Live albums (what's a dead one?) do not always work in electric music because of the complexity of set up and the usual necessity for precise control of the sound. But this album, even on first hearing (and it gets better and better the more you listen to it) immediately joins the ranks of such
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celebrated in-person recordings as Mingus at Monterey, Count Basie in Sweden, Duke Ellington's Seattle Concert, Miles at the Blackhawk and Ray Charles at Atlanta. In other words, it is a classic; 17 beautiful tracks (The Band played 18 numbers at the last concert I went to) and at the discount price the equivalent of a concert ticket except you can take it home and play it.
My litany of sacred "live" albums above listed is mainly jazz. Even the Stones concert LP didn't quite make it for me and, aside from some tracks from Janis, the Airplane and the Grateful Dead, electric music has fared better in the studio, as far as records go, than on the stage. But we've all regretted it and hoped for some way to preserve that crackling moment which blew our minds so that we could take it from the top and start right over again. This one lets us do it, thank God.
The problem in concert recordings is more than the difference in the possible exercise of control. In a studio you can do it over as well as add to it if you don't like what you have the first time. On a concert recording you get to do it once and that's it. And as far as I know, this album presents the Band's music precisely as it went down at the Academy of Music. Robbie says, incidentally, that about 80% of it was from the last night of a three-night gig.
The Band has always given a strong impression of precise control in its albums and in its concerts more attention has been paid to set up and sound than almost any group of which I can think. Their success here is all the more surprising since this album was not only done in concert but done with the addition of a horn section ("We're gonna try something tonight we've never done before," Robbie says in opening the show) which had only one rehearsal before the concert. That is a tribute to Allen Toussaint, who arranged the horns. Toussaint aided on the last Band LP, of course, and is someone for whom Robbie has had deep admiration since "I was a kid starting out." Back there with "Mother-in-Law" and the rest.
For a brief time on tour the Band had a horn section and of course they have always taken advantage of Garth Hudson's ability to play wind instruments as well as keyboards. So the idea of horns was in itself not so revolutionary, but
With a country funk version of Marvin Gaye's "Don't Do It" proving to be the best song on this album (if not on any of their long-players), the Band ushered in New Year's 1972 with this perfectly captured performance. The show may not have as many cameos as The Last Waltz, but it sounds much more inspired.
