Customer Reviews

Live in Toronto

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Made in UK in 1999, Serial# MM-021, Playing Time 47:31

The tray on this CD says "Live In Toronto"; the cover of the booklet reads "Toronto Rock Festival Recorded Live!"

It doesn't matter how you slice it, this album has already been published more than 20 times with different titles, different artwork, all on different (and generally small labels).

As a completist, I've got countless versions of this concert; as usual, "Beginnings" is in fact "Introduction". The recording quality is below average, but the performances are adequate, considering how "young" the band was at this stage, with only 1 album under their belt.

I've lost count of the various editions of this disc. If you own ANY of their live albums besides "At Carnegie Hall", "Live In Japan" and "Chicago 26", remember that you already have this, in some form or another... And if you don't, get the lowest priced version!

I have to concur with eveoflave on almost everything (nicely written review), but I have a little more to add.

This concert recording has been floating around for a long time under many different names. On some of the CDs, the titles of the songs are not correct and the song order is wrong. Here, they are all correct.

This is from a concert before Chicago II was released. It does feature many songs that would wind up on Chicago II (this is probably why the titles were not correct on some versions of the album).

The group is still relatively new, and has that raw sound a new, eager band.

The sound quality is only fair. It is like a good bootleg. The mix is also poor and the balance leans heavily to the right side. But, it isn't so bad that you can't listen to it repeatedly. In some respects, it is better than many live recordings released today, especially anything by Dave Matthews, or the original CD releases of Yes concerts. On the plus side, there isn't much audience noise.

This album is heavily guitar oriented with Terry Kath getting in guitar solos on almost every song and a couple of long ones, including one about 8 minuts long on Liberation. Although the horns and the rest of the band are here, no one else takes a solo shot, like they will on Chicago IV.

I didn't like this CD when I popped in my stereo at home and played it in the background. But, playing it in my car and driving around, I appreciated it more. Still, all of these songs are available on Chicago IV. But, if you want to hear them played a little differently, with a little more raw energy and with poorer fidelity, you can get them here.