Customer Reviews

Strangers in the Night

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

After 5 stellar studio albums, in 1979 UFO (Phil Moog, Michael Schenker, Andy Parker, Pete Way, Paul Raymond) released the live record Strangers In The Night. It went on to become highly acclaimed and a favorite among many musicians. However still criminally underlooked. What makes this different from the studio albums? UFO seemingly, after hearing the bonus live cuts on their new 2008 remastered editions come off as a cool live band but their performances are raw and in a way lack spark. This album however, track for track, second for second captures a spirit of rock and roll rarely heard on a live release. Re-relesed in 1999 with two bonus cuts and an altered track listing that more accuratly fit UFO's set list of the time, the sound is superb as is the 2008 as well. Apparenly the inbetween song banter and chat from Phil Moog and Pete Way was not on the original record however I think it adds a better live feel. With that in mind there are also no drop out or fades which is the case with about 98% of every live album you'll likely to hear. The show is one long concert with the exception of the two bonus cuts Hot N Ready and Cherry which were recorded at two seperate venues and tacked on at the beginning. Normally this wouldnt be very acceptable but the record isnt disrupted at all by it and if historical significance prevails that UFO did open their 78/79 tour with these tracks then let it be so here. As for the songs...guitarist Michael Schenker has complained there could've been a better song list. And while it's very very hard to see anything wrong with this albums tracklisting which is just about the best of UFO you can get. True there were some lost nuggets on those early albums but the major highlights will always be picked when it comes to this sort of thing. As for the performances themselves, UFO are tight as ever, possibly the tighest live on record band I've ever, very crisp, clean but very heavy, translating that vicious guitar sound from studio to stage without problem. The tracklisting itself fits quite nicely together as after you hear this album it'll be impossible to think of Natural Thing without Out In The Street as a segueway. Or This Kids following the in your face strut of Mother Mary. All the selected tracks take on a life of their own as they never have before but one makes special note of this on the closing epic ballad from the Lights Out album - Love To Love. The song, while surely effective in studio truely shows what a masterpiece it is in a live setting. Doctor Doctor, while a force of a song on the debut, also takes a much larger shape here in this setting to become a fist pumping hard rock anthem for the ages. Rock Bottom, once more...stretched out to almost 10 minutes here becomes a true guitar show case for Schenker and demonstrates just how much style he really had with the Flying V. With the good times roll party boogie of Too Hot To Handle wraps things up along with the encore Shoot Shoot, it ends up being the perfect show. Schenker quit the group after the album was recorded thus preventing any overdubbing, which unlike almost any other live album, this is how it was and there are zero mistakes, adding to the authenticity of how great this player was. Though it was said that Mother Mary and This Kids were studio tracks with crowd sounds, its impossible to tell. In the end, it goes without saying this belongs right up there with Thin Lizzy's Live And Dangerous, Kiss Alive!, Seger's Live Bullet, Deep Purple's Made In Japan, Cheap Trick's At Budokan and Nugent's Double Live Gonzo as the crowning live albums of all time and UFO's star document of talent and musical chops. Essentially this a record no rock fan should be without.

And this really is one of the best of all time. For many this is the only UFO album you'll ever need. This is part of the 2008 UFO re-issue campaign. If you have the old version of the CD you really don't need to get this. The sound is a little bit better than the last one but there aren't any extra tracks. The new booklet is pretty nice and includes good liner notes (including some from Steve Harris). All of the UFO 2008 re-issues sound great and come with good booklets. Pick them up before they delete them again.

Check out Mighty High...In Drug City.

One of the best hard rock/guitar albums of all time. UFO still amazes me when I listen to this CD, the writing ,playing and energy are unmatched by most bands.If you ever want to learn how to put together a guitar solo with technique ,melody and grace you'd be challenged to find someone better than you know who.... It's been said a thousand times but I always wondered why they weren't more well known , then I saw a TV show one day about them and was amazed buy the number of bands and artists that said what a HUGE influence UFO had on them , even artists I wouldn't have thought of. Maybe as with many things in life UFO may always be one of the best kept secrets, and there's nothing wrong with that....

UFO was always a bigger hit in Europe and the UK than in the States, where they've really not had much more than a cult following. Their studio albums leading up to Strangers were good, solid hard rock with above-average song writing and skilled instrumental abilities.

