Barclay James Harvest - Live (1974)

Review by salmacis (James Jeffery)
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5 stars It's odd for a live album to be perhaps the finest album of a band's career. However, 'Barclay James Harvest Live' achieves this rare distinction. It's rightly recognised as one of the great live albums, as almost every song here is improved upon in the live arena. It draws from their four Harvest albums and the first Polydor one, 'Everyone Is Everybody Else'. However, the album mainly came about as a means of repaying the considerable debts they'd accrued from their time at Harvest and the less than successful 'with orchestra' tours they'd done. Nevertheless, this is far from a 'contractual fulfillment' type album, as the band invest every fibre of their being into the performance.

'Summer Soldier' is one of the most emotional prog epics ever recorded. The glorious guitar riff and gorgeous mellotrons will appease any fan of prog, and the somewhat ironic synth quotes from 'Jerusalem' are particularly emotive. The vocal here is stunning, as is the scything guitar work that somehow sums up the anger and loss conveyed by the lyrics. This is easily better than the studio version, being considerably more powerful.

'Medicine Man' seamlessly follows, with its heavy rock guitar riff being shorn of the more bombastic (and at times clumsy) string arrangement it received on the original studio version from '…And Other Short Stories'. There are some stunning keyboard and guitar solos in the mid section that are akin to the intensity of Spooky Tooth at their heaviest, and this track becomes a seriously heavy riffathon in the live arena, with superb work from Les Holroyd and Mel Pritchard in the rhythm section. This, again, beats the studio version with total ease.

'After The Day' is one of the great prog epics for my money, with doomy mellotron chords and seriously seething guitar solos. The lengthy end guitar solo combined with the magisterial power of the mellotron is perhaps the finest moment ever in the career of BJH, and the anti-apocalypse sentiments of the lyrics and emotive vocals make for a moving listen.

'Galadriel' gets a beautifully sparse rendering, with only vocals, guitar and simply beautiful mellotron playing. This is one of BJH's most gentle compositions, and shows the phrase 'less is more' is occasionally true in prog, as this track is plain wonderful.

'She Said' was always one of their finest, but this version is even better (again) than the original, due to the sheer raw power of the mellotron playing and bluesy guitars. There's an excellent folky mid section that comes off very well, as does the seering guitar heavy climax.

'Mockingbird' is perhaps the most loved BJH song, and the replacement of mellotron with strings does the track the world of good, as it has gained a more raw feel than the ornate string arrangements on the original.

'Crazy City' was a heavy rocker that always reminds me of Yes' 'Roundabout' due to the complex vocal harmonies and choppy guitars, and this again sounds somewhat heavier than the studio version did. Like the other songs from their classic 'Everyone Is Everybody Else'- 'Great Mining Disaster..', 'Paper Wings' and 'Negative Earth', the songs translate seamlessly into live performance.

To me, this is one of prog's finest live albums, and the Eclectic Discs remaster of this album cleans the sound up enormously from the rather murky vinyl sound (indeed, some of the mellotron you hear here was apparently overdubbed- rather typically, it was said to have broken down at some of the live gigs that were recorded…) as all the songs sound even more powerful without any polished production. This is one of the very few live albums that would ever get 5 stars from me, and also one of the few BJH made that is a totally perfect, coherent album. Essential.

Track List:
1. Summer soldier (10:17)
2. Medicine Man (10:25)
3. Crazy City (4:58)
4. After The Day (7:27)
5. The Great 1974 Mining Disaster (6:30)
6. Galadriel (3:18)
7. Negative Earth (6:20)
8. She Said (8:33)
9. Paper Wings (4:19)
10. For No One (5:53)
11. Mockingbird (7:37)

Total Time: 75:37
Line-up/Musicians

- Les Holroyd / vocals, bass, guitars
- John Lees / vocals, guitars, recorder
- Mel Pritchard / drums
- Stuart "Woolly" Wolstenholme / vocals, keyboards, Mellotron