This recording, recorded live in Europe during the height of theirpopularity shows Amazing Blondel in good form, concentrating on thegentler acoustic Elizabethan and Tudor flavoured old English musicthat originally brought them to notice and before they becamesomewhat more rock orientated. It's a shame that the CD notes don'tsay where and when the recording was made so it can only be dated byreferences in the song introductions. That places the recordingsomewhere French speaking just after the release of theEngland studio album, which was released on Island in 1972,and much of the material here is taken from that England album. This makes the recording in excess of 25 years old, yet thesound quality is excellent.
I know some people who have been fans of Amazing Blondel for manyyears, and they will be delighted by this album which at over 70minutes playing time capures a superb performance of many of theirbetter known songs while the band were at their peak. Some people onthe other hand find Amazing Blondel about as exiting as listening tograss growing and this recording is unlikely to change their minds.Personally I find this live recording to have more energy anddirectness than some of their studio recordings and for that reasonalone I actively prefer it to most other albums of theirs which Ihave heard.
Interestingly a short while ago I went to hear the now reformedAmazing Blondel and they played, among others, "Seascape," which isthe opening track of this album. It sounded hardly any different tothe version captured on this CD so in a sense the age of therecording is immaterial. If you ignore the fact that there is ratherless hair on stage nowadays this recording is not that different tothe current sound of the band.
