In Febuary 1991, Faith No More released this 12 track live album. It was recorded during the band's 1990 tour of their breakthrough album, "The Real Thing" and also released to support the release of their video, "Live At The Brixton Academy, You Fat Bastards". Despite being a great album, it is also quite apparent that this album is a recording released to make a quick buck. The cover for the album is extremely similar to the cover of "The Real Thing". The album mainly features tracks from "The Real Thing", making it almost pointless for people who own "The Real Thing", unless they are big Faith No More fans and are interested in the two studio tracks also released on the album. Despite all this, the album is extremely fun and if you are a big fan of Faith No More or are looking for a fun live album to sing along to, you should definitely give this album a look.
As mentioned before, this record is incredibly fun. One of the most noticeable things about the record (Mike Patton in particular) is that they are all just having fun. They aren't trying to make their instruments hit the exact right notes all the time (although they do anyway), they are just enjoying the live performance. All of the tracks on the album are quite solid but the middle section of the album is easily the most enjoyable. After a few listens, it seems as though the band are just warming up on the first couple of tracks, but by track 3 and onwards, the band are pumped and at their peak.
All of the songs feature the eerie, fun and sometimes cheesy keyboard parts of Roddy Bottum. The bass is an excellent part of many of the songs, being major highlights in songs such as "Falling To Pieces", "We Care A Lot" and "Epic". The guitar parts on every single song are excellent. It's quite easy to see that Jim Martin is a rather accomplished guitarist. The drumming on every song is also very good, being extremely powerful in backing up the rest of the band. The drums work extremely tightly with the bass.
Mike Patton is in a world of his own on the record. While this album may not be his strongest performance ever, it's pretty close. Sometimes he just seems to be having an extremely good time, such as the time he is yelling to the crowd "what is it? What is it? WHAT THE F- IS IT???" during the performance of "Epic". Other times he seems to be possesed or have gone crazy. He will change between high falsettos and extremely low, almost death metal sounding "growls" in a matter of seconds. In the band's cover of the Black Sabbath classic "War Pigs" he sings it as if the song was written by him.
The album has many highlights and were definitely a wonderful live act (my youth pastor actually saw them live in the mid 90s, he said that they were incredible live and Mike Patton was a crazy, crazy man. He said that he thought he was possessed!). Overall, the band really shine on tracks such as "Epic" and "The Real Thing". At the end of "The Real Thing", for 40 seconds, Patton adlibs lines from the song "Pump Up The Jam" by Technotronic. One part to note is in "War Pigs" when Patton goes crazy and does death metal sounds with his voice. He sounds like Lord Worm of Cryptopsy! He also often sings lines by saying jibberish such as "yayayayaya". It is very obvious that Patton is in his element when they played live.
The album includes two tracks that were recorded in the studio. Neither of them and anything amazingly special, but aren't bad nonetheless.
Pros
Extremely fun
- The band are so together live
- The crowd get right into it
- Patton is quite the showman
Cons
- Occasional squeaks of microphone feedback
- Basically just a live repeat of "The Real Thing"
- Quite short for a live album with only 10 live tracks. Some releases (including mine) only have 10 tracks, making just 8 live tracks
Song Highlights
The Real Thing
Epic
War Pigs
We Care A Lot
FINAL RATING: 4/5
