Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I used to listen exclusively to studio albums. A pre-recorded song, I argued, sounds more polished -- it can be redone to iron out the imperfections; the sound quality is more even; you don't have to deal with annoying band in-jokes or audience noise. This recording changed my mind almost single-handedly.
I own a handful of other Boingo albums; I've got "the hit songs" in all their orchestral glory. All I can say is, thank goodness they didn't cover "the hits" in their farewell concert. Instead, what Danny Elfman & co. give us is *their* favorites. The popular songs, the B-sides, the hard-to-find classics from their very early days.
What you very quickly notice when you listen to this album is this familiarity and love for the songs: how the band can wrap their voices and instruments around the tunes, and let them loose in an exuberant display of modern balladry. Boingo rocks with such intensity, the CD nearly jumps out of the player. This energy just wouldn't be there in a "greatest hits" album. There has to be a certain measure of self-indulgence in order to polish up songs until they shine.
One of my former roommates has commented that the beauty of live albums is that songs which weren't very good in the original can gain new life. Take "Reptiles and Samurai." The original (over two decades old) had interesting lyrics, but was flat and sparse-sounding. Boingo's remake on "Farewell" is brilliant. I feel much more rewarded having heard such a song transformed than I would have been if they'd used the space for, say, "Just Another Day" -- a great song to start off with. Boingo also takes the opportunity to rein in some of their more experimental material: "Change" (originally from the album "Boingo") is shrunk from 13 minutes to 9, mostly by cutting 4 minutes of vague instrumental meandering and kicking the beat up a notch to danceability. The live version sounds in every way superior.
I disagree with some of the band's selections, but how can you avoid that when condensing 17 years of songs into 140 minutes of concert? Ultimately, it doesn't affect the quality of the album, and "Farewell" remains two of the strongest CDs in my music rotation.
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