2004 BARE LIVE

To celebrate CREAMVIIIs return to the stage, the first concert (a small acoulstic club performance) after 6 years was recorded and published on this CD. Strictly limited it is sold out and will not be rereleased!

REVIEWS:

‘Bare Live’ is a very limited edition (only 50 copies) acoustic CD, where Boris and the two Saschas take their seats and entertain a happy crowd. I must confess that when someone produces an acoustic guitar it’s like someone lobbing a hand grenade into a busy room. I’m out of there in seconds! Luckily there are no folky traces here, and it isn’t until ‘Tverde Blizo/Zunahe Am Licht’ and ‘Ready To Jump’ that I found my attention wandering. It’s harder for a band like Creamviii to make the acoustic versions as compelling, because they don’t exactly rely on conventional commercial structures. Employing acoustics accentuates some of the mood, but also strips the layers down and leaves certain edges blunted or exposed.

The songs are revealed this way as very precise but fluid, with the vocals fuller and more normal than on ‘Wintertime’, and while the guitars seem a trifle stilted initially you soon settle into the intimate sound, as the songs are put over in a confident way. True, he does do ‘Something Fast’ and Sisters’ covers often strike me as annoying, but then ‘One Level Down;’ is by Roter Sand who I must admit I’ve never heard of, and the style seems entirely natural and fits in.

It gets positively weird when they cover ‘San Francisco Nights’ by The Animals, which seems such an unusual choice, but then comes ‘White Room’ by Cream (ha!) which is seriously stormy, ‘Like A Hurricane’ which might make Neil Young sit up and swear, as it isn’t the finest version I’ve ever heard, although they close with a decent ‘Rockin’ In The Free World’, and squeeze a nicely creepy version of their own ‘Seven’; in between all of these. Strangest of the lot is ‘White Wedding’ that sounds great fun, against all the odds.

Fans of the band should move heaven and earth to get a copy, because it really is a delightful CD.

Mick Mercer THE MICK # 8