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Old 05-28-2014, 04:01 PM   #12 (permalink)
Paul Smeenus
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Default Playing The Fool (1977)

Most live albums aren't nearly as "live" as they appear, there is still a ton of mixing, editing, splicing, filtering, so on and so forth that takes place before the final master disc is made. Other than Joe Jackson's 1986 masterpiece Big World I can't think of any live album that more perfectly abandons this process than Gentle Giant's "Official LIVE" album Playing The Fool




Not only is there no edits or overdubs, there are even a few (not many) mistakes left on the record. When you spin Playing the Fool you are getting a 100% accurate representation of a Giant performance.

Additionally, they arrangements of these songs, nearly without exception, are an actual LIVE version of the songs and not just a copy and paste performance of the studio versions. An outstanding example comes right on the opening track, merging "Just The Same" from Free Hand with "Proclamation" from The Power And the Glory



"Just The Same" appears to end at 5:27, but then they kick in a reprise, then segue into "Proclamation", then at 9:39 break into "Valedictory", the reprise of "Proclamation" on TP&TG. Masterful.

I stated in my previous review that I would demonstrate in *this* review how they could totally pull off "On Reflection" live and THEN SOME. Well, they start out sounding more like a chamber orchestra than a rock band, recorder, bowed instrumentation and melodic percussion join in an arrangement not appearing on Free Hand, then break into the ridiculously difficult vocals at 2:30. And here's also an example of how this album is presented raw, unfinished and uncut, somebody's microphone is buzzing like a motherfucker at this point. Then at 4:11, rather than the bridge section that appears on the studio version, they segue into the same arrangement that opens the track but on rock instrumentation. Then at the 6:00mark, maybe the greatest ending I've ever heard to any song, by anybody, ever



Side two begins with the Octopus album, brilliantly condensed to 15 minutes



The arrangement here are just fucking *sick*. One thing I didn't realize was that at the 5:06 point in part 1 they break away from Octopus and play a section of "Acquiring The Taste", the title song from an album I didn't know at that time existed as it was one of three albums that had not been released stateside. When I first spun PtF I just thought it was a lovely part of the arrangement. This was the first such example on PtF that there were albums I had not heard, even though I was unaware of it at that time.

On my review of Octopus earlier in this thread I mention how they would replace the odd bridge of "The Advent of Panurge" with a brilliant recorder section, this begins at 2:32 of part 2. And I also mentioned earlier in *this* review that the (incredibly rare) mistakes were left in, and there are two in part two here, on on a recorder at 3:21 and another on bass at 4:13. When you're *this* good live, you can live with tiny imperfections as these

Then, the first time that I became 100% certain there were albums I had yet to discover was the first time I heard the next song, a brilliantly performed version of "Funny Ways" from what I would discover later was their real first album (up to this point I thought Three Friends was their first album)



Then, more such realization opened side three

"This album was called "In a Glass...House!"

Now, not only was I perfectly certain there were albums I hadn't heard yet, I had a title of one of them. I assumed "Funny Ways" wasn't on In a Glass House or it would've been in this medley, so I knew by this point there were at least two albums I hadn't heard.



"The Runaway" melds into"Experience" at 3:55. At this time I'm thinking to myself that I need and I do mean NEED to find these albums. We didn't have the internet in 1977 (or Al Gore for that matter) so that search would have to be done in my local record stores

The next song on side three I'd heard live before, when they opened for Yes the previous summer, this incredible arrangement of "So Sincere" from The Power and The Glory



Love every minute of this, from the faithful-to-the-record opening, to the thoroughly rocked-up chorus (without the vocals) to the incredible extended percussion outro, with everybody playing different drums melding together as one, then into mallet/melodic xylophone/glock again with everyone on their own instrument, then one by one they go back to their own drum. Sensational, no one else in music could do it like Giant.

Side four opens with the title track from Free Hand, with a rocked-up bridge section featuring great guitar work from Gary Green



The album concludes with something familiar, "Peel The Paint" from the Three Friends album (I wish they played more of this album but alas, they didn't) but not for very long, "Peel The Paint" quickly gives way to another song from yet another album I hadn't heard yet. I really don't know how I missed "Interview", unlike the first two albums and In a Glass House, Interview was released here in the US, but somehow I just missed it. In any case, I Lost My Head concludes this great live album. All of the great Prog bands of the 1970's released multiple disc live albums, Yes, Tull, Genesis, EL&P, but I'd take this live album over any and all of them.

From this point forward, I'm a little hazy on the order of discovery, so I will review them chronologically. The last Giant studio album was definitely the last Giant album I heard, the albums between this live album and the final studio album may or may not be in the order I heard them. And a couple of the reviews will not be positive. The next one will be positive with a few reservations, their eponymous first album, which I will copy from another thread and paste here next. Coming up, in minutes, the first album.
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Last edited by Paul Smeenus; 06-20-2014 at 09:13 PM.
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