Express 2024

When it was released at the end of 1974, this album seemed pretty redundant to fans of Brian Auger's band. Two of the four songs had just been released in superior studio versions a few months earlier, and the two other selections from Second Wind had little new to offer over their studio versions. In retrospect, the music is good, but this record is not the place to start for an introduction to the music of this fine band.

The group were finishing off a huge US tour that had roared down the east coast then across the Midwest and by the time they hit LA, as Brian recalls the group was performing at their height.
The show opens with a hyper fast version of 'Beginning Again' due to drummer Steve Ferrone being almost an hour late and running high on adrenaline, Brian remembers thinking “I don’t even know if I can play it that fast!”. Fortunately, he and the Oblivion Express including stellar vocalist Alex Ligertwood rise to the challenge and the result is akin to some frenetic jazzy drum & bass but also pushes the group onto another level altogether for the rest of the show. Across both volumes there are no fillers and the highlights are many, but especially the epic version of 'Maiden Voyage' which Mos Def sampled on his 1997 'If You Can Huh! You Can Hear', and both DJ Mitsu in 2004 and 2017 Crimeapple both dipped into Live Oblivion to sample that fire for their own projects.

When it was released at the end of 1974, this album seemed pretty redundant to fans of Brian Auger's band. Two of the four songs had just been released in superior studio versions a few months earlier, and the two other selections from Second Wind had little new to offer over their studio versions. In retrospect, the music is good, but this record is not the place to start for an introduction to the music of this fine band.