My List For You Checks Off As Null

Posted on | March 17, 2007 at 11:55 am | 1 Comment

Capsule CD Review Time again!

I promise this is the last Blue Öyster Cult-related post for a long while (unless something comes up). But this disc was next in the queue and there’s nothing I can do.

Artist: Blue Öyster Cult
Disc: Some Enchanted Evening (Legacy Edition)
Released: 1978 (original vinyl), 2007 (reissue)
Number of tracks: 14 (CD), 11 (DVD)
Total disc time: 73:24 (CD), 60:00 (DVD)

Original Album Content: As originally released as a single LP with only 7 tracks, I didn’t get much into BÖC’s second live album, Some Enchanted Evening (also known as Some Echanted Evening, according to the CD Text). It was released too soon after their first live album On Your Feet Or On Your Knees (only two studio albums separated them). It seemed like a somewhat cynical ploy to capitalize on the unexpected success of Agents Of Fortune and Spectres, and to give the band some breathing room to orchestrate their next phase. But according to the liner notes, it was their second best-selling album ever, so what do I know? I’ll always be grateful to this album for committing a live version of Astronomy to vinyl (bits?), and it’s interesting to hear the full long live versions of (Don’t Fear) The Reaper and E.T.I. (Extra Terrestrial Intelligence). All of this is from the Cult at one of their live peaks. But there are two covers that are mostly non-essential and don’t fit the Cult style all that well (MC5’s Kick Out The Jams and The Animals’ We Gotta Get Out Of This Place). And then there’s R.U. Ready 2 Rock and Godzilla, also fairly non-essential (the latter cuts out the long drum solo that I think they usually performed during that song in these years, though I could be wrong, and anyway that’s probably not a bad thing). RUR2R has what I consider one of the funniest live album bits ever: After Eric screams “We’re really going to rock now!”, Allen launches into a keyboard solo. I don’t know why, but that always struck me as very funny.

Bonus Tracks: There are 7 more tracks included, which the liner notes claim were always meant to be included and that album was originally supposed to be a double LP. I guess since a lot of these songs appeared on the first live album, they didn’t want to repeat them. But I have serious doubts that the package was originally supposed to include two versions of We Gotta Get Out Of This Place, especially since they’re not significantly different. The versions of ME 262, Harvester Of Eyes, Hot Rails To Hell, and Born To Be Wild are pretty much the cut-down versions that appeared in the later BÖC live shows, rather than the longer ones from the earlier era. ME 262 especially seems to go by in a flash. So really, the only “new” stuff we get is (This Ain’t The) Summer Of Love, which segues into the long instrumental jam 5 Guitars. It’s interesting to finally hear those on an official release. Summer Of Love doesn’t have as much power to it as the studio version, and the band sounds like they’re struggling with the vocals, which is maybe why it didn’t become a staple of their later shows.

Sound Quality: Like with Spectres, I don’t detect a lot of difference in the sound quality between the reissue and the original CD release, so I don’t know how much remastering went on. The bonus tracks do sound about the same as the original tracks, so at least the transition isn’t jarring.

Bonus DVD: The big draw of this reissue for many people will be the 60-minute bonus DVD, which features a video of the Cult in concert in Landover Maryland, a few weeks before this album was originally released. This is the Cult at the height of their big arena laser stardom phase, which is something I never experienced in person. So it’s an interesting document of the time and a lot of fun to watch. But as the packaging warns, the original materials the video was made from were less than ideal, so sound and video quality is not much better than bootleg. The camerawork is pretty bad, and sometimes there is just pitch blackness. And sometimes it’s really hard to figure out what’s going on with those lasers – I guess you had to be there. There’s also the usual 70s-era Concert Movie Bad Video Effects, which just gotta put up with.

The set list follows the (expanded) CD one fairly closely, though surprisingly there’s no (Don’t Fear) The Reaper. I suspect this may be because Buck’s voice sounded really off that night, as evidenced by the only song he sang in the video, The Golden Age Of Leather. It sounds like he was having pitch problems. But even with that, it’s really nice to finally hear a live version of Leather, as I always wondered how they performed it. So basically, it’s all Eric’s show, as he sings all the songs except Leather. But there’s some awesome guitar playing going on, and I love seeing who played what on each song. The biggest surprise for me was that it looked like Buck was using an e-bow for the extended outro to Leather, an instrument I usually associate with my other favorite guitar hero, Bill Nelson (and later, of course, Big Country).

Liner Notes: Another short Lenny Kaye essay, some nice photos (love the porn star ’staches), and credits. No lyrics.

Worth the upgrade? Again, yes, for diehard fans. The DVD concert alone makes it worthwhile, though the bonus tracks on the original album are nice to have too. The package is a bit pricey though.

“Now you can go back in time and be there, witnessing the Cult do what they do best, dominate the live arena! Prepare to submit!” Alas, there is no live version of Dominance And Submission on either the CD or DVD.

Latre.