TRACKLIST
LP1 (Keele University, 24 November 1976)
A1. Headloss (04:54)
A2. Here Am I (06:13)
A3. Chiefs And Indians (05:48)
B1. Nine Feet Underground (11:15)
B2. The Love In Your Eye (14:07)
LP2 (Bobino, Paris, 1 December 1980)
A1. Behind You (05:46)
A2. Heartbreaker (03:32)
A3. If I Could Do It All Over Again, I`d Do It All Over You (03:24)
A4. It's Never Too Late (06:32)
A5. Clear Blue Sky (06:18)
B1. Piano Player (05:17)
B2. Corner Of Me Eye (03:28)
B3. Golden Mile (05:27)
B4. Bright Shiny Day (06:12)
LP3 (Bobino, Paris, 1 December 1980)
C1. Golf Girl (05:53)
C2. Nightmare (09:58)
C3. Keepin' Up De Fences (07:12)
D1. Hoedown (06:30)
D2. Headloss (05:35)
D3. Same Old Blues Again (06:42)
LP4 (Old Buckenham High School, Attleborough, 28 September 1990)
A1. Behind You (05:30)
A2. Headloss (04:52)
A3. Golf Girl (05:52)
A4. Videos Of Hollywood (06:37)
B1. Nine Feet Underground (19:50)
LP5 (Old Buckenham High School, Attleborough, 28 September 1990)
C1. Winter Wine (08:53)
C2. In The Land Of Grey And Pink (04:46)
C3. Nightmare (09:13)
D1. For Richard (15:28)
D2. Place Of My Own (05:02)
LP6 (Park Hotel, Diss, 23 May 1998)
A1. Hoedown (03:51)
A2. Memory Lain, Hugh (04:58)
A3. Headloss (04:55)
B1. Nine Feet Underground (18:03)
LP7 (Park Hotel, Diss, 23 May 1998)
C1. It's a Sad, Sad Affair (09:24)
C2. Somewhere In Your Heart (12:04)
D1. Travelling Ways (04:01)
D2. The Dog, The Dog, He's At It Again (06:53)
D3. Medley (Where But For Caravan Would I?/Oh Caroline/The Love in Your Eye/Backwards) (13:07)
LP8 (Park Hotel, Diss, 23 May 1998)
E1. Liar (06:46)
E2. For Richard (11:19)
F1. Golf Girl (06:53)
F2. If I Could Do It All Again, I`d Do It All Over You (03:38)
F3. Hoedown Encore (04:32)
LP9 (Stables Theatre, Wavendon, 16 November 2001)
A1. All The Way (04:04)
A2. Very Smelly Grubby Little Oik/Bobbing Wide (08:02)
A3. Liar (06:45)
B1. The Dog, The Dog, He`s At It Again (06:26)
B2. Nine Feet Underground (18:43)
LP10 (Stables Theatre, Wavendon, 16 November 2001)
C1. Medley (The Dabsong Conshirtoe/All Aboard/Better By Far/The Mad Dabsong/The Love In Your Eye/Backwards/A Hunting We Shall Go) (16:05)
C2. Nowhere To Hide (09:12)
D1. Nightmare (08:45)
D2. I Know Why You're Laughing (05:36)
D3. For Richard (12:07)
Pye Hastings: vocals, guitar (LP1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10)
Richard Coughlan: drums, percussion (LP1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10)
Dave Sinclair: keyboards (LP1(B),2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10)
Geoffrey Richardson: viola, flute, spoons, guitar (LP1,2,3,6,7,8,9,10)
Jan Schelhaas: keyboards (LP1)
Mike Wedgwood: bass,vocals,congas (LP1)
Dek Messecar: bass (LP2,3)
Jimmy Hastings: flute, saxophone (LP4,5)
Richard Sinclair: bass, vocals (LP4,5)
Jim Leverton: bass, vocals (LP6,7,8,9,10)
Doug Boyle: guitar (LP6,7,8,9,10)
year/format/label/cat/country
2025/10LP/Snapper Music/SMABX1241/UK
It’s been a while since I was fascinated with Caravan. Their approach to prog was never too full-on, happy to mix pastoral pop-rock with longer jams that were loosely dressed up as suites. As a result, their music could sound like a bit of a compromise, so I never had this particular Canterbury group high on my list of favourite prog groups, although I could appreciate much of their output from 1970-75. Now, Madfish are releasing a new live omnibus of Caravan material, exclusively on vinyl, to complement their gargantuan 37-disc Caravan anthology Who Do You Think We Are?. On the twenty sides are audio from five different concerts, spaced out between 1976 and 2001, some of them previously released on obscure box sets and some of them newly unearthed. As is usual and expected these days, I wasn’t furnished with the original LPs but instead with digital downloads of the music (which actually made the listening easier for me, as I prefer to listen to music when walking – I’m not sure when I’d have time to actually put on ten vinyl LPs these days, but maybe you have more time than I do, dear reader). Due to some mislabelling of the files, I accidentally began my journey through this boxset with the 1980 concert in Paris, believing that I was listening to the 1976 concert. I was appalled. I was only familiar with four songs from the 85-minute setlist, including an extremely tepid rendition of Golf Girl, while the rest of the songs revealed a bleak vision of mediocrity that Caravan had become after a decade together as a band. Boring pop song