Customer Reviews

Slade Alive!

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If you're already familiar with Slade's brand of unadulterated, balls-to-the-wall ROCK, then save yourself a bit of time and just buy it. You will NOT be disappointed.

If you've never heard of Slade until now, keep reading and I'll do my best to explain why this release is worth every penny. I'll leave it to others to pontificate on track lists and subjective opinion. Since I've never seen them perform live, I feel the only way to fully endorse your purchase is to start at the beginning and at least explain why I chose to buy this CD at 50 years of age. If my words strike a chord in your rock & roll heart then this exceptional release is probably for you.

I first bought "Slade Alive" on vinyl in the early 70's. Now, after seconds of wracking my brain, I can't for the life of me remember why I actually bought it. My parents' musical tastes ran from classical to easy listening so maybe I was just musically rebelling against whatever it is that adolescent teens rebel against when they've got nothing against which to actually rebel.

Leaning more to the rockier side of the road, I do recall owning record albums ranging from Chuck Berry's, "London Sessions" (Live), to The Stone's octagonal packaged, "Through the Past, Darkly" and "Led Zeppelin III" (with yet another gimmicky cover design).

Point is, when I first dropped the stylus on "Slade Alive" as a young teen, I was literally transformed. I thought I knew rock & roll until I heard these guys. They were RAW, RUDE & RAUCOUS - the perfect blend of soul-borne mania, jackhammer rhythms, solid bass lines, over-the-top guitar leads, and ferocious vocals. Most of all, their live recordings screamed of FUN!

"Slade Alive!" is a powerful force to be reckoned with - steeped in expert musicianship that refused to take itself too seriously. Unfortunately, while endearing themselves to European rockers, they were largely ignored in North America. The loss was entirely ours here in the United States & Canada.

This Slade release is actually a re-mastered, two disc version of four separate live releases. (The sound quality is extraordinary.) For anyone interested, these Slade tracks will have you up, dancing, and whipping your air guitar into a frothing, festive frenzy.

Hearing some of my favorite songs again for the first time in over 35 years, I'm amazed how well all of the tracks on, "Slade Alive!" hold up. Yes, they sound like pissed-stupid, soccer hooligans in a few places, but overall this release captures the pure energy of what their live shows must have been like during that grand, brief, and compressed era of early 70's POWERGLAMROCK&ROLL..

Sadly, no one is very likely to see Slade on stage any time soon. If you were one of the lucky few to have seen Slade perform live, my Noddy hat is indeed doffed to you! (If you're ever in Macon, Georgia, I'd be honored to pony up a pint or two just to hear what their live shows were really like.)

And before you write them off as a bunch of impotent geezers, let me tell you how far ahead of their time they were in at least one category. Slade appears to have pioneered the now popular habit of "urban" spelling for some of their song titles. To wit: "Mama Weer All Crazee Now," "Gudbuy T'Jane," and "Cum On Feel The Noize." Coincidentally, these are three of their most popular songs. Go figure.

So there you have it. If you love great Rock & Roll tempered by fine musicianship and unpretentious audacity, then this disc is definitely for you.

We had the good fortune of coming of age in the D.C. metro area in the early 70's and had incredible musical outlets like WHFS, 102.3 on your FM dial and the Barry Richards rock show on the television that played artist films (pre-dated MTV by years) such as Bowie, Alice Cooper, etc. I am sure it was through one of these venues that we were exposed to Slade. They rocked harder than anyone that was being played via the mainstream media and yes, we did have the great foresight and great fortune to see Slade live at the Capital Centre in Largo, MD as the openers for Aerosmith around '75.

I tore through three copies of this on vinyl in the '70's and as has been stated previously, JUST BUY IT. Put it on, strip down to your boxers and prepare to give your favorite listening area (basement, rec room, etc.) a workout. Rock 'n roll can't be played any better or louder than this. Period.

I've been listening to this album since it was given to me by my aunt in around 1973 (I've got it on CD now). This version of Born To Be Wild makes Mars Bonfire's version sound like Leonard Cohen on downers. It's the greatest noise I've ever heard. Pure Loud Noise with Brilliance. Dave Hill's guitar solo on Darling Be Home Soon is just sublime. After 24 years this is still my favourite live band, and that's really saying something.

