EleKtriK

Time for some Prog rock. For those not as adventurous as others you may wanna glance over this post. King Crimson are among the forefathers of Prog Rock, up there with the likes of Genesis, Yes, and Rush. The band has been bringing their unique take on Prog since the late 60's. Granted there's been some breaks and hiatuses and reunions, but the band still somehow comes back with something great each time. I featured the bands landmark record, "In The Court Of The Crimson King' many moons again. That still remains one of my favorite Prog rock albums ever. For a band that has an illustrious career there are plenty of Live records to choose from. So much so the band has released a ton of Live records under their "Collectors Club" and "Collectable King Crimson" line. Needless to say I've got my pick of Live albums to feature. But I wanted to go with something a little more modern and offbeat. So we feature the 2003 release 'EleKtriK: Live In Japan'

2003 marked a decent year for the band. Having released a new record in 'The Power To Believe', the band decided to tour in support of the release. 'EleKtrik' was recorded at Kouseinenkin Kaikan in Tokyo Japan on April 16, 2003. The album is pretty much latter period music from the band. The CD can also been seen as the audio counterpart to their DVD 'Eyes Wide Open', which features most of the audio from that show. Musically like I mentioned it's latter era Crimson material, with some stand out tracks like "Happy With What You Have to be Happy With", "ProzaKc Blues" and "The World's My Oyster Soup Kitchen Floor Wax Museum". This would pretty much be the end of the band before going on their third hiatus. I feel like this era of the band doesn't get a whole lot of recognition. I mean the classic era of the band is amazing, but the latter period stuff has some real technical and great stuff in there. If you're feeling weird and ya need some music to back it up, enjoy this Live gem.

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Live Consternation

Festival season is a glorious time of year if you're in Europe. Tons of festivals with tons of great bands. America could stand to learn something. So for this post we're going to Germany and the Summer Breeze Open Air Festival and feature some Katatonia.

Of course I've featured some Katatonia on the blog before, but for a band with a well established career, the band to date only has two Live albums. We'll focus on the first here. 'Live Consternation' was taken from the bands performance at Summer Breeze in '06. It wasn't released until '07 as part of a Live CD/DVD package. The DVD portion captures the same show for your visual pleasure. This is a pretty simple Live record. Clocks in at just over 52 minutes and features 11 tracks. The album tends to focus on the bands more recent works in 'The Great Cold Distance' and 'Viva Emptiness'. So for fans of their earlier stuff, sorry. That being said, the setlist is still solid Katatonia. The band is amazing Live and while they tend to not tour stateside all that often, definitely see them Live if you get the chance.

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Unleashed In The East

What would this blog be without another classic Live album tossed in the mix? Don't answer that. Time to go back to Japan for some Live Judas Priest. 'Unleashed In The East' was Priest's first Live record. Released in '79 and recorded in Japan on February 10th and 15th 1979, this is Priest on the cusp of greatness. Released just a year before the classic 'British Steel' album, this is Priest in top form, like there's any other. Since the original issue, there's been many versions of this record floating around. US got a nine track release, while Japan got a 13 track release. And somehow the UK got a bonus 7' vinyl with it. CBS for ya folks. In any case you get the remastered US release which features the bonus tracks, "Rock Forever", "Delivering The Goods", "Hell Bent For Leather" and "Starbreaker". Priest would of course go on to release a few more Live albums, even a couple with Ripper Owens when he was handling vocals. However 'Unleashed In The East' remains the best of the Live material.

I got to see Priest a few years back now with Thin Lizzy and Black Label Society opening for them. And I gotta say for a back whose roots go back to the late 60's, the band can still bring it. Halford still has a pretty good range and hell can even take a few songs off and let the crowd sing, as was the case with "Breaking The Law". While the band is still active, they've scaled the touring back a bit, but they're still worth catching Live if you can.

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