after boring pop song – most of which come from the 1980 studio monstrosity The Album (yes, that’s really what they called it) – made me question if I could really stomach another eight LPs worth of this. Still believing this was 1976, I wondered how Caravan could have gone so far downhill just a couple of years beyond their heyday. The concert finishes with the highly repetitive, ironically-titled The Same Old Blues Again, which Pye Hastings had fun singing in French: le même vieux blues encore. Give me a break. Shortly after, I discovered my mistake and was treated to the actual 1976 concert, taken from keyboardist Jan Schelhaas’s personal tapes, which sadly only span one LP. There are some uninteresting cuts from Blind Dog at St. Dunstans on Side One, but Side Two has the real treasure. The band launches into their longest and best-remembered suite, Nine Feet Underground, but the tape stops short just eleven minutes into the performance. The second half was missing from the soundboard, but it is a shame not to hear the full thing, especially as it features both Schelhaas and Dave Sinclair on keyboards. Some compensation comes, however, in a full performance of the rarely-heard The Love in Your Eye, which the band realised magnificently on their New Symphonia live LP two years earlier. With these two long-form tracks, one really gets a sense of how the band constructs frameworks with which to mess around and experiment whilst simultaneously entertaining the audience by providing something familiar. The next two LPs comprise a set from Attleborough in East Anglia in 1990, where the original line-up of the band (including Richard Sinclair and Jimmy Hastings) had certainly started leaning more into their nostalgic material after a lengthy hiatus and no new studio material to promote. As a result, we return to classics such as Nine Feet Underground (this time presented in full), For Richard and Winter Wine, whilst also getting staples such as Headloss and Golf Girl. The last song of the set was fascinating; the band unearthed Place of My Own, the very first song from their debut album, which is often callously divorced from Caravan’s classic albums the same way Dream Theater’s debut When Dream and Day Unite or Genesis’s From Genesis to Revelation are also dismissed. I appreciated hearing this track again, as I do actually quite like it, just not in the same way I like most Caravan songs. Roughly ten miles away, and roughly eight years later, Caravan would play a longer set in Diss, Norfolk, still softly promoting The Battle of Hastings, which had been released in 1995. Unlike with The Album in 1980, Caravan were cognisant of the fact that most fans weren’t there to hear their latest album, and would only be able to withstand so much of it before getting pissed off. The first side of the three LPs that comprise this concert give us the favourites Hoedown and Headloss once again, but after three times hearing it without Memory Lain, Hugh this box set, the band finally satisfy my soul by putting the two tracks together the way they were on For Girls Who Grow Plump in the Night. Another full rendition of Nine Feet Underground takes up the next side… I see that this was a regular feature of theirs. The fourth side of this set reintroduces the cheeky The Dog, the Dog, He’s At It Again before taking us into a stunning medley that opens with a (painfully) short excerpt from The Dabsong Conshirtoe before continuing with another song that I didn’t recognise from the band’s debut: Where But for Caravan Would I?. Most surprising was the inclusion of O Caroline, which Dave Sinclair originally recorded with Matching Mole but is nonetheless welcome here. Pye Hastings once again croons the intro to The Love in Your Eye, but we don’t have time for the full thing. Instead, we get the second half of A Hunting We Will Go, the instrumental suite from … Plump in the Night that interpolates a theme from Soft Machine’s Slightly All the Time, proving further that the Canterbury Scene was all one big incestuous mess. The band don’t skip the outro, providing a satisfying resolution to this well-conceived medley. For the third LP of the Diss concert, Caravan include what they feel to be their favourite track from The Battle of Hastings, a rather bitter track called Liar. The lyrics are full of malice and regret, seemingly towards a former manager who ripped them off, but the chorus is laughably childlike: “LI-AR! You’re