Search - Moe :: Warts & All 5 (Dig)

The best of the series

Mark T | St Louis, MO | 06/22/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The latest in the band's long-running series of official live releases taken straight from the sound board "warts and all." A truly stellar performance, those new to Moe will find much here to enjoy. Long-time Moe fans will love the set list--with a mind-blowing 27 minute version of Yodelittle, a Plane Crash that rocks your socks off, some wonderful though more seldomly performed songs, and early previews of tracks from the 2007 studio album "Conch." Highly recommended."

Tijuana Donkey Show

Smitty | Alexandria, VA | 07/20/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Tijuana Donkey Show is worth the price of admission alone. Excellent moe. live album (as expected) as are all of the Warts offerings."

More Southern Rock Influence Than Previous Releases

kireviewer | Sunnyvale, Ca United States | 02/15/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"REFRESHINGLY DIFFERENT IN PARTS



I own 3 Warts and All sets and L. Most of it all sounds the same to me. This CD set is refreshingly different in parts, probably because it is much newer than all of the other releases. This comes from a 2005 concert, while all of the other releases have come from 2002 or earlier.



It seems that on this set, the group has taken on a more Southern Rock flavor in parts. Bring You Down sounds like it could be from Marshall Tucker. The whole Spine/Mexico/Plane suite has a strong Dickey Betts sound, along with some Charlie Daniels (back in his rocking days)and more Toy Caldwell thrown in. There are also bits and pieces that remind of some of the lesser Southern Bands, like the Winters Brothers.



Although much of this ablum is different than previously releases, I think that other parts are more of the same. I don't think there is much change in Yodelittle. And Buster sounds almost exactly the same as on Warts 3. The first half sounds like Gentle Giant and the guitar solo sounds like an extended version of the one on Journey's Can This Be A Dream from the Look Into the Future album.



The CD set comes from a concert on Feb 22, 2005. The cover says over 200 minutes of music, but I calculate to be just over 180 minutes. As with all these releases, there are almost no liner notes or pictures. The sound quality is fairly good, but it is not good as some of the other Warts and All and there are some problems with vocals.



I am not a big fan of full concert CD sets. If you are going to release a whole concert, it should be on DVD where you get the full experience. On CD, it is irritating because you have put up with the good and the bad and you really don't get the full concert feel.



And like all the moe live releases, there are the good and the bad. George has got to be the worst jam I have heard from moe. It is just a very boring 15 minutes. It reminds me of the worst of the Blues Traveler. There are also some pretty bad moments on vocals on this CD.



The biggest problem full concert release, is that in order to keep the songs in order, it was necessary to split Yodelittle on to CD 2 and 3. There is a very nice instrumental that is interrupted as you move from CD 2 to CD 3.



Although I don't like full concert releases, and I feel you get a lot of stuff that sounds just like the stuff on other CD's, I will probably keep buying these. Priced between 14 and 18 dollars, it is hard to go wrong. You usually get a couple of hours of great music and at least an hour of something new.



With other groups, especially Phish, I will take these concert CD's and rip the parts I like and get rid of the rest. With Phish, I usually end up with just one CD worth of material out of a concert. With String Cheese Incident and moe, it hasn't been worth the effort because there is little throw away. However, with String Cheese Incident, nearly every concert is remarkedly different from the next. Because they play in many different muscial styles it is much easier to have variation from concert to concert.



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