TRACKLIST
1 Head Loss (4:29)
2 Videos Of Hollywood (6:32)
3 Nine Feet Underground (19:04)
4 If I Could Do It All Over Again (3:21)
5 Winter Wine (7:46)
6 In The Land Of Grey And Pink (4:43)
7 For Richard (13:16)
Richard Coughlan (drums)
Pye Hastings (guitar, vocals)
Dave Sinclair (keyboards)
Richard Sinclair (bass, vocals)
Jimmy Hastings (saxophone, flute)
year/format/label/cat/country
2002/CD/Classic Rock Productions/CRP1049/UK
CD also released as:
Caravan Live - 1993/CD/Code 90/NINETY2/UK (7 tracks)
Access All Areas - 2015/CD+DVD/Demon Music Group/AAACDVD001/UK (7 tracks)
Also released on DVD as:
Classic Rock Legends Caravan - 2001/DVD/Classic Rock Legends/CRL0747/Europe (5 tracks)
Classic Rock Legends Caravan Live In Nottingham - 2001/DVD/Classic Rock Legends/CRP2287/Europe (5 tracks)
Rare Broadcasts - 2005/DVD/American Legends Ltd/SMC2598/China (5 tracks)
The Ultimate Collection - 2006/3-DVD/Ragnarock/CRP2287/UK (DVD 3/3, 7 tracks)
Access All Areas - 2015/CD+DVD/Demon Music Group/AAACDVD001/UK (7 tracks)
This CD is apparently taken from a concert that was part of the Bedrock series made by Central Music in the late 1980s, a series which also includes Asia, Rick Wakeman, Gong, Hawkwind and Uriah Heep. Personally I have no recollection of this series but the television broadcasts were a great success (it says here). It features the classic Caravan line-up of Pye Hastings, Richard and David Sinclair, Richard Coughlan with the ever reliable Jimmy Hastings on flute. Most of the songs here are well known Caravan classics including Head Loss, Winter Wine, For Richard and a nice version of Nine Feet Underground. I must admit I find the original of Nine Feet Underground a bit boring in places due to the lack of variety in the keyboard sound. This version breaks things up a bit with the ubiqitous Mr Hastings' flute and sax. The sound is pretty good, some of the keyboard sounds are a bit tinny but overall it's a worthwhile purchase for Caravan fans, especially at the price I picked it up for. It also features a new Roger Dean "buildings" painting on the cover. What more can you want?
chopper 3/5 15.08.2007 (PROGARCHIVES)
"For Richard" for the Ages
My heart skipped a beat when I discovered this was still available; I have been wearing the oxide off of a cassette dub of this recording for several years, and after BUYING THE CD online I have to come back and try to explain why you should be interested also. I'll assume that anyone interested enough to read this already knows something of Caravan's pedigree, history and repertiore. "Live in Nottingham" was, I believe, a "one-off" reunion gig for them. Demand and fan response was so ecstatically positive that they chose to rekindle the band and have continued part-time with help from various past members up to the present (2006). This CD then is a bit of a "victory lap" set spanning most of their career up to this Nottingham show. I am sure that while they DID rehearse before taking the stage, the intensity of the performances comes both from the artists' familiarity with the material and the adrenaline boost from laying it down live one last time for an appreciative crowd. There is ABSOLUTELY no fat on this release. Every track is primo Caravan, each surely selected by the band as a "greatest hits live" thank-you for their fans (with the possible exception of "Hollywood" which is a damn good song even if it wasn't at that time an established part of the Caravan set list like "Grey and Pink" was/is). Vocal duties are fairly evenly split between guitarist & band mainstay Pye Hastings and the great Richard Sinclair on bass. ALL tracks are performed with great brio and accuracy; what a show it must have been for those in attendance. However the thing that makes "Live in Nottingham" an ESSENTIAL buy is the riveting, SCORCHING performance of "For Richard" closing the concert. Caravan (like all other "classic rock" bands) lives or dies by the recordings we came to know them by, and "For Richard" has long been their designated "usual Caravan closing number" (as spoken from the stage by Pye Hasings on the "New Symphonia" CD). I have had the benefit of growing slowly into a full appreciation of "For Richard." This was the big closer to Caravan's second LP, "If I Could Do It Again, I'd Do It All Over You," and at that time I nodded and thought "that's nice" as I loaded up another bong hit, yet that recording never shook me particularly. The orchestrated version on "New Symphonia" was an improvement, with Geoff Richardson's viola SIGNIFICANTLY adding color and heat. It surely also helped that leading that side of the LP with the stellar "Virgin on the Ridiculous" meant that I listened to "Richard" several more times than I did on the original studio record. The point is that I was well familiar with "For Richard" by the time "Live in Nottingham" rolled around and initially had no reason to expect more than another polite run-through by the reunited band. However, to my ears, this is the DEFINITIVE performance, and allow me to publicly proclaim here the AWE in which I hold the incredible Dave Sinclair who wrote "For Richard" and is surely one of the most overlooked keyboardists of the progressive rock era. Sinclair's performance soloing and reinterpreting the live arrangement of his own comnposition is truly a bit of musical transmutation we only experience a few times in our lives, and should NOT be overlooked by fans of Caravan. After the first mournful four lines sung by Pye, the lyrical part of "For Richard" is over, although the musical examination of life, regret, despair, joy, and resolution has only begun. The lyrics are ambiguous, but the title "For Richard" as well as the somber reflectiveness of the lyrics suggest this is a musical remembrance of a friend lost young, and in response, a sprawling, ambitious musical expression of the emotion and drama inherent in EVERY life. All these qualities are evident on earlier recordings of "For Richard;" what was missing previously was to place Dave Sinclair on a stage with a keyboard that could do anything he wanted and letting him wail at full intensity to totally clobber you with all the passion and fury he wrote into this piece from the beginning. As they would say in the legendary Kansas City jazz clubs and later of Charlie Parker, "that cat can WAIL--he's really telling a story!!!" I am not a classical music fan at all, but I nibble around the edges a bit and see many of the same elements of passion and genius evident in "For Richard" as eggheads everywhere have attributed to Beethoven's 9th and "Ode to Joy". Obviously Dave Sinclair has not enjoyed the patronage of aristocrats to exalt his work during his lifetime and to ensure his apotheosis postmortem, but to my ears the emotive force of his composition and performance equal the power and majesty Herr Beethoven evoked in listeners 176 years ago. YES to my ears, IT'S THAT GOOD and if you disagree, well, that's your problem. I harbor no illusions of "converting" classical music snobs, however all Caravan fans and general enthusiasts of progressive rock MUST hear this and feel Dave tap directly into the elemental life force as few modern composers/performers have done before or since. "For Richard" really dwarfs everything else on this collection, although that by no means denigrates the rest of this INCREDIBLE collection by a wildly underappreciated band. I look forward to hearing from you in wild agreement.
