Thursday, February 6, 2020

Gary MOORE: "Live From London"

Rating: -
Label: Mascot/Provogue
Review by Kimmo Toivonen

Gary Moore's career can be roughly divided into two chapters: the Hard Rock and the Blues chapters. As the eighties ended, so did Gary's hard rock era, and he became a full-blown blues blues man. During the late nineties he did a couple of experimental albums, but returned mostly to the blues-style the rest of his recording career. This album was recorded 14 months before his untimely death, and sees him in full blues mode.

"Live From London" sounds like an authentic live recording. I don't think it's been much doctored afterwards. A over-polished sound wouldn't suit these songs anyway, this sort of a blues-rock needs to be a little gritty.

To be honest, I'm not much of a blues fan, so this release isn't really something I'll come back to. I can appreciate it for what it is - a tribute to the great talent of Gary Moore. He was a great, soulful guitarist and good singer. If you enjoy his blues albums, then this is a safe purchase. Considering that "Still Got The Blues" is his biggest-selling album, there's certainly an audience for this one too.

If you're more of a fan of his 80'ies material, then sadly you'll only find "Parisienne Walkways" here, which itself is a bluesy ballad anyway. Here's hoping that there's live material in the archives from his hard rock era, I think a quality live album from the "Wild Frontier" tour would be popular release.

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