Brad Mehldau's latest solo recording, the two-CD/single-DVD Live in Marciac begins with two tracks that contrast his astonishing technical facility and his considerable inventive gift for empathic interpretation. The opening "Storm" is an original four-minute exercise in furious counterpoint, expansive layered harmony, and swinging ostinato; it's followed by a complex yet utterly inventive lyrical reading of Cole Porter's "It's All Right with Me" that not only underscores the lyric in its full harmonic voice, but expands upon it with low- and middle-register arpegiattic studies from Bach and Brahms without losing site of the tune. These are but two of the many surprises on this recorded in 2006.
Rush's career reached an important milestone in 2011 – the 30th anniversary of the release of the band's masterpiece, Moving Pictures. Its U.S. sales of more than four million copies shows that this is the album that even casual fans like. (Even those who don't "like" Rush tend to like "Tom Sawyer.") The Canadian trio celebrated the 1981 best-seller with the Time Machine tour, featuring a performance of the album in its entirety. The two-CD set Time Machine 2011: Live in Cleveland captures Rush's sold-out concert on April 15, 2011, at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. Previous live albums were recorded outside the United States, so Rush decided to do this one in the first major city to embrace the band after its hometown of Toronto…
Filmed at Hammersmith Apollo in March of this year, New Blood Live In London captures Peter Gabriel performing live with the 46 piece New Blood Orchestra. The repertoire mixes cover versions from his Scratch My Back album with classic tracks from across his solo career in brand new orchestral arrangements. Gabriel is a renowned live performer and his onstage charisma and instantly recognisable voice combine brilliantly with the orchestral sound palette to breathe a new sense of wonder into familiar songs. As you would expect the concert is also a visual feast, with graphics, animation and imagery blending to enhance and illustrate the music. This is truly a live experience not to be missed.
Of all the ‘80s bands that once ruled the hair metal roost, few soldiered through the following decades with as much tenacity as Def Leppard, who scored hits during the grunge era (“Let’s Get Rocked,” “Two Steps Behind”) and the late-‘90s teen pop revival (“Promises”) before quietly fading from the charts. The group then whipped itself into a touring juggernaut, spending nearly every summer on the road with AOR titans like Journey and REO Speedwagon. On Mirror Ball – the band’s first live release, unless you count the out of print Live: In the Clubs, In Your Face EP from 1993 – the guys are all pushing 50, yet the band doesn’t sound all that removed from its Reagan-era heyday…
Saga have had their share of lineup changes along the way; one of the most talked about came in late 2007, when longtime frontman Michael Sadler left the band (Rob Moratti was hired as a replacement the following year). Sadler had been Saga's lead singer from the beginning; he was around back when the Canadian prog rockers were still calling themselves Pockets (which was also the name of an Earth, Wind & Fire-ish soul-funk band that recorded three LPs for Columbia in the late '70s), and his departure came after no less than 30 years with the band. Documenting a 2007 show in Munich, Germany, Contact: Live in Munich was recorded/filmed during Sadler's final tour with Saga…
Coverage of the Smashing Pumpkins performance at Brooklyn's Barclays Center on December the 10th, 2012. The gig was in support of their 2012 album 'Oceania' and saw them perform songs including 'Panopticon', 'My Love Is Winter', 'Oceania', 'Bullet With Butterfly Wings' and 'The Dream Machine'. SMASHING PUMPKINS Oceania: Live in NYC (2013 3-disc [DVD / 2CD] set consisting of footage from their live performance at the Barclay Center in Brooklyn New York on 10th December 2012 with the audio recordings pressed across two CDs. All 3 discs are housed together within a sealed 4-panel fold-out digipak sleeve).