Ryle Shermatz 5/5 27.12.2006 (AMAZON)
This is a historic live recording by the legendary group Caravan, reunited in 1990 and bringing together the lineup that recorded the great "In The Land Of Grey And Pink" album: Pye Hastings, Richard Sinclair, David Sinclair, Richard Coughlan and Jimmy Hastings. Some of the tracks present here come from this landmark recordings and other are of course no less attractive. The album has a great Roger Dean cover, which is one more reason to grab it on top of the music of course. Not to be missed by the group's fans.
Jazzis 4/5 30.05.2011 (RATEYOURMUSIC)
An interesting re-release
First of all, this is a reissue of Caravan Live (ASIN B0000011PQ) which is also availables (less 2 tracks) on DVD. The concert was originally recorded for a TV programme and this may explain why the sound quality isn't quite as good as you'd expect for live CD. And this may also account for the lack of excitement that you often find in live recordings. Nevertheless, there are some familiar great tracks, 'Land of Grey and Pink', 'If I Could Do It All Over Again', 'Nine Feet Underground'; a couple of lesser known tracks, 'Videos of Hollywood' and 'Winter Wine'; and finishing with 'For Richard'. It's a reasonable album at a reasonable price and if you're a Caravan fan and don't have the earlier issue then you're probably going to be happy with this. On the other hand if you're looking for your first or second Caravan album then you might be happier with "In the Land of Grey and Pink" or the anthology "Where but for Caravan Would I?".
A Customer 3/5 21.08.2003 (AMAZON)
Further evidence that someone else out there is trying to spread the Canterbury word came in the usual roundabout way concerning the Central TV series 'BEDROCK'. Some enlightened soul in Nottingham had seemingly decided that it would be a good idea to channel some funds away from Bullseye, Bob Holness et al, and use then to persuade various Seventies bands to reform, play under blinding stage lights in front of audiences attracted despite dismal publicity, and ultimately to appear on the small screen in the early hours of some midweek morning. As a venture it seems to have met with some degree of success, if we take as examples the three bands which will principally interest readers of FACELIFT, namely HATFIELD AND THE NORTH, GONG and CARAVAN.
Caravan's appearance at the Central studios on 24th July will be screened as part of the second Bedrock series along with the likes of Asia, Rick Wakeman and Curved Air. The original line-up of Richard and David Sinclair, Pye Hastings and Richard Coughlan was featured, with timely additions from Jimmy Hastings on sax and flute. Given the fact that only Richard Sinclair from this band is still predominantly involved with music, the band played a blinding set that showed little sign of rustiness. This was no doubt helped by the fact that the band had played a handful of warm-up gigs, including the Canterbury festival.
This was the only one of the Bedrock gigs I was able to get to, and as the first time I'd seen Caravan was always going to make an impression. That said, it was an indisputably fine performance: both vocalists have retained strong voices, with Pye Hastings particularly surprising me in soaring uninhibited through the opener 'Behind You'. Selection of material was happily dominated by pieces from the original collaborations, with the bands playing all the tracks from 'In the Land Of The Grey and Pink', and the highlight was, as expected, 'For Richard'. The lengthy crescendo towards the celebrated keyboard riff provided the night's most uplifting moment. I'll always be biased towards the lengthier instrumental compositions and any excuse to hear that Sinclatr voice ('Winter Wine' was as a outstanding), but the whole set was superb.
The live sound during the first half of the performance seemeed to favour rhythm guitar detriment of organ and saxophone, but I was lucky enough to see Central's tape after the gig and presumably this will be rectified for the screening. The mix was a shame, because it obscured the vibrant soloing of Jimmy Hastings, very such an integral part of the show (and who ono reader, with some degree of accuracy, compared to John Gielgud!)
Unlike the Hatfields' performance (which attracted reputedly only 40 people, many there under the impression that it was a heavy metal gig!), the appearance of Caravan was well publicised and one presses that there will be no need for the audience overdubs which accompanied the former. Rumours abound that, quite separate to the Central transmission some of this gig may appear as a live album. Caravan are continuing to play the occasional gig wherever it has been possible to promote them, and it's good to see that organisations such as Sonic Relief are active in this. Whether the band will be performing any new material in the future (as Richard Sinclair for one is certainly keen to do), remains to be seen.
Phil Howitt (FACELIFT MAGAZINE) / september 1990