just a LIIIIII-AR”, repeat ad nauseam. Next, the band play For Richard, a common song in their itinerary, but ruin it by having Richard Coughlan play a straight rhythm over the top, simplifying the song unnecessarily and shortening it by several minutes. I checked, and it was the same lineup that performed this song properly in the 1990 Attleborough concert. I honestly wonder why the band decided to play it so much worse… was Coughlan simply not as nimble anymore? The last two LPs bring us to Wavendon on the outskirts of Milton Keynes in 2001, with still no new album in sight. As a result, there’s quite a bit of overlap with the Diss concert, including The Dog, the Dog, He’s At It Again and, for the fourth time, Nine Feet Underground. I don’t get tired of hearing that suite, though; it’s just that good. However, the band opens with All the Way, an underrated track from Blind Dog at St. Dunstans that originally stretched to nearly nine minutes in length (with a lengthy repetitive outro), but here stops at only four. We also get another round of Liar, further cementing this song in the ‘guilty pleasure’ centre of my Caravan appreciation. The Dabsong Conshirtoe excerpt rings out again, signalling time for another rendition of the medley, but I’m glad to hear that the band have modified it somewhat to include different underrated songs, such as Better by Far and even The Mad Dabsong, which opened The Dabsong Conshirtoe on Cunning Stunts. The medley once again concludes with The Love in Your Eye and A Hunting We Will Go as before. For the third time in this box set, Caravan play a song called Nightmare from their Better by Far album, which I’m not familiar with. Listening to repeated live renditions of a song (especially when recorded years apart) does make me think I had missed something by never venturing beyond Blind Dog at St. Dunstans, although the 1980 set has me convinced that I never need to pick up The Album. The band play the final song from The Battle of Hastings – I Know Why You’re Laughing, which seems like a decent, catchy song, before checking out with their regular encore, For Richard, once again played in the underwhelming manner it was played in Diss. I’d always wondered why Caravan hadn’t played For Richard live when I saw them in 2013; I’d believed that they played this song at every concert, but the performances from Diss and Wavendon lead me to believe that I dodged a bullet by missing it. It’s a disappointing end to the set, but overall I had a very good time getting reacquainted with this group that had a more significant impact on me than I ever realised. Hearing and remembering songs I hadn’t listened to in over a decade made me hurry to listen to the rest of the albums I had spent my time as a young adult pouring over and even gave me the confidence to try some of their later works, now with a sense of expectation from having heard Nightmare and Better by Far live. he sixty-page, vinyl-sized booklet is filled with a plethora of photos, memorabilia and press clippings along with a very waffly essay by Sid Smith that only starts to mention the actual concerts included in the set towards the end. For the casual reader, it’s a case of too much information. Along with the tracklistings for each LP, there are concert photos to give listeners an extra taste of the atmosphere on the night, as well as tour itineraries for the five years documented in this box set, in case anybody wants to read about those too. Are these the best live recordings of Caravan around? Probably not, as Caravan and the New Symphonia represents the band in their prime, performing a lot of their best material. But that was a tarted-up, special version of the group, whereas the reality of the group’s live output over the years has been a lot more like this. Combining these five concerts with my own experience of seeing the band live gives me a fuller sense of how the band were beyond their heyday, still delighting audiences with old and new material alike. One also realises that Caravan really had such a special, unique appeal to them, quite unlike any other in the prog or Canterbury sphere, where even simple ditties could feel profound and poignant. Flawed and imperfect, this box set offers listeners a chance to hear the real Caravan as they sounded at five points in their history. It’s just a shame that the band didn’t play The Show of Our Lives in any of the recordings, given the boxset’s title.
