Although many people can’t stand them, I’m a big fan of cover bands. After having heard the originals for so many times and for so many years, a fresh take on the songs is more than welcome for me. That’s the criteria with which I judge cover bands: do they indeed give a fresh outlook on the originals? Are they able to inject some original ideas in the old compositions? Blue Floyd, a collective consisting of musicians from American southern rock bands The Allman Brothers Band, Gov’t Mule and The Black Crowes, are very much able to do so. On their previous official release Begins (2008), the experiment to give Pink Floyd- songs a blues interpretation worked pretty well, but sometimes the music was a bit too much bluegrass for my musical taste. On this triple (!) live CD, recorded in 2000 in Pennsylvania, the band focus on jam. This means that nearly all songs start as the classic Pink Floyd-song, but gradually turns into an extended jam with a lot of emphasis on the organ and guitar solos. On CD1 Us & Them, which in my perception is a pretty lame song from Dark Side Of The Moon, gets such a marvellous treatment that the result is sheer jam and fusion bliss for more than fifteen minutes. Us & Them is followed by a medley of Young Lust and Another Brick In The Wall which sounds like the Grateful Death with green pepper in places where the sun never shines, while the Mahavishnu Orchestra plays in the background. Speaking of the sun, CD2 opens with Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun which of course gets the extended percussion treatment. Interstellar Overdrive, Sheep, Fearless and Money; the classics keep on coming. I played the three disks in a row, time after time. This is an obligatory purchase for every Pink Floyd and jam band fan. Hell, basically for everybody! ***** André de Waal (edited by Peter Willemsen) Where to buy? |
