Customer Reviews

Live at the BBC (Hk)

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

 

 

The reviewer who criticized the sound quality of Disk 2 is not wrong. It sounds like it was taken from a small home recorder in the back of the hall. However, for Free fans, Kossoff's frenzied, nearly out of control, playing on their rave-up "The Hunter" is worth the second rate audio. I am very glad they included it and very pleased with the rest of the collection - after I adjusted to the sound quality. If you want great audio and a super introduction to this great and unique band, get the two CD best of collection, Molten Gold. Perhaps we would agree that is for fans and collectors only.

This 2cd set is kind of disappointing. The 1st CD has good sound -it is somewhat stereo and contains alternate cuts of Free but none come from their last 3 albums. The 2nd CD is very disappointing. It is a live recording which sounds like a bad bootleg. The sound is muffled in a lot of places and hard to hear clearly. They should have left this one out. There is even the sound of a phone ringing or a alarm in the background on a couple of the cuts. Free fans--just get this for the 1st cd--the other is very very bad. Where are the cuts from the last lineup of Free--are they out there-Hearbreaker, Catch a Train etc?

...which, if nothing else, probably is an indication that Blair DID inhale in college. Too bad he couldn't have been Bush's roommate. He could have put the needle down on "Mouthful of Grass" and mellowed George W. right out..

This cd seems a bit late arriving in more ways than one, but it's a nice reminder of what an underrated group Free was---tight as the sheets on a Marine's bed, but always a great prescription for tension reduction.

Disc One is the real winner here. Disc Two is about as useful as wisdom teeth. They could just as well have put "Free Live" into the package and provided some indication of what the group really sounded like live. Disc Two is worth about one star. Since it's so poorly recorded, it's just extra baggage.

But Disc One has the goods. There's plenty of material from the second studio album, simply titled "Free", which was full of great stuff... "Woman" , "I'll Be Creepin'", &"Trouble on Double Time" are as good as anything Free ever recorded. "Mouthful of Grass" is so pastorally laid back that it nearly sounds like Fairport Convention. "Over the Green Hills" is Rodgers purest sounding vocal.

The rhythm section of Kirke and Fraser shines throughout, and of course Kossoff is well...Kossoff. Nobody approaches him as a string bender except for possibly Robin Trower--who late in the 70's was at times blatantly copying the Free sound... (check out Trower's "Road to Freedom" and "River" if you don't believe it.)

Everybody knows that Lynyrd Skynyrd borrowed heavily from Free, and so many vocalists imitated Paul Rogers that it isn't funny.

In conclusion: despite the weak second disk, this is worth purchasing. If you don't believe me, ask the PM.

*** Free is Blair's favorite band according to "Mojo" magazine, anyway. He was born in '53, so it kind of makes sense. He would have been 17 when "All Right Now" came out.

Even after reading all of the earlier reviews concerning the poor recording on the second disc, I gave it a shot anyway and was actually surprised. It's even worse than I had expected. I can't imagine what they were thinking when they included this material. The first disc is a solid 4 star but if you're not a hardcore fan, I would skip this and go straight to "Free Live".

This album does no justice to a great band.

Disk 1 has the quality, but lacks some substance - why on earth we get multiple takes of 2 songs when there are supposedly others available makes no sense. Having said that - 4 stars for disk 1.

Disk 2 - what can I say without being downright rude? To say the sound quality is muddy is a huge compliment. Why was this rubbish included at all? It totally degrades the overall package, does nothing to enhance the available body of work, and reflects extremely poorly on whoever engineered the whole thing. There is comment in the liner notes to the effect that a great deal of time was spent in the studio. Dunno what they were doing at the time - obviously nothing to clean up the original tapes which appear to have been recorded from a short-wave transmission. There is morse signal bleeding into a couple of tracks for God's sake!!

Not good enough BBC. I have sufficient "live at the BBC" albums to know that this is an absolute out of character. Minus 2 stars, hence the overall 2 star rating.

Free deserved much better than this treatment!