Customer Reviews

Live at Last

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although recorded almost twenty years ago, LIVE AT LAST captures the true flavour of Steeleye Span in its heydey - crisp vocals, impeccable playing, and a sound blend rarely achieved by folk-rock groups. Long out of press, it's like a fine old malt whisky, familiar, complex in character, with a hint of spice about it. Their standard repertoire of traditional music and innovative compositions in the British folk style is well represented. Included in this album is the only recording of "Montrose," probably their finest historical interpretation. This long piece is virtually an English Civil War cantata, praising the life of James Graham, Marquis of Montrose, the brilliant Scottish general on the Royalist side who won victory after victory for his king only to be betrayed by a Campbell and executed for his pains. An incredible performance of their finest work.

This is the best Steeleye Span live album. Most of the tracks(except for Saucy Sailor/Black Freighter) are unique to the album, including False Knight on the Road which, although previously featured on Please to See the King, is sufficiently different in sound and arrangement here to count as a `new` track. They didn`t feel the need to include `All Around My Hat` on this album, either, so there`s no need to skip forward when listening to Live at Last. I think that Kirkpatrick`s accordion sounds great, as it did also on the previous(studio) album, Storm Force Ten. Before that, the band had lost the plot, and the replacement of Knight and Johnson by Kirkpatrick and Carthy was a breath of fresh air and an opportunity to start anew. It`s a shame that this line-up only made two albums before splitting up. They had a very distinctive and rich sound that was far superior to what was to follow a couple of years later when Knight and Johnson returned (to collaborate on Sails of Silver).

Originally released in 1978, "Live at Last" was Steeleye's first live album, and their last album before disbanding for a (thankfully) brief period.

There is little to gripe about here, but at the same time little to revel in. What we have he is a good, but by and large, not a remarkable chronicle of the band's final concert before the hiatus.

Contained here are eight songs. Of them three are live version of songs that are better represented by their studio counterparts ("Saucy Sailor" in particular works better in the studio version from the "Below The Salt" album and pairing it with "Black Freighter" from "Storm Force Ten" probably worked better on paper then in reality).

The rest of the album is made up of songs never released on any of their studio albums, which should make this package of interest to fans. Even if few of these tracks are really essential, "Montrose" is exciting.

One the whole a worthy, but not totally essential Steeleye effort.