{"id":6149,"date":"2014-08-07T05:30:14","date_gmt":"2014-08-07T09:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=6149"},"modified":"2014-08-07T05:30:14","modified_gmt":"2014-08-07T09:30:14","slug":"album-review-the-move-live-at-the-fillmore-1969","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2014\/08\/07\/album-review-the-move-live-at-the-fillmore-1969\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: The Move — Live at the Fillmore 1969"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\nHere’s another<\/em> case of a long-circulating bootleg finding official release (see also: yesterday’s review of an Iron Butterfly<\/strong><\/a> live set). The Move<\/strong><\/a> were big in the UK, but went largely unknown in America. At least, that is, until they shifted personnel a bit and rebranded themselves as Electric Light Orchestra<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The band certainly knew all about America, though. Many years before its inclusion on Lenny Kaye<\/strong>‘s influential Nuggets<\/em> compilation, The Nazz<\/strong>‘s \u201cOpen My Eyes\u201d was a staple of The Move’s live set. Though the group had an impressive string of hit singles, on this night in 1969 at San Francisco’s Fillmore, they chose to open with a tune released two years earlier (to no great sales) by the Philadelphia group featuring a very young Todd Rundgren<\/strong><\/a>. The Move’s excellent live version does overextend the excellent tune just a bit, however.<\/p>\n

On this recording \u2013 sourced from low-generation copies of that circulating tape* and\/or subjected to some expert sound clean-up \u2013 The Move turns in exciting covers of Tom Paxton<\/strong> (\u201cLast Thing on My Mind\u201d) and relatively obscure art-prog group Ars Nova<\/strong> (\u201cFields of People,\u201d included on The Move’s 1969 Shazam<\/em> LP). The Carole King<\/strong> and Gerry Goffin<\/strong> tune \u201cGoin’ Back\u201d gets The Move treatment as well. The sound isn’t quite up to standard release quality on this 2CD set, but the music is good and important enough to give the audio quality a pass.<\/p>\n

The band were big fans of American rock: their sets often included The Byrds<\/strong>‘ \u201cSo You Want to Be a Rock’n’Roll Star\u201d and Moby Grape<\/strong>‘s \u201cHey Grandma,\u201d though neither were performed on this Fillmore date. Rick Price<\/strong>‘s super-heavy bass lines and Bev Bevan<\/strong>‘s drums presage the approach used by Black Sabbath<\/strong>, but Carl Wayne<\/strong>‘s lead vocal plus Roy Wood<\/strong>‘s keen harmony vocals add a pop sensibility that leavens the heaviness. \u201cCherry Blossom Clinic Revisited\u201d is perhaps the best example of all of the Move’s strengths in a single tune: gentle guitar parts, a capella<\/em> vocal harmonies, and thunderous backbeat; the song’s suite-like character may remind some listeners of The Who<\/strong>‘s \u201cA Quick One (While He’s Away).\u201d They also manage a clever juxtaposition of a classical theme (you’ll recognize it) into the tune, before doing such things was (for a time) a de rigeuer part of rock performance. The Move manage to convey power and subtlety onstage without the use of keyboards or acoustic guitar.<\/p>\n

The Move’s set closes as it began, with another Nazz cover: this time it’s \u201cUnder the Ice,\u201d from Rundgren’s group’s then-current Nazz Nazz<\/em> LP. The tapes as circulated among collectors purported to document a set from October 1969. As presented on this official set, the recording features additional performances of \u201cDon’t Make My Baby Blue, \u201cCherry Blossom Clinic Revisited\u201d and \u201cThe Last Thing on My Mind,\u201d plus a contemporary recording \u2013 more than ten minutes in length \u2013 in which drummer Bevan recalls the ’69 tour.<\/p>\n

Completists note: If you have the bootleg version of this tape, you might want to hold onto it: most copies include a live version of The Move’s Tchaikovsky<\/strong>-meets-psychpop classic, \u201cNight of Fear\u201d that’s not found on this new official set.<\/p>\n

Live at the Fillmore 1969<\/em> is highly recommended to anyone who appreciates late 60s hard rock, British variant, done with a deft combination of panache and excessive volume.<\/p>\n

* A quote in the liner notes suggests that vocalist Carl Wayne was in possession of the original tapes.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Here’s another case of a long-circulating bootleg finding official release (see also: yesterday’s review of an Iron Butterfly live set). The Move were big in the UK, but went largely […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,49,62,65],"tags":[2167],"class_list":["post-6149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bootleg","category-new-release","category-rawk","category-review","tag-the-move","cat-11-id","cat-49-id","cat-62-id","cat-65-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6149\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}