Badfinger : Day After Day - Live- First released in 1989, on Ryko Records / Reissued on Castle ESSCD 135 1990 (UK) |
| Tracks: | Written By: | Lead Singer: | Time |
| 1:Sometimes | (Molland) | Joey | 2.58 |
| 2:I Don't Mind | (Evans/Molland) | Tom and Joey | 3.13 |
| 3:Blind Owl | (Evans) | Tom | 5.40 |
| 4:Give it Up | (Molland) | Joey | 7.23 |
| 5:Constitution | (Molland) | Joey | 4.14 |
| 6:Baby Blue | (Ham) | Pete | 3.32 |
| 7:Name of The Game | (Ham) | Pete | 5.17 |
| 8:Day After Day | (Ham) | Pete | 3.04 |
| 9:Timeless | (Ham) | Pete | 7.57 |
| 10:I Can't Take It | (Ham) | Pete | 4.58 |
My comments:Day After Day - Live is undoubtedly one of the most discussed/criticized Badfinger CD-releases. Furthermore there have been/are legal disagreements about the financing of the album and division of the profits. What comes out of all this will probabably known in near future, when a court has come to a conclusion ( more details on the matter can be found in Matovina's Badfinger Biography p. 409-411).
The album was first released in 1989 on Joey Molland's initiative, and it comes from a concert given in Cleveland March 4 , 1974. The concert was originally taped for a possible Warner Live-album release. Joey got hold of the tapes before he left the band late 1974, and towards the end of the 1980's he began to work on them. Joey has overdubbed most of his own singing and playing, which, judged from bootleg versions of the concert, was pretty bad. What's worse is that he's also overdubbed Mike's drumming; I've never heard a good reason for his doing this, and it seems to quite unnecessary as Mike's original drumming was quite okay, moreover the overdubbed drums are mixed too loud and a lot of the fill-ins are done very clumsily. Joey has also been criticized for changing the track listing so that his own songs come first and Pete's last. What his reasons for doing this were you can only guess.
If you/ your ears able to repress the annoying sound of the drums, there is in fact a lot of good music on this album. Personally I believe it gives a pretty good impression of a Badfinger concert 1974. The sound quality on the bootleg version of the concert is very bad and Pete's guitar and vocals can barely be heard. Of course a release of the whole concert without too much overdubbing would have been more interesting; a little overdubbing may be required, though,as some of Joey's playing and singing is out of key. A shame, too, that Perfection is not featured on the album.
My favourites: Blind Owl, Name of The Game and Timeless
Other good tracks: Apart from the sound of the drums most of it is actually pretty good.
Of 10 possible stars I would give this album: 5
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