Basil Francis 21.08.2025 (Theprogressiveaspect.net)
The Shows of Ours… Live is a set of five live recordings by Caravan presented on 10 LPs, spanning from 1976 to 2001. Aside from noting the somewhat awkward wordplay of the title, most people are likely to think, “That’s a lot of live Caravan.” Yes, it certainly is. It adds up to a hair over seven hours altogether, and presents the dedicated fan of the band with many listening sessions of enjoyment. The first show, from Keele University in 1976, is incomplete, so two of the band’s staple long tunes — “Nine Feet Underground” and “The Love in Your Eye” — are presented in excerpt form. It’s also the only show to feature Jan Schelhaas on keyboards and Mike Wedgwood on bass, as well as being the show with the poorest recording quality, sounding a bit muffled and thin. Moving on, the 1980 show from Bobino in Paris, is only slightly better quality, but it does feature full-length versions of all the songs in the setlist. “Nightmare” is the only one of the band’s longer pieces included, though it does feature “Golf Girl,” “Hoedown,” and “Headloss.” Old Buckenham High School 1990 is notable for being the only show to include Richard Sinclair in the band, as well as Jimmy Hastings. This version of “Nine Feet Underground” comes in at nearly twenty minutes, and there’s a good reading of “For Richard” as well. Having Hastings in the group provides a lot of additional colors, and the recording fidelity is passable. The next stop on the tour is 1998 and a concert from the Park Hotel in Diss, Norfolk. This one starts with a rousing take on “Hoedown,” and then goes right into “Memory Lain, Hugh,” “Headloss,” and “Nine Feet Underground,” for a fine recap of classics from the early years. The recording quality is improved a bit here as well. The final show is Stables Theatre 2001, in Wavendon, Buckinghamshire, and features many fan long-time favorites along with a few more newer songs. In general, I think it’s obvious that a box set like this is only going to appeal to those who are already big Caravan fans, so if you’re the kind of person who needs four more versions of “Nine Feet Underground” in your collection, it’s got you covered. The fidelity of the recordings is generally only so-so, which is another factor in the fans-only column. Aside from occasional vocal shakiness, the performances are all spirited, and it’s easy to see why the band has so many loyal fans who’ve stuck with them through so many changes over the decades.
Jon Davis 01.08.2025 (expose.org)
There is an argument to be had that it is pointless spending countless hours listening to albums and writing about them, but I do like to think my scribblings have been useful to some to discover bands and music they would to otherwise have come across, but there are certainly some reviews which are somewhat more pointless than others, and this is one of them. The reason for that is not regarding the quality of the music or the information provided, but rather that this is a 10-disc set and consequently the only people likely to purchase this are those who already love Caravan. Consequently, this review is aimed at them. I have seen one review where the critic was bemoaning some of the material included, and that other songs were not there, but what we have are great sound quality recordings of four different concerts, namely Keele University 1976, Bobino 1980, Diss 1998 and Wavendon 2001. Yes, this does mean we get multiple versions of some songs (mind you, I've always loved "Golf Girl" so that isn't an issue, and who can have too many takes on "Nine Feet Underground"?) but recorded with different line-ups over a 25-year period. I have a firm rule that I never write about something until I have listened to absolutely everything, and what we have here are 64 tracks with a total playing time of more than seven hours, and the first time I worked through it I listened to it in just two sessions and I felt I was being taken to a totally different world. It is not just the music which is a delight here, as Sid Smith has provided a wonderful extensive essay, including interviews from many of the key players, and the 60-page booklet also contains loads of photos, posters, concert tickets and so much more. It certainly is an interesting read, and something I thoroughly enjoyed investigating while listening. The production quality is excellent, and I fully agree with including the first half of "Nine Feet Underground" (it is explained that the soundboard recording misses the second half), as this was one of the few times the band performed with two keyboard players in Dave Sinclair and Jan Schelhaas. For fans of Caravan this is an essential release, a wonderful exploration through some live sets of one of our most influential bands, still going strong after all these years.
