BRUCE COCKBURN : SLICE O LIFE

 

Disc One (53:15)

  1. Applause
  2. World Of Wonders
  3. Lovers In A Dangerous TIme
  4. The Mercenary
  5. See You Tomorrow
  6. Last Night of the World
  7. How I Spent My Fall Vacation
  8. Tibetan Side of Town
  9. Pacing the Cage
  10. Bearded Folksinger
  11. The End of All Rivers
  12. Soul of a Man

Disc Two (69:55)

  1. Wait No More
  2. The City Is Hungry
  3. Put It in Your Heart
  4. Tramps in the Street
  5. Wondering Where the Lions Are
  6. If a Tree Falls
  7. Celestial Horses
  8. If I Had a Rocket Launcher
  9. Child of the Wind
  10. Tie Me at the Crossroads
  11. 12 String Warm-Up including a bit of The Trains Don't Run Here Anymore
  12. Kit Carson
  13. Mama Just Wants to Barrelhouse All Night Long

Label : True North

Release Year : 2009

Venues : The Iron Horse, Northampton, MA + Somerville Theatre, Boston, MA + Kulp Auditorium, Ithaca, NY + German House Theatre, Rochester, NY + Sellersville Theatre, Sellersville, PA + Tupelo Music Hall, Londonderry, NH + First Parrish Church, Portland, ME + Tumbledown Farm Barn, Brookfield, NH + Congress Center, Rouyn-Noranda, QC, Canada.

Recording Date : May 14 - 25, 2008

Review (AllMusic) : Bruce Cockburn has issued numerous live recordings, and thus far all of them have been band offerings during the various periods of his 40-plus-year career. While the acoustic element has always been a primary part of his stage persona, fans - and the merely curious - have never had access to an official live document of those proceedings, until now. This double-disc set is a generous offering of 25 songs from all different stages of Cockburn's career, taped during May 2008. There were ten shows, and all of them have been sampled here, though the double-disc package has been edited to flow like a single performance in hopes of maintaining the flavor of a given concert. What's more, Cockburn and producer Colin Linden went a step further and added three tunes from the various soundchecks that took place before the gigs as a sort of encore. Along with Cockburn's stellar collection of songs, such as "World of Wonders," "Lovers in a Dangerous Time," "How I Spent My Fall Vacation," "Wondering Where the Lions Are," "If I Had a Rocket Launcher," and "Tie Me at the Crossroads," are beautiful instrumental interludes within tunes - and on the final disc as an intro to the soundcheck performances - that offer his mastery of the guitar as well. Among the final performances is a fine version of his early classic "Mama Just Wants to Barrelhouse All Night Long." While it's true that there is nothing new here, that doesn't diminish the sense of creativity and spontaneity Cockburn is capable of in concert, making this a deeply rewarding purchase for longtime fans.

Liner Notes : Over the years, several live CD's have come out with my name on them. For purely circumstantial reasons, they been recordings of me with bands I've had at the time. I've liked this, because each band has been unique and interesting, and it's felt good to have some of the performances preserved and made available to listeners who might not have heard them in person. Those CDs have been well received, but there have always been people requesting a solo live album. Since half of what I do is solo, this made sense. So here it is. Sorry it took so long. These performances are drawn from ten concerts recorded in May '08. We've made an effort to put them together as one show, in the hope of giving you the feeling of being present in the flesh. For the same reason, we chose not to apply too much polish. What you hear is what it was. We recorded all the sound checks as well as the shows. Out of these we captured songs and some random playing which turned out quite well but never ended up in the formal events. Bernie Finkelstein had the thought that we should create a section of the album to to accommodate some of these. I liked this idea, and so as well as the concert, you'll hear "the sound check." (Maybe someday we'll do a whole CD of sound check stuff.) I think that's all I need to tell you. Thanks are due to Bernie, Colin Linden, Jon Erickson, Steve Martin and Joshua Dick for making both the tour and the recording happen, and to all the promoters and venues involved, whose cooperation was crucial. A special thank you to Linda Manzer for her guitars. Hope you enjoy this little slice of the touring life!