This is an incredible CD. My opinion is some what biased in that this was first concert where I heard Chuck Berry live. Berry rocked, the Fillmore rocked and this CD rocks! Listening to this make me recall even the smell of the auditorium. At the time, we had no idea it was being recorded. If you like rock, if you like blues you will like this CD.

A great live release by Chuck Berry. Sadly, this CD went largely unnoticed.If you are looking for HAIL, HAIL ROCK 'N'ROLL it is not here (just a little bit). This is Chuck at his greasy blues best! Not only is he in killer blues form here, he proves he can ice the blues cake with the best of them. Just check out "Everyday I Have The Blues" & Driftin' Blues". You'll be in BERRY orbit! Steve Miller guests on "It Hurts Me Too". A must for any Berry fan! A+

Two of the easiest things for audiences since to forget: 1) Chuck Berry was a bluesman first ("Maybelline" was intended as a satire); and, 2) the Steve Miller Band actually began its life as a preponderantly blues group. It made better sense than fans of either of the two now might think that Berry should have pulled into the Fillmore Auditorium in June 1967 and play a round of shows with the original Miller aggregation (when Boz Scaggs was still Miller's guitar partner). Berry hadn't yet been consigned to the nostaligia circuits; he'd reverted to his blues roots to keep fresh as a performer and recording artist (he'd been moving to Mercury Records at about this time) while the British Invaders and company (many of whom built their entire styles on Berry's foundations---hello, Rolling Stones?) kept his classic vintages alive and kicking.

It made for some of the most interesting recordings of his career, and for this remarkable selection of the best of those Fillmore shows. Berry's in solid voice; his guitar work is sharp and able to integrate some of what he'd been hearing from the younger San Franciscan turks without compromising his basic attack; and, most pleasantly, Miller and company stay with Berry without trying to overwhelm him. It's almost worth the price just to hear the aggregation's jolting take of Peter Chatman's standard "Every Day I Have the Blues" (which was already long set as B.B. King's set opener), but their revisitation of "Driftin' Blues" and their reimagination of Elmore James's "It Hurts Me Too" expose Berry's blues root almost as profoundly as their attack upon the near-signature song of the man who made Berry's recording career possible in the first place, Muddy Waters's "Hoochie Coochie Man." With the Miller band in full sympatico, by the time Berry gets finished there's almost no further way to revisit this song without driving people to the nearest drink. He hits it as though he just discovered it fresh and found things yet to tell from within it without abandoning the deceptive simplicity of the style he made famous.

It's enough to make you wonder what might have been if Berry and the Miller Band could have toured and recorded further. Berry certainly had innings left to play as a bluesman, sometimes combining that with striking updates of his classic rocking. (Smoke out "Concerto in B Goode," the marathon title jam of which beats the Grateful Dead at their own game and isn't anywhere near as boring or as limpen, even if Berry can't resist recycling a few licks and runs---because he does it to remarkable effect.) But I'm not entirely convinced he was as exuberant and as committed in that return to his roots as he was with these shows. For that matter, I'm not entirely convinced that Steve Miller---for all his subsequent success---would ever be as committed as he sounds here, riding with the master without quite falling away from the road.

This live performance is a gem. Most people think of Chuck Berry as the originator of rock and roll, which he is, but this live set shows that he is also a phenomenal blues man. I appreciate Chuck Berry's pop songs for their tremendous impact on the history of rock and roll, and their impact on society at large, but this album digs deep into the roots of rock and roll, the blues. Chuck's influences are the great blues musicians who paved the way for him and other musicians like him. This performance is a tacit tribute to his mentors. The set is full of classic blues songs and improvised blues jams, all the while back lit by Steve Miller on the harp. Overall, this is a special performance that I am glad to own.

Classic Chuck Berry CD's are hard to find if you desire to have these old tunes on CD you should rush to pick them up before the MP3 world takes over completely!