John Entwistle’s bass work has a unique sound that is hard to
\nmiss. There’s that distinctive thump-slap that rings out over all
\nthe other instrumentation and vocals that lets you know that “The
\nOx” is behind the four-string.<\/p>\n
Of course, when he steps out of his role as the bassist for The
\nWho, he often assumes the role of bandleader, as he does on
\nLeft For Live<\/i> by The John Entwistle Band. And while the
\nperformances here are palatable, sometimes you can’t help but wish
\nyou were listening to The Who instead of Entwistle’s own
\nensemble.<\/p>\n
Naturally, a generous helping of Who tracks helps to feed this
\nurge, from the well-known (“The Real Me,” “Young Man Blues”) to the
\nlesser-known (“Had Enough,” “905”). The performances on these
\ntracks are especially inspiring – so much so that if you had the
\ndisc on and someone came into the house, they might think you were
\nlistening to an unreleased Who live show. This is meant has high
\npraise for Entwistle’s bandmates – guitarist\/vocalist Godfrey
\nTownsend, keyboardist\/vocalist Gordon Cotten and drummer\/vocalist
\nSteve Luongo.<\/p>\n
Three things quickly strike me about
\nLeft For Live<\/i>, though. First, I really wish the liner notes
\nspecified whether Entwistle handled the bulk of the lead vocals or
\nwhether they were shared throughout the band. There seemed to be
\nenough variety to warrant the opinion that the duties were
\nsplit.<\/p>\n
Second, whoever mixed this album should be shot for burying
\nEntwistle’s pre-song comments so far back into the mix. I had to
\ncrank up the volume on my old JVC receiver to hear what he was
\nsaying, especially on the intro to “905” – and damn near blew out
\nthe windows in my office when the music kicked in. (Yeah, great way
\nto impress the new neighbors.)<\/p>\n
Third – I don’t know exactly why, but the non-Who material
\ntended to suffer in comparison. It’s not that tracks like “Darker
\nSide Of Night,” “Success Story” or “Too Late The Hero” were bad,
\nbut it’s hard to separate Entwistle the solo artist from Entwistle
\nthe key member of The Who when the music is so intertwined like it
\nis here.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, some of the performances do suffer. “Under A
\nRaging Moon” doesn’t live up to its billing as a tribute to
\nEntwistle’s late bandmate, especially when a rather lackluster drum
\nsolo fills up half the song. Other tracks, like “Endless Vacation”
\nand “I’ll Try Again Today,” just don’t cut the mustard.<\/p>\n
In the end, though, it is the tracks once recorded by The Who
\nthat save the day for Entwistle and company – and somehow, I don’t
\nthink that was the original intention.
\nLeft For Live<\/i> has its moments, and is sure to be somewhat
\npleasing to both Entwistle and Who fans alike… but this disc
\nreally is a sign of what could have been a solo triumph for
\nEntwistle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25408,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6327],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-36614","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-john-entwistle-band","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36614","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=36614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36614"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36614"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}