kev rowland 11.09.2025 5/5 (progarchives.com)
This mammoth compilation of 10 LPs showcases Caravan at their best…. Live. The six concert appearances between 1976 and 2001 reveals their unique brand of prog rock, improvising and extending many of their studio recordings.
-canterbury pioneers-
Caravan crept quietly onto the music scene late in the 1960’s. They toured the country promoting the psychedelic jazzy rock flavoured debut album. When hearing they were playing Bolton Albert Hall it was unavoidable not to go. At the concert, ticketted at approximately 2/6d!!, the young musicians were unaware as we were that they would be pioneering what became known as the Canterbury Sound. The relaxed members chatted casually with the audience who at that time could not have predicted their musical longevity. When talented and innovative musicians, who judging by their performance in these concerts were totally committed to maintaining the unique sound, were recruited to replace some of the original members it is not surprising that their early fans remained faithful over the years. A spot at Fairport’s Cropredy was a lovely surprise and a huge attraction for the more groggy Cropredy regulars.
-the evolution-
With the range of approximately 25 years the whole evolution of Caravan music is visited in this set, with of course the regular favourites Headless, Hoedown, Nine Feet Underground and their only single hit Golf Girl getting repeated visits. For those of us who were at the beginning material from debut album are sparse but delve in and you’ll find place of My Own and hidden in a medley an excerpt from Where But For Caravan Would I. The albums Land of Grey and Pink, the template to many a student’s college years is undoubtedly a Caravan favourite and receives much attention, as does Girls Who Grow Plump In The Night, through the 5 concerts with a smattering of their second album If I Could Do It Over Again. In Caravan’s back catalogue there are a plethora of compilation and live albums which look back on their prolific career so this new compilation of live recordings is definitely for the avid Caravan collector or for those who now explore the world of vinyl this is a great way to discover or follow the history of Caravan in that way.
-charm, warmth and versatility-
A set from Keele in 1976 kicks off the package, then a remastered version of the 1980 Paris concert previously available as a bootleg recording. Also restored after been hidden on CD box set is an Old Buckingham High School concert from 1990. Three albums are used to cover a concert in Diss from 1998 then concluding with the 2001 performance in Wavendon. So there is a wonderful spread over their career chronicling their evolution from the psychedelic quirky songs to their fusion of jazz, pop, rock and prog. But the charm, warmth and versatility remains throughout. All this is accompanied by an informative booklet full of interesting opinion and facts about the history of the group by past and current members who are truly dedicated to maintaining the high quality of the Canterbury sound pioneers. So now I’ll fill a pipe with punkweed and listen to some more!! If you are looking for highlights then head for the medleys in which music spanning the those first 25 years is seamlessly segued together with their musical progression blending splendidly together.
Howard King 30.07.2025 (atthebarrier.com)
One of the British bands, formed in the late 1960s, that never achieved international fame is Caravan. Like other, slightly less famous bands like Gentle Giant, Renaissance, and Fruupp, Caravan also developed a musical style different from the progressive rock of Pink Floyd, Genesis, Yes, ELP, or Camel. Journalists later dubbed this style "Canterbury". However, many of these Canterbury bands (Soft Machine, Hatfield and the North, National Health, Henri Cow, to name just a few) made music that contained far more jazz elements than Caravan's music.