I recall a warm june saturday evening in a small town in the english midlands in 1970,- my mates and I had the choice of going out and sinking a few pints, or risk a whole quid (an english pound) for a ticket to see Slade (formerly Ambrose Slade) over at the local Youth Club Hall.
We decided there'd be more chance of some skirt over at the Slade gig, so we walked over, and dropped our hard-earned twin 50-pence pieces to get in...I missed the support act whoever they were, and just moved thru' the crowd to get a looksee at the available talent and see what might be worth trying to pull.
Had no idea what to expect from Slade musically, - they were a teenybopper/skinhead band.....so likely it would be pretty disposable.

From the moment that Noddy took the stage and unleashed that freakin' astonishing voice of his, i knew my judgement had been dead wrong...and equally, as the opening chords of 'Keep On Rocking' started to rip up the night, i turned to my mates, and as one, we all just whispered 'Sweet Geezuss KAHRRRRRRRIST!'.....and the rest was simply Rock&Roll history.

The original vinyl album 'Slade Alive' was not recorded that night....supposedly, but quite honestly if that's true then it's almost note for note exactly the set I experienced that evening, with all of them leaping about, and having a grand old time, leading the audience and having fun........you weren't quite sure whether they were there for your benefit or the other way around?
To this day, i've never seen ANYONE leap on and off amplifier stacks that tall...wearing 4" platform-soled boots!
This Re-issued remastered CD is that concert AND three others!
To my (admittedly biased) ears no recording comes close to the first 7 numbers on disk#1, but their later chart hits, "Gudbuy t'Jane', "Mama Weer All Crazee Now" (i wore out my 45rpm recording), "Cum on Feel the Noise" & "Take Me Bak 'Ome", are all included as live cuts from later in their career, as are their concert crowd pleasers standards like "The Okey Cokey", "Walk On", "Merry ChristMass Everbody", and even Arthur Crudups' "My Baby Left Me".
I left England years ago as part of the brain drain, and lost contact with bands like Slade, but somebody told me that Noddy hosts a local radio rock show as DJ. I wonder if he uses a microphone, or if he just stands atop the radiostation building and 'projects' that wonderul voice of his?
If you think you've heard high energy goodtime rock music played live, and you've never heard Slade...buy this album, play it loud....and see if you can keep your feet still........hahahaha!

Slade Alive! is honestly not the most spectacularly recorded live album in the world. It sounds severely muddy and extremely raw, but... I suppose that was the point. After all, Slade is one of those bands that, at one time, was considered extraordinarily heavy and right up there with the other hard rock/heavy metal contenders.

However nowadays, this album is mostly memorable for the party atmosphere. Simply put- Slade Alive! is all about having *fun*. Go to a party, grab a few drinks, grab a few chicks, go to the back yard and throw yourself into the swimming pool and make a huge splash while screaming "YEAHHH!!!" despite the fact you weren't invited to the party to begin with. Now that's how you make an impression!! That's the kind of scenario that describes the level of exuberance you'll experience here.

There's another mighty fine attribute that seems to be going completely unnoticed these days, and that's the lead singer of Slade and his astonishing vocal range. I can sit here and tell you he has a wonderful voice, OR I can tell you that he has exactly the right kind of voice for this kind of rock and roll entertainment. He doesn't have any competition either- he's *that* good.

The album opens with a Ten Years After classic "Hear Me Calling". At first it doesn't really stand apart from that version, however soon the heavy guitars enter the scene and THEN you'll quickly discover why Slade was so revered back in the day. The guitar solo is really awesome as well. "In Like a Shot From My Gun" showcases the lead singers hoarse/appropriate vocal range with a terrific vocal melody to boot. I bet the audience was blown away the moment he opened his voice during THIS track. I know I would have been. It's really distinct and doesn't resemble anybody that I can think of. Alright perhaps it resembles Bing Crosby... just kidding!

