Thirty Seconds Over Winterland

Jefferson Airplane | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (July 7, 2009)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: ICONOCLASSIC
• ASIN: B0029QLR1Y
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #76,280 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Have You Seen The Saucers

2. Feel So Good

3. Crown Of Creation

4. When The Earth Moves Again

5. Milk Train

6. Trial By Fire

7. Twilight Double Leader

8. BONUS TRACKS - Wooden Ships*

9. Long John Silver*

10. Come Back Baby*

11. Law Man*

12. Diana*

13. Volunteers*

Editorial Reviews

When Jefferson Airplane's second live collection, Thirty Seconds Over Winterland, was released in 1973, no indication was given that it was the band's final LP (until the self-titled one-off 1989 reunion album, that is). But even if fans had known that this was the end of the road for Jefferson Airplane, the disc would have represented more of a stop than a finish. The group toured to support its 1972 studio album, Long John Silver, during the late summer and early fall of the year in a configuration including only two of the original members who had been part of the lineup at their first gig seven years earlier. Those two, singer/songwriter/guitarists Paul Kantner and Jorma Kaukonen, were also the dominant forces in the band on its final tour. Kantner's science fiction anthems, starting with leadoff track "Have You Seen the Saucers," provided one pole, and Kaukonen's blues-rock jams, the major one being the 11-and-a-half-minute "Feel So Good," the other. In between, singer Grace Slick added vocal decoration and Papa John Creach musical decoration with his keening violin, notably on "Milk Train," which they co-wrote. Although erstwhile Quicksilver Messenger Service member David Freiberg was along as a vocalist, he was not a true replacement for the departed Marty Balin, and there was no attempt made to perform a show that summed up Jefferson Airplane. Rather, the show represented the group as it was in 1972, with most of the tracks drawn from the last two albums. The 2009 reissue on the Iconoclassic imprint adds five tracks, expanding the original 36-minute LP into a 66-minute CD. Reissue producer Frank Ursoleo has remained true to the album's initial format by including more material that was contemporary for its time, such as "Diana," a song from the 1971 Kantner/Slick album Sunfighter, and the blues "Come Back Baby," which had appeared on the 1971 album First Pull Up, Then Pull Down by Kaukonen and bassist Jack Casady's spinoff group Hot Tuna (although it also had been in the Jefferson Airplane repertoire for a while, having been played, for example, at Woodstock in 1969). Slick's "Lawman" gives her another showcase, and "Wooden Ships" even allows an opportunity to hear Freiberg (in the third verse) singing solo. So, in this version, Thirty Seconds Over Winterland is a more complete statement of the Jefferson Airplane of 1972, even if it remains a final statement only by happenstance rather than intention. ~ William Ruhlmann, Rovi

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Stoned Meditation on the Blues, July 21, 2000

By 

Peter Felknor (Deerfield, WI USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: 30 Seconds Over Winterland (Audio CD)

I first heard this album many years ago, shortly after its initial release. As someone who loved Hot Tuna, but was less and less enchanted by Paul Kantner's reedy science fiction epics, this was the JA album I'd been waiting a long time for (and yes, I agree with some other reviewers that "Bless Its Pointed Little Head" (1969) was a monumental achievement). But by the time JA released "Bark," (1971) they were sounding more and more like a dead issue to me.

The Airplane redeemed themselves with this live set by cleverly adhering to the formula that had made parts of "Long John Silver" (1972) work so well: sticking to blues forms. Although JA had never been a blues band--save for some of Jorma and Jack's pre-Hot Tuna experiments--the additions of violinist Papa John Creach and drummer John Barbata gave Kaukonen and Casady the critical mass they needed to re-shape the band's sound, and to shape it around the blues. It wasn't the Jefferson Airplane we used to know and love (a "Shiva firedance," as a sixties reviewer called them), but the thundering grandeur of the band's basic sound had returned. Jorma and Jack were back at the helm, and with the assistance of Creach and Barbata, they conducted affairs like the seasonsed bluesmen they were.

Even Kantner's SF pieces--"Have You Seen the Saucers," "When the Earth Moves Again," and "Twilight Double Leader"--come off tough as nails here, with Barbata's concise R&B drumming laying the foundation for some downright nasty interplay between Kaukonen, Casady, and Creach. The latter piece almost reduces Kantner's futuristic lyric to an incidental, as the instrumentalists build and build throughout until the song spirals skyward into a rapturous blues jam.

This isn't a great album for Grace Slick fans, although she does a perfectly fine rendering of "Crown of Creation" ("I can't either," she harrumphs after singing, "In loyalty to their kind / They cannot tolerate our minds") and laughs her way through "Milk Train." Grace adds some of her trademark wails in the background of Kantner's songs, but other than that she seems content to sit back in awe while the Hot Tuna boys burn down the stage.

Jorma Kaukonen's "Feel So Good" is turned into an extended blues vehicle that features a mighty bass/drum exchange between Casady and Barbata. But it is in "Trial by Fire" that Jorma really soars, bringing to the surface the sense of danger and menace that the song only hinted at when it first appeared on "Long John Silver."

Perhaps most interesting of all is the way that the instrumentalists pour their heart and soul into the Kantner and Slick tunes, almost knocking themselves out to present these somewhat abstract compositions in a fiery new light. Kaukonen's guitar leading into "Have You Seen The Saucers" is so blues-drenched that it could almost be Peter Green or Jimi Hendrix. Casady's bass has never sounded more forbidding. And like with Hendrix when Billy Cox assumed the bass chores, Barbata's drumming provides the key element that keeps everything solidly rooted to the ground.

