Live In Europe

by Bruce Eder This album has often taken it on the chin from fans and critics who failed to perceive its value. Long regarded as an inferior release, mostly because it emerged at the tail-end of CCR's history, after Tom Fogerty had quit, and came from the tour associated with unpopular Mardi Gras album, Live In Europe was considered something of a bummer. Neither the original LP release (which spread under an hour of music onto four sides), nor the edited domestic CD presented much to enjoy -- the band sounded flat and harsh. Victor Entertainment's 1998 remastering from Japan, in 20-bit sound off the uncut tape (which restores two songs off the original LP that are missing from the American CD), rectifies those mistakes and more. It puts the listener seemingly at the concert (and center-stage in the stereo mix) in terms of the closeness of the sound, and gives us a chance to hear how spirited and refreshed CCR was performing as a trio. The band reinvented songs they'd originally cut as a quartet in blazing fury, with Doug Clifford pounding away with a rock-solid beat, Stu Cook's bass doing graceful acrobatics covering for the "missing" rhythm guitar, and John Fogerty in a soaring virtuoso performance that must've cost him five pounds in sweat alone each night on this tour. The 20-bit audio gives the band a close, loud, crunching sound like a Chuck Berry performance on 50,000 watts of amplification and, given the animated nature of the performance, the whole album now makes for bracing as well as fascinating listening, with "Keep On Chooglin'" a great way to end the official history of the band, assuming that it had to end. The original tape always had some minor flaws, in terms of microphone placement and mixing, but the Victor reissue minimizes them. As a bonus, the Japanese CD restores Stu Cook's "Door To Door," (one of the better non-Fogerty numbers off of Mardi Gras), to the song lineup. The album doesn't appear to offer much, but with "Sweet Hitch-Hiker," "Up Around The Bend," "Hey Tonight," or "It Came Out of the Sky," much less "Proud Mary," "Green River," or "Lodi," there is still no earthly reason for it to be dropped by Fantasy when it was issued on CD. The price is high, but the music is worth it. (Japanese import)