A well-liked album among many into progressive music. For a second opinion on this one (if needed) go here:
https://www.seaoftranquility.org/reviews.php?op=showcontent&id=3946
Read on!
Fool`s mate
Gentle Giant: “Live – Playing The Fool” (Chrysalis CTY 1133, double) ****1/2
Album review by Phil Sutcliffe
YES, FOR the first time on record you too can hear Gentle Giant play a bum note! In fact not one but several, together with a few amp and feedback howls thrown in for nothing. When I tell you that this all comes in a two-for-the-price-of-one package you will realise that here indeed is value for money.
Something special all right but, seriously folks, I wouldn’t recommend it just because it’s out of tune once in a while, though that has a certain moral value for Giant in counteracting their totally undeserved reputation for a frigid chamber rock approach. `Playing The Fool’ gets my vote because it’s a 90 per cent success in capturing the best live act I’ve ever seen (their set at the New Victoria, December, ’75, having edged out the Stones at Stevenage Palais, April, ’64, as My Most Electrifying Gig).
Far from the po-faced academicians you would anticipate from their domestic image (the States, Europe, Japan have grasped the Truth) they come on with a bravura you could locate at the crossroads between Ted Nugent, the London Philharmonic, the Beach Boys and Billy Smart’s Circus. They are power rockers with such hot and jagged items as ‘Just The Same’ and ‘Freehand’, their instrumental range is orchestral and they pull off the quick changes with the dexterity of a magician moonlighting as a juggler, the while laying down vocal harmonies gorgeous and challenging.
This album happens to have been a turning point for Giant as it led them to the conclusion that their distinction between live and studio work was no longer valid. From now on they will take new material on the road before they record it and hopefully bring home that live chemistry to the studio. Less cool analysis, fewer overdubs. Well, your tenth album must be a reasonable point for a new start if you’re going to keep on growing.
And that live rapport is a beauteous thing to hear on wax. Gentle Giant audiences spend their time enraptured so they don’t just applaud in ritual approval at the end of numbers and when they recognise a special favourite. Great swelling moans of joy rise from them during the acapella showpieces in ‘On Reflection’ and ‘Knots’, they crack out clapping at an amazing moment in a quiet string or woodwind passage that just took their fancy beyond resisting, and, most pleasant and strange of all, they laugh their socks off in ‘So Sincere’ when Giant cut from their thunderous percussion quintet to sugar-plum-fairying with glockenspiels and bells. A magic moment every time this: delight at the imaginative leap, at the absurd cuteness of this tinkerbell sound, at the humourous audacity of the band, at their versatility and sheer excellence.
Brothers and sisters, this is ecstacy. You’ve still got to see them if you get the chance but these platters will give you the hang of it. For now, I must withdraw and uncream my jeans.
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