Live albums are always difficult things to produce — how does
\none capture the power and charisma of a band’s stage performance on
\na slab or two of vinyl?<\/p>\n
For Lowell George and Little Feat, their first live effort
\nWaiting For Columbus<\/i> was even more difficult for the band.
\nFor the better part of two years, George and the band had been
\ninvolved in a power struggle, with George often on the losing end
\nof the battles. The trippiness of Little Feat’s earlier efforts was
\noften pushed aside for more tuneful crafts – and I don’t know if
\nthat was necessarily for the better.<\/p>\n
So one could understand if it sounded like George’s heart wasn’t
\nreally into the performances captured on this double album.
\n(Actually, there wasn’t much power left in George’s heart; he died
\none year later of a heart attack while touring behind his solo
\nalbum.) And while some of the performances on
\nWaiting For Columbus<\/i> do flash back to the band’s glory days,
\nmore often than not it falls into the same traps that snag more
\nlive albums than I care to count.<\/p>\n
George helps to kick off a festive mood early on with numbers
\nlike “Fat Man In The Bathtub” and “Old Folks Boogie,” which show
\noff how good Little Feat could be by mixing slight irreverence with
\nNew Orleans-laced blues-funk. But more often than not I found
\nGeorge’s guitar work hidden in the mix — and more and more
\nguitarist Paul Barerre seemed to come forward as the new de facto
\nleader of the band.<\/p>\n
The addition of the Tower Of Power Horns definitely expands the
\nband’s sound on this one — it almost makes it sound like a studio
\neffort at times. (I guess a little more audience in the mix would
\nhave helped.) But the problem with
\nWaiting For Columbus<\/i> — as with many live albums – is that
\nit’s more gauged for the long-time fan, and not the casual browser
\nwho may stumble on this one as an impulse buy. I consider myself to
\nsomewhat be a Little Feat fan, but I don’t recognize numbers like
\n“Oh Atlanta” and “Mercenary Territory” that well. (It’s also been
\nsome time since I dusted off anything by Little Feat from the
\nPierce Archives.)<\/p>\n
The overall feel that I get from
\nWaiting For Columbus<\/i> is that George should still have been
\nthe leader of the group. It’s not that I have any problems with
\nBarerre — cuts like “Time Loves A Hero” do shine — but the feel
\njust isn’t right. On the other hand, when George steps up to the
\nmicrophone for numbers like “A Apolitical Blues” and “Willin’,” he
\nmakes the most of his time in the spotlight. (I also found it
\ninteresting that the loudest audience reactions came from drug
\nreferences on side four, especially from “Don’t Bogart That
\nJoint.”) The second record of this set contains some of the more
\nexciting performances from this set – not surprisingly, George is
\niften leading the band on these.<\/p>\n
It sometimes is sad to listen to this album when you realize
\nthat it was George’s swansong with the band. Little Feat was left
\nto finish
\nDown On The Farm<\/i> after George left the band and subsequently
\ndied; they broke up following completion of that album (only to
\nreunite in 1988). Little Feat was a band that deserved a better
\nfate than they were dealt in the ’70s, had we only listened when we
\nhad a chance.<\/p>\n
\nWaiting For Columbus<\/i> is a picture of a band locked in a
\nfatal power struggle, though that struggle results in some lively
\nperformances. Long-time fans will enjoy this one. But, if you’re
\njust starting to get your feet wet with Little Feat, you may wish
\nto check out some of their studio work before tackling this
\none.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24571,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5667],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-35775","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-little-feat","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35775"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=35775"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=35775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}