Reviewed by Mike Rimmer

Originally recorded in 1988 and released a decade ago, this live concert album has been extended to two CDs, not by adding any songs left off the original live performance but by trawling through live recordings over many different years. The result is that you get an extra CD of gems called 'When Numbers Get Serious' stolen from performances of a variety of line-ups of the band. Mike Roe is of course ever present throughout! The 1988 disc has a pile of classic Seventy Sevens songs including rambunctious renderings of "Perfect Blues", "Mercy Mercy" and "Over Under Sideways Down" which all spit and stutter with energy; and then there's a blistering, jangly version of "The Lust, The Flesh & The Pride Of Life". There's also an intense moody 11-minute version of "You Don't Scare Me" which shows Mike Roe at the height of his powers. Now then, let's see, if you're already a fan (Hello Steve B!) you'll have got this ages ago, so, is it worth buying again? Absolutely! Aside from the excellent performance in 1988, the new set of songs include some classic material given fresh energy live. Good examples of this are "This Is The Way Love Is" and the versions of Blind Willie Johnson's "Nobody's Fault But Mine" (complete with crowd singa-long) and a particularly unrestrained version of "Snowblind". There are some other interesting moments as the band perform cover versions of AWB's "Pick Up The Pieces" - not an obvious choice for a cover - and at the other extreme they demonstrate perfect taste when they choose to cover - Robin Trower's "Bridge Of Sighs". Diverse and interesting but then the band have always had their left field moments.

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