But wow! On stage, they made a quantum leap in terms of added edge and fire to their performance. And anyone who is a guitar player or a fan of melodic rock guitar must, and I mean MUST, hear this. Schenker is simply mind-boggling and these performances are worth hearing for his solos alone. Unlike later 80's shred-meisters who became obsessed with maximizing notes-per-minute quotient, Schenker, somewhat like Buck Dharma, always put an emphasis on carefully structuring his solos with great tone, feel, and melodic focus. In this live setting, this comes out with even greater fire and power.

Add to this the facts that the whole band plays great and the song selection cherry-picks the best of UFO's catalog to that point, and you have the recipe for one of the best hard rock live albums ever. If you're not familiar with UFO. but enjoy hard rock esp. hard rock from the 1970's, you'll drop this disc on and say "Who are these guys and why haven't I heard them 'til now?"

ufo,s strangers in the night is possibly the finest hard rock live album of all time!!!this album just smokes!!michael schenkers solos are stellar on lights out,rock bottom,this kids and all the way through this album.this album unfortunately was michael schenker,s last album with ufo until the mid 1990,s.the booklet is great too with the vintage pix from the obsession tour of 78..you get to see the all white flying v,before it became his trade mark white/black two tone v..any way grab this cd it is great!!!!

If you ever wanted to purchase UFO studio album(s), STOP!! Buy this and you'll have all of their best and I'm not crazy. I've worn this record albums so much in the 80s, that it ended looking like a card board, but I still proudly have it. Now, Remastered and improved sound CD? You can't go wrong folks. Buy it and enjoy it like I have.

This collection is solid! Hard to believe these songs are LIVE!!
Surprised this band wasn't bigger - GREAT songs!

I wasn't sure what to expect from this album--really, I didn't even know what to expect from UFO, since this was my first time really hearing anything they'd done. I'll admit it...That Metal Show got me to check out this album. And I'm glad I did. It really IS everything that was promised it would be: an awesome live rock album. The notes inside the CD's cover say "this live album captures a band firing on all cylinders," and I'd say that is exactly what's here.

Strangers in the Night feels like a culmination of something great. Each band member, it seems, has something to contribute to the overall soundscape. You can feel the energy and the attitude coming through the speakers. UFO didn't let me down. The songs were all great. If I had to pin them down: I'd say they're somewhere, to me, between, say, Humble Pie and Deep Purple. Like Deep Purple, keyboards and organ are used--but here they don't seem to be over used. Like Humble Pie the lyrics and vocals often seem to have a more soulful/bluesy approach.

But, back to this being a live album...Strangers in the Night, what more can I say? I know this is the remastered version, so keeping that in mind...Everything sounds clean and clear--and, it seems to me, like is usual nowadays with remasters, they pumped up the low end, which I like anyway: the bass should be heard. Crowd noise is cut way down except between songs, like it should be. Yet, besides the sound, and awesome songs, there is somewhat of a candidness to Strangers in the Night. Between many of the songs (which I read wasn't included, or at least not as much of it, originally), the singer speaks to the crowd about things like the sound crew having to change out mics and such...makes it more fun and real. Anyway. Strangers in the Night, if you like live albums...buy it, even if you haven't heard of UFO before.

I had this as an album over 20 years ago.Playing it again just reminds me how great this album is!!It's one of those rare collections where every single song is good and you do not have to skip over the lame ones!Rock On Metalheads!!

While I grew up in the 1970s and loved hard rock groups like Rush, Black Sabbath, and Rainbow, I surprisingly never got hooked on UFO. I think I knew they existed and liked some of their songs, but I never got around to buying any of their records. It was only 4 or 5 years ago that I bought the 1999 version of this CD after hearing some of it at my brother-in-law's house.

From start to finish, this is a topnotch live hard rock album that I really enjoy listening to. Every song is rich with melody and vibrant guitar solos. Phil Moog has a fine voice and a charming personality (as evidenced by his chatter between some of the songs). Michael Schenker, who was still only 22 at the time, is outstanding on guitar. The rest of the band is also fine, but these two guys are the clear stars.

While there are many good live rock albums from this period, this is one of the best. The only one that I like more is Rainbow's "Live in Europe" (aka "Live in Germany") from 1976 which featured extremely long versions of 8 Rainbow songs with long guitar solos by Ritchie Blackmore.