On the King Biscuit Live cd, Big Country is energetic, young, full of fire and verve, and rocking their homeland. If you only know their few stateside hits, this is a great intro to the bands early sound, and a real representative of their first few records. If you already know the band, it is a great moment in time, caught before a frenzied hometown crowd on a celebratory New Year's Eve, complete with a (?!?) live pipe band helping to stir the crowd up even more. Rocking hard start to finish, with mid-tempo numbers mixed in, the band literally tears through the early songbook, pumping "Wonderland" and "Fields of Fire" with life and injecting emotion and feeling into my personal favorites, "Chance" and "Harvest Home". Also for the fans, old and new, the fairly interesting if not so necessary interview with songwriter/ singer/ leader/ activist Stuart Adamson is a nice little bonus. While these are live versions, they differ eno! ugh to interest a fan while staying faithful enough for the curious or the new convert. And the sound quality is good, too. Not a SINGLE bad song, at least NINE, yes NINE great songs, and some others which are at least good to near-great, if you wanted your MTV in '83, and loved the bagpipe rock tune "In a Big Country", this will NOT disappoint, and should only enlighten and delight.

One of the most powerful rock bands to come out of the '80s
produced by Steve Lillywhite, who also produced U2's first 3
records (Boy, October, and War). Fans will tell you that their
early tours were the best. I would agree. This will leave
you breathless as it captures them in full stride during
the Crossing tour. Stuart has left the building, but this
time capsule completly reminds us of what was....This is a
truly great live album and probably their best live release.

I've been a fan of Big Country since their 1980s heyday. If you too loved the sound and style of their music from that decade, and if you enjoyed their first couple of albums, you will love this CD as much as I do! It has all their old hits, as well as some other hits.

I don't always like "live" albums, because sometimes groups don't seem to perform nearly as well on stage as they do on their albums. However, Big Country is a consistent and excellent band that has no such problems! :)

Plus, there is a beautiful intermission in which a bagpipe band takes the stage and performs several songs. (I love the skirl of the pipes). What a tribute to this great Scottish group! Another bonus is the interview with the late (and great) Stuart Adamson at the end of the CD. It provides some interesting insights into the man and his music.

I promise you will not find this album a disappointment!

Let me say it straight out: I'm a Big Country fan. I enjoyed their studio studio work, and I loved their live albums. I think that by any standard, the live albums "Come Up Screaming" and "Without the Aid of a Safety Net" are among the best live albums ever recorded. That's why it pains me to think so badly of this album. Yes, it's a good insight into how good they were even early on in their career. I have no quarrel with their talent or the fire with which they performed. So much for the album's good points.

The sound on this album is horrible. The performance was recorded on New Year's Eve 1983 at The Barrowlands in Glasgow, but don't take that as an excuse for the abysmal sound quality; the previously mentioned "Without the Aid of a Safety Net" was recorded in the same venue almost exactly ten years later (12/29/93), and the sound on that album is crystal clear. Here, it sounds like the album was recorded in a boiler factory. The guitar work is muddy, some of the backing vocals are almost totally lost, and in some places the drums are so loud that they distract from the rest of the performance. If this was the only available live recording of Big Country I would probably overlook all of these faults. But with so many good live recordings in their catalogue, why tolerate something that's second rate?

I have one other criticism, but it's much smaller. In introducing the song "The Storm", the late Stuart Adamson tells the crowd that it's one of his favorite numbers (and it's certainly one of mine, as well). That makes it twice as infuriating when the band abandons the song in the middle to stop and celebrate the New Year! Oh well...I didn't like the album anyway!

As huge of a fan of shows put out on the King Biscuit label, I've only discovered this particular title in the last couple of months. Was recorded in the band's home country of Glasgow, Scotland on New Year's Eve 1983. Best described as 'new wave', although I've always considered them almost like alternative. Better cuts include "Angel Park", the rocker "The Storm", "Fields Of Fire" and the only song {that most music fans from that era seem to remember} "In A Big Country". Line-up: Stuart Adamson (R.I.P.)-guitar, ebow & vocals, Bruce Watson-guitar & vocals, Tony Butler-bass & backing vocals and Mark Brzezicki-drums. I've heard a patron or two mention before that Big Country could've 'easily' become like another U2 - had they ever received a major break. I was fortunate enough to catch the guys playing in a small club in the early '90's. They were good at what they do.