This 10-LP box set, featuring four previously unreleased concerts, will surely satisfy the die-hard and vinyl-loving Caravan fans. For the more neutral, average prog enthusiast, some criticisms must be made, such as the sound quality, which at several concerts doesn't really rise much above reasonable bootleg quality. On the other hand, these are four unique, previously unreleased concerts, as well as the previously released, but historically significant, recordings of the concert organized for long-time fan and key figure in Caravan history, Ralph Cross: the concert at Old Buckingham High School (1990) with the original lineup, supplemented by Jimmy Hastings (sax, flute). The oldest concert dates from 1976 and was given at Keele University, featuring Jan Schelhaas on keyboards as well as David Sinclair on two tracks. A double LP is devoted to the 1980 concert in Bobino, Paris, with Geoff Richardson (violin guitar) and Dek Messecar (bass).
Then follows a double of the concert with the original lineup, with Richard Sinclair on bass, at The Old Buckingham, followed by a triple LP with recordings from 1998 (Park Hotel) featuring Jim Leverton on bass and additional guitarist Doug Boyle, whose fast solos push the Caravan music more towards rock. The final concert, again on a double LP, was recorded at the Stables Theatre in 2001, with the same lineup as the 1998 show. Several Caravan classics were played in various shows, but due to the frequent lineup changes, they sound distinctly different each time, and they also deviate from the studio version. Now, only the issue of the CD versions.
Menno von Brucken Fock 01.09.2025 (iO pages) translation from Dutch by Google
Een van de Britse bands, opgericht eind jaren zestig, die nooit het genoegen hebben mogen smaken om wereldfaam te oogsten, is Caravan. Net als andere, iets minder beroemde bands Gentle Giant, Renaissance en Fruupp kwam ook Caravan met een andersoortige muziekstijl dan de progressieve rock van Pink Floyd, Genesis, Yes, ELP of Camel. De stijl werd later door journalisten benoemd als Canterbury. Veel van deze Canterbury-bands (Soft Machine, Hatfield and the North, National Health, Henri Cow, om er maar enkele te noemen) maakten echter muziek die veel meer jazzelementen bevat dan de muziek van Caravan.
Met deze lp-boxset, die 10 lps bevat, met vier niet eerder uitgebrachte concerten, worden de diehard- annex vinyl fanate Caravan-fans op hun wenken bediend. Voor de iets neutralere doorsnee progliefhebber moeten er toch wat kritische kanttekeningen worden geplaatst, zoals de geluidskwaliteit, die bij diverse concerten toch niet echt ver boven een redelijke bootleg-kwaliteit uitkomt. Daarentegen zijn het wel vier unieke concerten, die niet eerder werden uitgebracht en de wel eerder verschenen, maar historisch zeer belangrijke opnamen van het concert dat werd georganiseerd voor oerfan en belangrijke schakel in de Caravan-historie Ralph Cross: het concert in de Old Buckingham High School (1990) in de originele bezetting, aangevuld met Jimmy Hastings (sax, fluit). Het oudste concert dateert van 1976 en werd gegeven op de Keele University, met op toetsen Jan Schelhaas zowel als, in twee tracks, David Sinclair. Een dubbel-lp wordt gewijd aan het concert in Bobino te Parijs uit 1980, met Geoff Richardson (viool gitaar) en Dek Messecar (bas).
Dan een dubbelaar van het concert in de originele bezetting, dus met Richard Sinclair op bas, op The Old Buckingham, gevolgd door een driedubbel-lp met opnamen uit 1998 (Park Hotel) met Jim Leverton op bas en toegevoegde gitarist Doug Boyle die met zijn snelle solo's de Caravan muziek een stuk de rockkant op stuwt. Het laatste concert, weer op een dubbel-lp werd opgenomen in het Stables Theatre in 2001, in dezelfde bezetting als de show uit 1998. Een aantal Caravanklassiekers werd in diverse shows gespeeld, maar door de veelvuldig opgetreden wisselingen in de bezetting klinken die telkens duidelijk anders, en ze wijken ook af van de studioversie, Nu alleen de CD-versie nog.
Menno von Brucken Fock 01.09.2025 (iO pages)