Pre-Crash Condition - Live From The Royal Festival Hall

New York Dolls | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 5, 2004)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Sanctuary Records
• ASIN: B0002X7GFC
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #228,951 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Looking for a Kiss

2. Puss N' Boots

3. Subway Train

4. Bad Girl

5. You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory/Lonely Planet Boy

6. Private World

7. Vietnamese Baby

8. Frankenstein

9. Babylon

10. Trash

11. Jet Boy

12. Personality Crisis

13. Human Being

Editorial Reviews

Ori Release '04. Captures the three members, David Johansen, Sylvain Sylvan, & Arthur 'Killer' Kane, reunited after 27 years at the request of Morrissey for the Meltdown Festival. 13 tracks. --This text refers to an alternate Audio CD edition.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars This works, November 30, 2004

By 

Christopher Bushman (Portland, OR USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Pre-Crash Condition - Live From The Royal Festival Hall (Audio CD)

This reunion could have easily been a big letdown: 29 years since their last gig, Johnny Thunders and Jerry Nolan dead, David Johansen's entire solo career spent trying to distance himself from the Dolls.

Turns out this is a fantastic record, lots of energy, lots of fun and faithfully but raucously performed by the survivors and very capable stand-ins. My only complaint is that they did not include any covers that were performed at the show on this record. "Pills" is the quintessential Dolls song and is sorely missed.

Unfortunately, the Dolls maintained their inevitable run of bad luck / curse when Arthur Killer Kane died a few weeks after this gig.

David Johansen said that he and Sylvain would try to bang out a new studio record this winter and play the British festivals next summer. Mr. Johansen if you are reading this, I have a couple of suggestions / wishes:

A. New tunes would be great, let's hear them!
B. Please professionally record all or most of the tracks from Red Patent Leather. Those tunes are obviously great and constitute the great lost New York Dolls album but the live versions on RPL are almost un-listenable, they were just poorly recorded.

Thank you for the reunion and please come to the USA!

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Tribute, January 18, 2005

By 

Timothy P. Young (Rawlins, WY, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Pre-Crash Condition - Live From The Royal Festival Hall (Audio CD)

Fans only review: OK, so David has lost a step, voice wise. Well, what do you expect after years of movies and being the growly-voiced Buster Poindexter?

What we have here, really, is a band's tribute to its fallen members: in order, Billy Murcia (original drummer), Johnny Thunders (guitar), and Jerry Nolan (drums). Syl Sylvain, David Johansen, and Arthur Kane still rock hard for this Festival Hall show.

What we as fans get is the same intensity that's on those records from the 70's. Hard, driving rock and roll that preceded punk, with hard-rock licks provided by Syl, and off-Jagger vocals by Mr. Johansen. The lyrics run the gamut from sex and drugs to, well, sex, and drugs. Check out "Lookin For A Kiss," "Vietnamese Baby," and "Personality Crisis" if you don't belive me.

This concert also serves as a final, wonderful footnote to the life of bassist Albert Kane (possibly the true founder), who died two months after playing this show, and his heavy bass work keeps things pinned to the stage even as Johansen wants to run all over the place.

And as a capper, they tribute Johnny Thunders with the best song Thunders ever wrote, "You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory." I had never heard the song before buying this, and they sang it without introduction, and the raw emotion still made me tear up.

If you don't know these guys, go buy their debut LP, "New York Dolls" first. It's much tighter, but more accessible and sloppy in the good spots, of course.

Other than that, raucous pre-punk, last-year fun. I think it's great.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lonely Planet Boys, October 10, 2004

By 

Maurice Bishop (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pre-Crash Condition - Live From The Royal Festival Hall (Audio CD)

I enjoyed this album very much. It brought back the good old days of the early 70s and Too Much Too Soon (an aptly named album if there ever was one). This album features 3 original Dolls - David Johansen, Syl Sylvain and Arthur "Killer" Kane, who died shortly after it was recorded and to whom it is dedicated. Johansen writes a very nice piece about him in the liner notes.

The album consists of live versions of the Dolls greatest hits, recorded at the Royal Festival Hall in London earlier this year. The spirit of the old Dolls is definitely here, but older and wiser as well. There is some great wisecracking between Johansen and Sylvain, as well as numerous tributes to London and their English fans. Steve Conte's guitar playing more than makes up for the absence of Johnny Thunders. The boys pay tribute to Johnny by covering his song "You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory" in a medley with "Lonely Planet Boy".

Other standouts include Looking for a Kiss, Bad Girl, Trash, and Human Being, among others. I wish that they had included a couple of their great covers such as Pills and (There's Gonna Be a) Showdown. Other than that, this is a great album for any fan of the Dolls, and of punk, garage or glam rock at its best.