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Live albums are not on my list of must buys when I am making a musical purchase.
I prefer to buy the studio albums and try to catch the acts live to see if they
can pull off the studio wizardry captured on tape. A few live records are
exceptional, like Neil Young & Crazy Horse’s 2-disc piledriver Weld
(1991) and Dada’s Live Official Bootleg Volume I (2004). Really good live
performances blast through your speakers, grab you and demand your attention.
Ween is an incredibly difficult band to codify. Song titles like “Baby Bitch”
and “Spinal Meningitis Got Me Down” (both of which appear on this effort), not
to mention several others with the word “dick” in the title, suggest a novelty
quality to their work. But in fact, they are talented songwriters and excellent
musicians, if sardonic and occasionally mean-spirited.
Live in Chicago was recorded at a couple of sold out shows at the Vic
Theatre in Chicago (with a capacity of approximately 1,400) and you can feel the
sweat in the room drip off the guitar solos. The disc contains 17 tracks,
drawing 5 tracks from 1994’s Chocolate & Cheese, 4 tracks from 1997’s
The Mollusk, and another 4 from 2003’s Quebec. Tracking in at just
over 69 minutes, the disc packs in a whole lot of Ween from several of its
different modes. The pop elements of Ween are clear on “Ocean Man” (a studio
version of the song also appears on the “Sponge Bob Squarepants” soundtrack) and
“Roses are Free,” while some excellent guitar noodling is featured on “Take Me
Away,” “Buckingham Green” and “Voodoo Lady.” Weird Ween atmosphere is created in
tracks like “Zoloft” and “The Argus”. This is a true Ween experience in where
you are not sure where the next track might take you, much like a Ween record
(except for 12 Golden Country Greats, which is exactly what its title
suggests).
This is a solid live disc, and Ween fans will not be disappointed. For the
uninitiated, it would serve as a decent introduction to the band.
~R. David Smola
pretendcritic@aol.com
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