{"id":41229,"date":"2008-11-21T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-11-21T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/live-bullet\/"},"modified":"2008-11-21T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2008-11-21T00:00:00","slug":"live-bullet","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/live-bullet\/","title":{"rendered":"Live Bullet"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the post-1970s era, the live album has become something of an afterthought.\u00a0 For some acts it\u2019s a little bonus for the fans (Wilco), or a one-off special event (any of the Unplugged<\/i> albums); for others it\u2019s a way to compete with the traders and bootleggers (Dave Matthews Band, Pearl Jam), or to take a victory lap after a sellout tour (Green Day).<\/p>\n

Back in the 70s, though, a live album could be much more; it could in fact bust your career wide open.\u00a0 Two examples spring immediately to mind there \u2013 Peter Frampton\u2019s Framptom Comes Alive!<\/i>, and this album.<\/p>\n

Live Bullet<\/i> was the first live album issued by Bob Seger and his touring group The Silver Bullet Band after seven years of slugging it out through the Midwest<\/st1:place>, playing bars and theatres and pretty much anywhere they could behind Seger\u2019s eight mostly ignored studio albums to that point.\u00a0 It had to have been a little frustrating when Bruce Springsteen suddenly began getting national press in 1974 playing the same sort of expansive, intelligent, big-hearted rock and roll Seger had spent several years and thousands of gigs perfecting. <\/p>\n

But Seger\u2019s has always been the ethos of the underdog, the guy who gives it his all and comes up short as many times as he triumphs.\u00a0 There is both a humility and a fiery determination at the core of his music that\u2019s tremendously appealing.\u00a0 And so, there was nothing to do after Springsteen broke nationally but keep on playing and working and striving.<\/p>\n

Live Bullet<\/i> was recorded over two September nights in Seger\u2019s hometown of Detroit<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> and captures the Silver Bullet Band at the height of its considerable powers before a raucous crowd of true believers.\u00a0 The production is, like many live albums of the era, a little raw as well as dense and heavy in the midrange, but that\u2019s just about the only criticism one could level of this album.\u00a0 The rippling energy that the band and the crowd draw from one another ensured this LP became both legendary and one of the best-selling live albums of the 70s.<\/p>\n

One of the keys to Seger turning the corner commercially was the way he began with 1975\u2019s Beautiful Loser<\/i> to mix intensely reflective ballads in with his by-then trademark setlist of hard-driving rock and r&b\/funk-based barn-burners.\u00a0 You can see how it changes the dynamic right away as the thunderous opener \u201cNutbush City Limits\u201d gives way to the gentler \u201cTravelin\u2019 Man,\u201d \u201cBeautiful Loser\u201d and \u201cJody Girl\u201d before diving back into the heavy funk with Seger\u2019s finger-snapping take on Van Morrison\u2019s \u201cI\u2019ve Been Working.\u201d<\/p>\n

The highlight of this album, and one of three or four tracks from this disc you can still hear on classic rock radio, is the smoldering \u201cTurn The Page.\u201d\u00a0 One of the most dead-on-target songs ever written about the brutal isolation of life on the road, it\u2019s given a whole new dimension by Seger\u2019s impassioned reading and the band\u2019s precision playing behind him.\u00a0 \u201cWell, you walk into a restaurant strung out from the road \/ And you feel the eyes upon you as you\u2019re shakin\u2019 off the cold \/ You pretend it doesn\u2019t bother you, but you just want to explode\u2026 Here I go, up on the stage again\u2026 There I go, turn the page.\u201d<\/p>\n

From there the momentum accelerates as Seger and band storm through funked-up romps like \u201cU.M.C.\u201d and \u201cBo Diddley\u201d and ferocious rockers like the immortal \u201cRamblin\u2019 Gamblin\u2019 Man\u201d and the positively giddy \u201cKatmandu<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>.\u201d\u00a0 By the time they get to a pair of piledriving encores — the Chuck Berry-inspired \u201cGet Out Of Denver\u201d and the Chuck Berry cover \u201cLet It Rock\u201d — you wonder that the crowd can stay on their feet.\u00a0 These shows must have been amazing.<\/p>\n

The one-two punch of Beautiful Loser<\/i> and Live Bullet<\/i> catapulted Bob Seger onto the national scene, a status he would consolidate with the Night Moves<\/i> and Stranger In Town<\/i> albums that followed.\u00a0 That said, if you want to pinpoint the exact moment when Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band caught fire for good, it\u2019s right here in these grooves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":29631,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5789],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-41229","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-bob-seger-the-silver-bullet-band","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41229","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\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41229"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41229"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}