When I recently purchased the Edsel Records compilation
Rio: The Best of Michael Nesmith
, one of the highlights for me were the 11 tracks taken from his 1992 concert at the 30th annual Britt Festival in Jacksonville, Oregon. I thought about purchasing the live double-CD, but decided to go with the DVD instead, and I'm so glad that I did. Papa Nes is in top form and his backup band is terrific. He starts off the concert with "Two Different Roads," a track from his 1972 RCA album, AND THE HITS JUST KEEP ON COMIN'. He then surprises everyone with a lively performance of "Papa Gene's Blues," from
The Monkees (Deluxe Edition shown here)
, the group's first album. Next is "Propinquity (I've Just Begun to Care)," a song that was recorded during the Monkee days, but went unreleased until 1996's
Missing Links, Volume 3
; Nesmith's solo rendition was issued on his 1971 First National Band album, NEVADA FIGHTER. After introducing the band, Michael then performs another unreleased Monkees song, "Some of Shelly's Blues," which was issued on
Missing Links Volume 2
in 1990; Nesmith did a solo version on his final RCA album, PRETTY MUCH YOUR STANDARD RANCH STASH, issued in 1973. He then performs his biggest First National Band hit, "Joanne," from his 1970 debut FNB album, MAGNETIC SOUTH. The next three songs, "Tomorrow and Me," "The Upside of Goodbye," and "Harmony Constant," are all from AND THE HITS JUST KEEP ON COMIN'. The last RCA-era track is the group's second hit, "Silver Moon," taken from the second FNB album, 1970's LOOSE SALUTE.
As I noted in a previous review, the best versions of these RCA albums are the imported "two-fers" from Camden Deluxe. They can be found
here
,
here
, and
here
.
Nes closes the first half of the concert with a comedy piece called "5 Second Concerts," from his short-lived NBC-TV series, TELEVISION PARTS, which has yet to be issued on DVD, though a made-for-home-video sequel has (
Television Parts Home Companion
). A collaboration with his pianist John Hobbs, it consists of three short medleys: "Moonlight and Day Sonata," "Jaws the Knife," and "There's No Business Like Star Wars."
The second half of the concert consists of six songs from the recently recorded album
Tropical Campfires
: "Yellow Butterfly," "Moon over the Rio Grande," "Juliana," "Laugh Kills Lonesome," "I Am Not That," and "Rising in Love." The audience's enthusiastic reaction to these tracks surprised Nes, given their unfamiliarity with the songs, as the album had only been out for a short time. Nesmith than closes the concert with an uptempo version of 1977's hit "Rio," which the audience probably recognized from his
Elephant Parts [VHS
]; the DVD format did not exist at the time. For the encore, Nes returns with an acoustic version of "one of the early ones that I didn't sing," "Different Drum," Linda Ronstadt's first hit with The Stone Poneys from 1967, recorded by Michael himself on AND THE HITS JUST KEEP ON COMIN'. A short reprise of the studio version of "I Am Not That" plays over the closing credits of the DVD; the live CD has the TROPICAL CAMPFIRES version.
The Edsel Records RIO compilation listed above has 11 of the 18 songs from the concert, all from the first half of the show, although "Different Drum," for unknown reasons, is added at the beginning of the set. Except for "Rising in Love," all of the other songs in the show appear on RIO in their original studio versions.
The live CD is good, but the DVD is even better, with excellent picture quality and 5.1 surround sound. Amazon is out of stock of this title right now - I was lucky enough to get one of the last copies they had - but try and find it from one of the Merchants, on Michael's Videoranch site, or elsewhere if you can. A must-have!!
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sami17
モンキーズのマイクのファンなら１２年前の彼を視よう。
Reviewed in Japan on September 27, 2004Verified Purchase