I gave this album four stars because I'm trying to be honest--"Thirty Seconds Over Winterland" isn't "Layla" or "Electric Ladyland." But it is some very tough rock and roll, and a fine send-off for one of America's most important rock and roll bands.

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Blows Against The Revisionists!, December 8, 2002

By 

Robert Davis (Van Lear, Kentucky United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 30 Seconds Over Winterland (Audio CD)

It has become axiomatic to point to this album as representing the last gasps of a great but now disintegrating band. But despite the proximity of "Thirty Seconds Over Winterland" to the "Jefferson Airplane's" demise, this was not a group in its death throes, but rather a statement by a great collection of musicians from the depths of their greatest maturity.

Much has also been made of the fact that the band had by now broken up into two factions: one centered on Paul Kantner, the other made up of the "Hot Tuna" core of Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady. But if such factions existed, there was little evidence of it here. The real division, between Kantner and Airplane co-founder Marty Balin, had finally been resolved with Balin's leaving the group along with drummer Spencer Dryden. For years both Kantner and Balin had fought to become the defining creative force of the group, and this competition was evident on most all of the band's previous releases--including two previous live albums in which the music seemed almost to tear itself apart as a result of the attempts of Balin and Kantner and partner Grace Slick to outdo one another.

Here one finds none of that. Kantner was now firmly in charge, and the current line-up of musicians, including newcomers Papa John Creach, David Frieburg, and John Barbata, all made firm contributions to his creative vision. Kantner's music was at once deceptively simple and uniquely complex, with its continuous layering of sounds both instrumental and vocal. Most of all, it was incredibly disciplined, requiring each player to stay within certain bounds so as to allow the overall blend to reflect Kantner's sense of the larger creative vision. For the most part the group was content to do just that, and that included Kaukonen and Casady, who lent their considerable musicianship to setting the tone for Kantner's harmonies with Slick and Frieburg--who himself wisely did not try to emulate Balin's onstage hystrionics, even though he was nominally Balin's replacement. It says something about their respect for Kantner that the "Hot Tuna" crew saved their extended jamfest for one of Kaukonen's own tunes, "Feels So Good," and didn't try to do more with Kantner's songs than what they knew he wanted to get out of them.

The only disparate voices heard on this album were that of Creach, whose soaring violin added an untamed and raw quality that never quite jelled with the rest of the band, yet still managed to make its own mark in a way that would have been missed had it not been there; and Slick, whose occasional wisecracks betrayed the fact that, for all the storied political seriousness of the music, she was not above simply kicking back and having some fun once in awhile. Fortunately, these two restless souls managed to keep the music from becoming too ponderous--another description commonly used in connection with Kantner's writing, again without much accuracy.

All in all, this was the performance of a band in the full light of its adulthood, one which both understood its message and the best ways to share it, and did so with a quiet confidence and no hint of apology. All the growing pains were over, and if the end of this incredible group's life was just around the corner, then we should enjoy this album all the more for the way it showed the "Airplane" in its fullest flight.

This album now comes in two versions--the original seven-track version and a newer import with additional tracks and digital re-mastering. By all means get the expanded version, but don't overlook the original: shorter and rougher it may be, but it has its own internal logic, as well as a sound that evokes the atmosphere of the original performance as no studio reinvention ever could. Above all, forget the revisionist history--this album has nothing it needs to answer for!

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Toasters are cookin', August 25, 2002

By 

"johnchapter10" (Santa Rosa, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 30 Seconds Over Winterland (Audio CD)

We used to call this one The Toasters, either for the cover or
what it did to your ears. Unreal live album, maybe the greatest
live album you've never heard. It opens with "Saucers" and starts off tight enough and then Jorma decides to step on a pedal during the solo and blow the hair off the first 10 rows.
Great opening cut......"Feel so Good" is a long jam that is basically Hot Tuna with Kantner. Papa John is tasty as always
and Jack does this wonderful solo. You can just picture him
sticking out his lower lip and jamming away. "Crown of Creation"
is a welcome addition to the set as it is the only old song they
included on the album. "Earth Moves Again" is a little plodding
and you can't wait for Jorma, Jack and Papa John to crank it up
again, which they do on "Milk Train". Grace is great on this cut
and the female pretenders of the last 25 years that think they
sound sexy should listen to this. Pure smut sung with a voice so powerful that it was almost frightening. "Trial by Fire" is pure Jorma and one of the highlights. Then comes the last cut and the true barnburner of this set - "Twilight Double Leader". You could listen to this cut a thousand times and still get a big smile on your face. Jorma has his most intense solos on this song and towards the end Grace is soaring up in the clouds behind Kantner's vocals and Papa John hits notes on the violin that only a dog could possibly hear. There are actually parts of this song where it is impossible to tell who is reaching the
stratosphere, Jorma or Papa John. "Twilight" on this CD has to be heard to be believed, all-time cut.....my only complaint is the brevity of the set, they MUST have played more songs than this on that night. Maybe a double CD can come out in the future to give us the complete picture. In the meantime, pick this CD up and crank it up. You can file it right next to Allman Bros. at Fillmore East, Humble Pie Performance, and Who Live at Leeds. It is that good.........