Is it Live?

When it comes to live AD albums on CD, you really only have two choices: Raw and Live, which can be found on the official site (for only $6.99!) or another album called Instant Live: Boston, MA 7/25/04. Sure, there are a couple other options out there (Unplugged and the Tokyo 1994 project), but when it comes to basically the current incarnation of the group, which happens to be the best live option in my opinion, then those are your choices.


Raw and Live is the official AD project, and it is excellent. Most of the material is from the first two studio albums, but you've also got a couple of cuts from Heroes of the Harvest ("In the South" and "Music & Life") as well as a couple of Speech solo songs ("Dang Diggy Dang" and "Redemption Song") which really add to the collection. You can not go wrong with this set. Most of it was recorded in Boulder, Colorado in 2003, but at some point things move to San Francisco towards the end of the set. Not sure what the story is there, but "Mama's Always on Stage" and "People Everyday" reference San Fran. The audience doesn't boo, so it's safe to say Speech wasn't confused about what city he was in :)


Instant Live albums were a pretty clever idea- I believe the way it worked was that after watching a concert, you had the option to buy that concert on CD as you left the show. These shows were also sold online by a company called Newbury Comics. It looks like a number of different artists gave it a shot (Kiss, George Clinton), and AD had a live show from Boston in July of 2004 recorded and released in this manner.

I'm still not sure how I ran across this, but since that time it has found it's way to amazon- I think I was looking for upcoming concert dates when I happened to come across it. Anyway, I was on the fence on whether or not to buy it as there was not a track listing shown with it at the time, so I wasn't sure what I was getting. But, of course, I went ahead and picked it up.

And I'm glad I did, because number one, I am a ridiculous completist, and number two, there were quite a few songs included that did not appear on Raw and Live. As this performance took place after Among the Trees, "Nighttime Demons" and "Baba Oje is the Oldest One" both appear. "Raining Revolution" is also heard here, and that's missing from Raw and Live. The live version is outstanding. I mean, it's worth purchasing for that one song alone if you're a fan, and if you're reading this you likely are.

Of course, you get variations between both concerts- they're not the Chuck E Cheese robots or the Rockafire Explosion, so there are differences each time they perform. One minor drawback on Instant Live, and this is petty, but after "Fishin' for Religion" you can hear the band go into "Dawn of the Dreads," but for some reason it gets cut off and the recording moves on to the next song. Not sure what happened there.

Here's the track listing from Instant Live:

Disc: 1
1. Give A Man A Fish
2. Fishin' For Religion
3. Sly Jam Session
4. Ease My Mind
5. Ease My Mind (cont.)
6. Africa's Inside Me
7. Tennessee
8. Natural
9. Redemption Song
10. Redemption Song (cont.) (this is an instrumental "jam session" so to speak that leads into Raining)
11. Raining Revolution
12. Revolution
Disc: 2
1. Music Life
2. Nighttime Demons
3. Baba Oje
4. Mr. Wendal
5. Za Solo
6. Mama's Always On Stage
7. People Everyday

So, which one to buy? Well, of course, it's your call. Raw and Live is found cheaper on the site if price is an issue. I like having both, but it basically depends on which of the newer songs you would prefer having and if you'd rather hear "Dawn of the Dreads" live (then buy Raw and Live) or "Raining Revolution" (Instant Live is your choice).