Search - Nazareth :: Live at the Beeb

Rock the way it used to be

J. Langdon | Beverly Hills, FL USA | 06/25/2001

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Nazareth has been rocking for over 30 years, and they never got the respect they deserved. They were at their best in the 70s through the mid-80s, when Manny Charlton left the band, taking his smoking licks with him. As a fan who has seen them perform live on several occasions, I have been searching for the definitive live recording for years. SNAZ is great, but it leaves out most of their early work. This set fills in the gap, but it only comes close to perfection. The BBC recorded bands in one session, and the music was mixed and aired in just a few days, usually less than two weeks from recording to air. The master tapes were then erased and re-used to cut costs. This means that re-mastering can only do so much to improve the sound, yet this set still sounds pretty good. The music, however, is first-rate. Dan McCafferty was never a great singer, but he could always growl with the best, and it works very well here. Manny's guitar sears, and the rhythm section of Darrel Sweet on drums & Pete Agnew on bass keeps the pace moving fluidly. If you like your music loud and snarly, this set will get you moving. If the master tapes were better, I might have given this 5 stars. Hard rock lovers, BUY THIS SET!"

Fine But Flawed

Bob | San Antonio, Texas, USA | 06/24/2009

(3 out of 5 stars)

"A pretty good document of early Nazareth live. Although tracks 11 to 14 are not BBC sessions at all. They are clearly just lifted directly from the Rampant album. A fault of the BBC's - seems they were not a session but were simply broadcast at the time as tracks from the new album. Somehow in the BBC's fog of time they have assimilated them as a BBC session which they are most certainly not. That irritating error aside here is some prime Naz."