Chicago: VI Decades LiveFour CDs plus a DVD. Also, a nice photo booklet with lots of notes. The first two CDs are the complete performance at the Isle of Wight Festival, August 28, 1970. CDs 3 and 4 are live recordings taken over the years, chronologically, from 1969 to 2014, spanning six decades, hence the name of the box set. The DVD contains a complete concert broadcast from the German television show "Rockpalast". It was recorded February 12, 1977 during the tour of
Chicago X ("the chocolate album"). It also contains a bonus video of the band playing "What's This World Coming To?" live in the studio.
First, the concert DVD. Not only because I personally watched it first before listening to the CDs, but because for me this is the gold mine.
Anyway You Want
Saturday In The Park
Skin Tight
Just You 'N' Me
Hope For Love
You Are On My Mind
Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?
Ballet For A Girl In Buchannon
Beginnings
Scrapbook
A Hit By Varese
Call On Me
Takin' It On Uptown
If You Leave Me Now
Once Or Twice
(I've Been) Searchin' So Long
25 Or 6 To 4
Got To Get You Into My Life
I'm A Man
What's This World Comin' To (bonus track)
I was pleasantly surprised that they still ventured off into extended jams sometimes, something I'd assumed (for some reason) that they'd stopped doing by the time they had enough hits to just play an entire show of hits. No. They still played concerts of songs that
they wanted to play, songs that showed off their versatility and musicianship. I'm reminded now of that part of the CNN documentary where Lamm is reminiscing on a conversation he had with Terry about maybe playing a "greatest hits tour". Other bands do it, why not Chicago? Terry scoffed and called him a "fucking sellout". So obviously they never did that while Terry was around, which I find reassuring.
It starts off innocently enough, with "Anyway You Want", the opener from
Chicago VIII and kept around for this tour as well. Then of course into a hit, "Saturday in the Park" to get the crowd really going. "Skin Tight" from the current album gets an interesting response. It's not well-known, but it does have a killer horn break. It's one of my personal faves from
Chicago X despite the cheesy, blatant lyrics. Then another hit, which Lamm introduces as his favorite Jimmy Pankow song, "Just You 'N' Me".
I know that Terry was in many ways the heart and soul of the band, and some of his songs are my favorites, but "Hope For Love" is the weepy, sappy side of Terry that I just never got into. All the momentum drops out at this point. But it's Terry's first real moment, so there you go. "You Are On My Mind", another from
Chicago X, follows, and again it's IMO one of the better songs from that album. Also, we get the first extended jam of the evening at the end.
"Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?" is awesome, as always, then the first set concludes with the "Ballet For A Girl In Buchannon". It's awesome how they kept changing things, adding little bits here and there, but never distracting and never deviating from the original structure. It's mostly a handful of times that make you go "hey, that was cool". I mean, even at this point, they'd been playing this piece for six or seven years. You can't just keep playing it the same way every night for that long (and of course they had no idea that they'd still be playing it another 40 years later).
"Beginnings" opens the second set, with the coda section rearranged a bit, which they seemed to do every couple of tours. "Scrapbook" from the new album follows, again one of the stronger tunes. It's short, but packs a lot, including some great horn work, into three minutes.
Then it's time to get weird. The opener from
Chicago V, my personal favorite, "A Hit By Varese" is only slightly psycho on the album, but here, they go for it. This is the avant-garde jazz side of the band that I've missed, and I was thrilled to find that they were still at it as recently as this tour. When I saw them on the next tour, Terry's last, I don't remember them playing it. Anyway, most of the song proceeds as on the album, but the jam at the end somehow goes off into another dimension, and hangs out there for a while. I'm trying to remember now if they bring it back, or just leave you out there. A truly mind-blowing performance of a song that's a little weird to start with. I literally had to take a break for a while after this song was over.
"Call On Me" brings things back to normal. Loughnane's first composition was a hit, and features a great horn break. An early version of "Takin' It On Uptown" (eventually released on
Chicago XI) follows. They had to play "If You Leave Me Now" sometime, so here it is. I'd always thought that it was French horns on the record, but the Chicago horns sound amazing here. Lee pulls out a flugelhorn for that rich, mellow sound, and the inversions are deceptive. Pretty sure the trombone is on top. Pankow is a genious at arranging three horns to sound like six.
"Once Or Twice", the other Terry Kath song from
Chicago X, is next. I like this one. The "chocolate album" opens and closes with Kath songs, and this is the opener, a barn-burner at such a high tempo that even with three verses and a double-verse saxophone solo, it's over and done in three minutes.
"(I've Been) Searchin' So Long" starts the big medley, going into "Mongonucleosis", the drums/percussion jam, and eventually "25 Or 6 To 4". The first encore is The Beatles' "Got To Get You Into My Life", which is said to be what gave Robert Lamm the idea of forming a pop band with horns. They finish with "I'm A Man", another cover, but for some reason the song which they've done as the final encore for many, many years. A good song, though never really a fave, and a bit odd to do two covers for the encore, but thus ends the concert.
"What's This World Comin' To" is, as mentioned above, a live studio performance of a song from
Chicago VI. I'm honestly not sure why they included it here, but they probably just found it somewhere, it's a video, so they put it on the DVD. It's a slightly more "live" version of the song than on the album, but still very tight of course, and overall a great performance of one of my favorite songs from
Chicago VI, so certainly a worthwhile addition.
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Okay, this is taking long than I thought it would. Silly me. I'll be back later to go over the CDs.