Out There Live [Live]

Dar Williams | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 25, 2001)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Live
• Label: Razor & Tie
• ASIN: B00005O68S
• Also Available in: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #33,293 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. As Cool as I Am

2. If I Wrote You

3. Spring Street

4. I Won't Be Your Yoko Ono

5. February

6. The Ocean

7. Better Things

8. Iowa

9. End of the Summer

10. We Learned the Sea

11. Are You Out There

12. When I Was a Boy

13. What Do You Hear in These Sounds

14. After All

15. The Babysitter's Here

16. The Christians and the Pagans

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An essential buy, but also a missed opportunity., October 9, 2001

By 

Keith Levenberg (New York, N.Y. USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Out There Live (Audio CD)

This album collects some fantastic performances. Dar plays with a talented band that on many tracks adds beautiful flourishes and improvised touches to songs that now sound more interesting than their studio versions. ("As Cool as I Am," "The Ocean," and "Iowa," the last with a new guitar solo, all stand out; "Are You Out There," unfortunately, loses quite a bit of its ethereal charm and now sounds more like a traditional folk song.) The sound quality also merits praise. The excellent recordings here contain more "oomph" (for lack of a technical term) than Dar's studio albums, providing increased clarity and presence.

All that being said, this album has some serious problems. For whatever reason the applause at the end of each track is faded to absolute silence before the music on the next track begins, effectively shattering the illusion that listeners are being treated to a preserved Dar performance. I have never heard a live album that appeared so fully cut-and-pasted.

Moreover, this unquestionably needed to be a two-disc set. The inclusion of Dar's song introductions and banter with the audience is laudable, but the few songs (really only two) featuring them only serve to remind listeners of how many must have been snipped out. A second disc would have allowed these important bits (the biggest appeal of seeing Dar live) to be preserved in addition to featuring more songs. No performer would go on stage for only 70 minutes for a regular show, so why should anyone consider a 70 minute live album adequate?

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good collection of great songs, September 25, 2001

By 

Sean Harding (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Out There Live (Audio CD)

Dar Williams gives a great live show, and the idea of bringing that home in the form of a live album is very appealing. But it's difficult for most artists to shove the excitement and emotion of a live show into a CD, and Dar is no exception. Out There Live is a very nice collection of Dar's songs. I think that most of the versions on this album are at least as good as the ones on the studio albums. And the tidbits of between-song banter we're given are entertaining. But it really doesn't convey the magic of a real Dar Williams show. I just don't think that feeling can be communicated on a CD.

Buy Out There Live and enjoy it for what it is: a bunch of great versions of Dar's best songs. But don't expect it to be a substitute for going to a show.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good, but doesn't capture lightning in a bottle, September 27, 2001

By 

Jonathan B Whitcomb "Emery's Misery" (New Hampshire USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Out There Live (Audio CD)

Like death and taxes, live albums seem to be inevitable pieces of any recording artist's discography whose career spans more than 10 years. They serve to fill in the gaps between studio albums and also act as an interim greatest hits collection (which will invariably follow 2-3 years later). But what are they really for? Some artists never seem to come across as well in studio albums as they do live (Cheap Trick and Peter Frampton come to mind immediately). Others illustrate just how much of an artist's appeal is just studio magic.

Dar Williams is one of my favorite entertainers. She has the rare ability to make even a large crowd feel intimate and friendly, and her banter is always quirky and endearing. Though an experienced performer, she still seems a bit awkward and hyper in front of an audience but she always seems genuine and sincere, which is a refreshing change from many performer's scripted exchanges. The trouble with this album is that very little of the magic of Dar's live performances comes across.

Many "live" albums are so touched up and tweaked so much that they might as well be studio albums with audience noise dubbed in. "Out There Live" isn't one of those: it sounds like an off-the-board recording. I admire Dar for taking this warts-and-all approach. This album features a slightly hoarse sounding Dar delivering fine (if not really inspired) performances of her best known songs. The mix pushes Dar out in front of the band, so sometimes the overall sound is a bit murky. Because the tracks fade out the cheering tracks it feels less like a concert album than a collection of live tracks.

So how do I rate this album? It pales beside both her studio recordings and her live performances. But it contains sixteen wonderful songs from one of the finest songwriters of her generation. If you are new to Dar's music this is as good a starting place as any (although it will likely lead you to buying all her studio albums anyway). If you know Dar's work this album is a satisfying but not essential addition to her discography.