you look at the lyrics on the "Hoople" for example, they alot more complex and interesting than alot of the stuff that's being written today. Ian Hunter and Ariel Bender may be far from the best ever, but damn, it's fun, and I stll enjoy listening, really loud, although, now on headphones.

This is, in my opinion, one of the best Live "albums" of all time. Comparing Mick Ralphs with Eric Clapton is the dumbest thing I ever heard, and it shows that the earlier "reviewer" doesn't truly understand rock and roll. "A tired band slogging its way through a ho-hum set"? The energy is off the charts! This album rocks from the first notes of the piano intro to "Memphis", and just doesn't let up til the end of "Violence" -- even with the ballads. I can't wait for the new expanded CD which includes the entire sets of both gigs.

I get the giggles

I totally get the giggle when I read all the bad reviews of this record. One guy even says "Mick Ralphs is no Eric Clapton" which is like "Okay, I've only slept through every Eric Clapton record ever recorded." No offence but what kind of irrelevant BS is that.

And Ian Hunter is no Neil Sedaka...

This record is not played well (like so many live recordings) it's not a stellar technical recording either. That said I would not trade this record for virtually anything. It's funny and irreverent and displays perfectly 1974 in a beautiful rock and roll time capsule. You either get it or you don't. It is a beautiful thing only because of it's imperfections and haphazard train wreck of a performance. I love virtually every second of this record and I hope people continue to explain all the reasons it's not good. They might just be right, but in too many ways to list they are also dead wrong.

I still get the giggles... It rocks, it is rock (defined)

Not only one of the dirtiest live albums of all time, but quite possibly the day 'grunge' was born.

This live album crackles with speaker stacks stretched to the limit, hot, sweaty halls packed with fervent fans, and musicians taking an impeccable back-catalogue and reducing it to a vitriolic, primal outburst.

I've been to many gigs, I've heard a lot of live albums, and few of the latter make you feel like you are at the former. Mott Live puts you smack-bang in the middle of the mosh-pit.

Without wishing to sound arrogant, I wrote to Q magazine 10 years ago telling them this was one of the best '70's bands and this particular recording a grunge masterpiece. Of cource the (then) post-yuppie 'creative staff' didn't even have the nous to reply. These days Q magazine's sister publication has a Mott The Hoople appreciation CD for sale and both magazines become onanists as soon as Mott are mentioned.

So don't take my uneducated word for it, trust the experts.

A must for Every Mott the Hoople fan. Great energy in these live performances.

There seems to be a great deal of controversy and backbiting over this one, and that is tragic, because this set is not worth all the commotion. The whole Ralphs/Clapton thing doesn't matter, because Ralphs wasn't that good, and Bender is even less adept. Hunter's voice is ragged, the whole set is sloppy, and it would seem that the only reason for releasing this thing was to fulfill a contractual obligation. Reviewers, if we must disagree with each other, let us do so respectfully. Let's review the album, and stop the character assassination. Are we not capable of better than that?