A fellow BOC fan chucked a question at me the other day regarding LIVE albums. He wanted to know what I generally thought of them and if I preferred them to studio albums, or vice versa. He went on to say that he did not like them much, and that if he wanted to hear live music he would go see a band live. Well, I have never been what you could call a BIG fan of live albums myself, but I do like them a wee bit more than that. Now ok, I'll admit, I'm a sucker for sound quality. Yes, I'm the guy who constantly tinkers with his sound system, has different equalizer settings for every album, and puts his comfiest chair right in the "sweet spot" when listening to a favorite CD. Sometimes I even pull the shades and shut off the telephone ringer. I like my music clean, crisp, thundering... and uninterrupted.
So today, when I found myself in possession of a CD of BOC's Live '76, I hesitated before giving it a thorough listen. I had heard many a rumor about this album. Many a BOC fan has told me to avoid it at all cost, that it had all the appeal of watching hemorrhoid surgery. Well, I gritted my teeth, planted my feet firmly, tightened my sphincter, and slid the CD into the player. My first reaction, upon reading the time readout was utter amazement! The CD weighs in at a whopping 78 minutes, easily the longest playing time I have ever seen on a single CD! Sweat was beginning to form on my brow as I reached down and hit the play button.........
The first thing one hears is some long winded ya-hoo shouting out his introduction of the Eighth Wonder of the Universe, Blue Oyster Cult. The band then breaks into "Stairway to the Stars", and it sounds.... well.... horrible. Now, bad sound quality can be remedied to some degree, but not this album, no way. Apart from sounding like it was recorded by a guy with a Fisher-Price tape recorder as he hid two floors down in a men's room behind a garbage can filled to bursting with paper towels, the quality of the album constantly changes! One minute the bass cannot even be heard and a second later it thunders out of the speakers like a 747 doing doughnuts on an icy pond, drowning out vocals, drums and even Eric.
Well my first impulse was to vomit, but I fought the bile back and listened to the whole album. Now, one thing I've found when listening to an album with really rotten sound quality is that you kinda get "in tune" with the quality of the sound. Not unlike the icy waters of a swimming pool still open long after the season is over, it is a shock at first until your mind and body kinda fall in "sync" with the overall tone. Of course, if something from, oh lets say, Cultosaurus Erectus was to come blaring through the speakers without warning, reality would come screaming back to your bleeding ears with a vengeance.
And so I listened to the whole album. And while this album is very bad in many ways, in another way it is very good. While on the average BOC's other live albums are very good, they are very commercial and safe. Live '76 has some of those rare BOC moments you just don't find on a commercial album. Apart from previously unheard live versions of "This ain't the Summer of Love" and "Stairway to the Stars", Live '76 features a long and heavy guitar solo by Buck, a wild bass solo by Joe, and one of the longest and most unusual drum solo's I have ever heard by Albert Bouchard. When 10 songs can be padded out to 78 minutes, this album has a real concert feel to it.
And so, to put the final nail in this review, let me say that I would NOT recommend this album to anyone who is not that familiar with BOC and wants to start getting into their music. This album is for the collector. For the rabid fan who can't get enough. This is for you, that person out there who buys any bootleg he can get his little paws on, regardless of how out and out rotten the sound quality is. Think of it as getting your favorite bootleg tape remastered onto CD for safe keeping to have forever. On a scale from 1 to 10 for CONTENT alone, I would give this CD a 9, but unfortunately, that unforgivable sound quality drags the overall score back down to a 4. Had the sound on this CD been equal to, say that of, Extra-terrestrial Live, this would have been on of BOC's best live albums ever. And then again, if a frog had wings he wouldn't bump his ass a-hoppin'......
Dr. Torgo
