Live - Afterlife

Excellent music, great cd.

amazing

With the exception of Down To London this is a collection of live tracks from the early days and 2003's Volume 4. It starts off with its sole weak spot, Steppin' Out. I have always liked this song and I admire Joe's ability to re-arrange his songs for the stage but, for me, this version is just a little too slow and lacking. But after that, the highlights just keep on coming. One More Time and Look Sharp are just as good as the studio versions from the 1970s and the new songs Take It Like A Man and Awkward Age show Joe's maturity as a songwriter. They sit comfortably alongside the older tracks and are well performed by a talented group. This group of songs is followed by the afore-mentioned Down To London which is another highlight.The album then returns to 1980 with Beat Crazy, followed by four songs from the 1970s and two from 2003. The closing songs - Don't Wanna Be Like That and Got The Time are the remaining highlights; everything else being merely(!) good.Even the too-slow version of Steppin' Out does not justify the removal of a star - an excellent live album.

Every once in a while you come across a group that accomplishes what most probably set out to achieve and few attain: Excellent songwriting, amazing musicianship and a live performance that offers the kind of transcendent experience musicians have being trying to achieve since the Sirens attempted to lure passing sailors onto the rocks of oblivion.While Jason gave the crew of the Argos stuffing for their ears and sailed past that treacherous coastline undeterred, my advice to any who love music is that they set their ears free and let the songs of Joe Jackson pull them out of Life's Doldrums, past the Straights of Same Stuff as Yesterday and crashing into the coastline of JJ's World made real by the exquisite playing of Gary Sanford, Dave Houghton & Graham Maby.I can't think of a better introduction for the uninitiated than Afterlife (Live). What is your usual hot button: Songwriting? Musicianship? Performances that, as Kafka described the purpose of Art, "take an ice pick to the frozen shell that surrounds the human soul"? It's all here. Everything from a heartwrenching reading of "Steppin' Out" to a time stopping performance of "Got The Time". A fantastic CD without a weak song or a weak moment.If you are familiar with the JJB - what can you be waiting for? Take a keg of Excellence (vintage 1978) and let it brew for 25 years. Add a generous dose of life experience that only makes the nuances deeper and the shadings a bit darker and all of it more true with it's having been lived as opposed to just anticipated. Let the musicians grow in their ability to wring more fire and more laughter and more knowledge of life out of chords and notes and rests and rythm . . . and you've got one hell of a performance captured for eternity.This ain't yesterday's music.

Good live album for Joe and the boysNothing startlingly new but a few subtle variations of mood and texture within the arrangements makes this a fine addition to his work