Customer Reviews

Warts & All 5 (Dig)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The latest in the band's long-running series of official live releases taken straight from the sound board "warts and all." A truly stellar performance, those new to Moe will find much here to enjoy. Long-time Moe fans will love the set list--with a mind-blowing 27 minute version of Yodelittle, a Plane Crash that rocks your socks off, some wonderful though more seldomly performed songs, and early previews of tracks from the 2007 studio album "Conch." Highly recommended.

Tijuana Donkey Show is worth the price of admission alone. Excellent moe. live album (as expected) as are all of the Warts offerings.

I am a reluctant fan of moe.'s Warts and All series. While I love and appreciate the concept- release whole shows with juicy live extras when possible- the execution so far, or specifically, the particular shows that have been released, has left me wanting a little more. That little more was delivered en masse with this release.
This is what I want in a show. Strong songs stretched to meaty lengths and made better for it? Yes. (Bring You Down, Captain America, Spine of a Dog). Unreleased songs given worthy live treatment? Yes. (George, Tijuana Donkey Show). Epic guitar workouts that make you wish you were at a show dancing your butt off? Yes. (She, George, Mexico, Yodelittle). Lots of segueing so that the band gets lots of opportunity to stretch out and work outside the box? Yes. (Three worthy segues in the first set alone, plus a monster Spine-> Mexico-> Plane Crash-> Spine-> Yodelittle-> Spine-> Buster to comprise the entire second set!).
This is what releasing live shows is about. Capturing those nights that transcend the normal limits of a show and become something truly special. This is one of those shows and thanks to this series, we all can enjoy it!

Moe live and in a good groove. Some great jams. Some great rock and roll. Some great lead guitar. Some humor. Songs are given the time and space to evolve. Disc 2 with Spine of a Dog/Mexico/Plane Crash just rolls and I need to turn the volume up and up. Don't care of you are 14 or 60, if you are into the jam sceen like Widespread Panic, Phish, Further, Left Over Salmon etc think you will get Moe too and this would be a good place to start.

REFRESHINGLY DIFFERENT IN PARTS.. BEST MOE LIVE ALBUM....

I own 3 Warts and All sets and L. Most of it all sounds the same to me. This CD set is refreshingly different in parts, probably because it is much newer than all of the other releases. This comes from a 2005 concert, while all of the other releases have come from 2002 or earlier.

It seems that on this set, the group has taken on a more Southern Rock flavor in parts. Bring You Down sounds like it could be from Marshall Tucker. The whole Spine/Mexico/Plane suite has a strong Dickey Betts sound, along with some Charlie Daniels (back in his rocking days)and more Toy Caldwell thrown in. There are also bits and pieces that remind of some of the lesser Southern Bands, like the Winters Brothers.

Although much of this ablum is different than previously releases, I think that other parts are more of the same. I don't think there is much change in Yodelittle. And Buster sounds almost exactly the same as on Warts 3. The first half sounds like Gentle Giant and the guitar solo sounds like an extended version of the one on Journey's Can This Be A Dream from the Look Into the Future album.

The CD set comes from a concert on Feb 22, 2005. The cover says over 200 minutes of music, but I calculate to be just over 180 minutes. As with all these releases, there are almost no liner notes or pictures. The sound quality is fairly good, but it is not good as some of the other Warts and All and there are some problems with vocals.

I am not a big fan of full concert CD sets. If you are going to release a whole concert, it should be on DVD where you get the full experience. On CD, it is irritating because you have put up with the good and the bad and you really don't get the full concert feel.

And like all the moe live releases, there are the good and the bad. George has got to be the worst jam I have heard from moe. It is just a very boring 15 minutes. It reminds me of the worst of the Blues Traveler. There are also some pretty bad moments on vocals on this CD.

The biggest problem full concert release, is that in order to keep the songs in order, it was necessary to split Yodelittle on to CD 2 and 3. There is a very nice instrumental that is interrupted as you move from CD 2 to CD 3.

Although I don't like full concert releases, and I feel you get a lot of stuff that sounds just like the stuff on other CD's, I will probably keep buying these. Priced between 14 and 18 dollars, it is hard to go wrong. You usually get a couple of hours of great music and at least an hour of something new.

With other groups, especially Phish, I will take these concert CD's and rip the parts I like and get rid of the rest. With Phish, I usually end up with just one CD worth of material out of a concert. With String Cheese Incident and moe, it hasn't been worth the effort because there is little throw away. However, with String Cheese Incident, nearly every concert is remarkedly different from the next. Because they play in many different muscial styles it is much easier to have variation from concert to concert.

Great deal, lightning fast delivery and condition perfect, just as advertised. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this dealer to anybody who respects quality service. Five stars all the way.