"Darling Be Home Soon" is a ballad... wow really? A ballad smack dab in the middle of the entertainment? Did somebody's girlfriend leave a poor boy crying so he went to the back room to shed a few tears? Unlock the door, snap his world back together, and get his depressed attitude out of there right this instant because a little bit of tenderness never hurt a thing. The night is still young and so is this album! Though do NOT underestimate the soaring guitar solo that sizzles and soothes. "Know Who You Are" is the reason Sweet started a career! Well... maybe. Sure sounds like them a lot, right down to the sincere, glammy vocal melody.

"Keep on Rocking". Yes, please do. Never ever stop, in fact, because stopping is a sign of old age and I simply refuse to accept THAT in my world baby. Anyway the vocal melody is an old 50's style rock song but with a radically new twist. The twist being a lead singer who screams like his life depends on it, and guitar playing that's more than qualified for the job. I have to laugh a little bit when the lead singer tries to get the audience to participate in a "Yeah Yeah Yeah" chant near the end, but they don't seem very interested in doing so. Or perhaps the lead singers voice simply overshadowed everything taking place in the building that night and the crowd knew they had been defeated.

The lead singer positively screams during the intro to "Get Down and Get With It". Besides that, it's another 50's rocker but not quite as memorable as the previous one. This version of "Born to Be Wild" is mainly interesting for the guitar playing because the vocals are no match for the Steppenwolf version, and plus I feel it's a tad overlong. 8 minutes? Nah... unless of course, the party atmosphere demands it!

Overall, Slade Alive! is the masterpiece that my dad always told me it was. A perfect live album.

In 1971, besides the Stooges and MC5, Slade was probably the most sonically-rockin' intense relatively known live-band in the world. There is a video from 1971 on you-tube of Slade doing a great never released song live in Australia. In England this album was the one of most influential albums that helped inspire a future generation of proto-'punk' and 'metal' bands of c.1973-1975. Their first two albums "Beginnings" (1969) and "Play it Loud" (1970) are really under-rated, especially the (before it's time) "Play it Loud" which has a great studio version of "Born to be wild" on it and in my view is their only studio album in which EVERY song is really good (Beatles meets Stooges a la Slade, the most Slade-like studio album that Slade ever did, if that makes any sense). Even when they were called The In-Betweens in 1966 they were one of the most 'Punk-like' sounding bands in England, especially live. The CD Slade Alive! is arguably the best live rock album of the early 1970s. Slade was a brilliant live band, their live performances usually better, faster and louder than their studio versions. 'Born to be wild' is the best song on the CD, and is far better than the original or any version EVER, there's a great section in the song that sounds like a guitar, an air-raid siren and UK police-car siren going off simultaneously, but it's all done by a single guitarist without gimmicks!
Unfortunately by 1973, just as they had become the biggest band in the UK since the Beatles and huge in many countries, their studio recordings started getting progressively sparser in song brilliance. The top UK band 1972-1974, by 1976 they were considered tame and slightly boring. Probably a victim of their own easy-going unpretentiousness, vastly unintellectual persona, bad fashion choices, everyman/woman pop-friendly image, and the fact that they inexplicably never had a hit record in the US, which frustrated them to no end because they emulated US bands of the time. On the other hand, like most top selling bands, they were over-rated, especially during their 1973-1974 megastardom period.

When this record hit the shores of America it made even the dozing Sopor-freaks in Detroit set up and say "WHA!!????" Some called it "Album of the Year". During the years 1970-1972 Hard Rock music had been redefined to be spelled STOOPID music---but, oh well, loud, noisey and brainless it definetly was, and English ta-boot. Rock no longer had to be meaningful to have meaning---it was, in a way, a return to form after the excesses of Prog Rock. It was quite refreshing then, as it is now.

I was introduced to Slade through my older brother who had bought the "Slayed" album in 72. When I heard Slayed I was a bit impressed at the ripe old age of 9 years old. But when he bought Slade Alive I just couldn't stop listenning to it. What first got me hooked was their awesome musicianship (which is much lacking in our talent deprived music world), Noddy's incredible voice and the raw classic rock Slade are known for.

I would like to say that their style is similar to that of the great Led Zeppelin, but they really have a style of their own. (but the similarities are evident).

Slade must be one of the most underated bands of all time, and the Slade Alive album is one of those forgetten jewels of early 70's rock.

I have said all that to say this: GET THIS CD!! and you will not be dissappointed in any way.