CAT STEVENS : MAJIKAT - EARTH TOUR 1976

 

  1. The Wind
  2. Moonshadow
  3. Where Do the Children Play
  4. Another Saturday Night
  5. Hard Headed Woman
  6. King of Trees
  7. C79
  8. Lady D'Arbanville
  9. Banapple gas
  10. Majik of Majiks
  11. Tuesday's Dead
  12. Oh Very Young
  13. How Can I Tell You
  14. The Hurt
  15. Sad Lisa
  16. Two Fine People
  17. Fill My Eyes
  18. Father & Son
  19. Peace Train

Label : Eagle Records

Venue : William & Mary College, Williamsburg, Virginia, USA

Recording Date : February 22, 1976

Release Year : 2005

Length : 69:16

Review (All Music) : During his popular heyday in the 1970s, Cat Stevens did not release a live album, so it was some surprise that, nearly 30 years later, a live recording turned up on both DVD and CD. The performance captures Stevens on his 1976 American tour, just past his commercial peak. (Numbers, the album he was promoting, broke a string of six consecutive Top Ten albums in the U.S. by peaking at number 13 in Billboard.) Supported by the same musicians who had played on his records, including guitarist Alun Davies and keyboard player Jean Roussel, he had a repertoire of hits and other favorites, and the audience can be heard cheering enthusiastically, not only for the chart singles, but also for tracks from albums like Mona Bone Jakon, Tea for the Tillerman, and Teaser and the Firecat. Stevens performs faithful versions of eight of the 11 hit singles he had scored in the U.S. up to this point (omitting "Morning Has Broken," "Sitting," and "Ready"), interspersing them with equally familiar songs such as "Where Do the Children Play," "Tuesday's Dead," and "Father & Son." ("How Can I Tell You," another audience favorite, is missing from the DVD version of this concert, while the DVD boasts performances of "Miles from Nowhere" and "Ruins" not found on the CD.) For most of the show, Stevens says practically nothing, but toward the end he becomes much more talkative, saying of "Sad Lisa" that he may have been writing about himself rather than the woman of the title; admitting that his recent single "Two Fine People" is musically a rewrite of his earlier hit "Wild World"; and revealing that he actually wrote "Peace Train" on a train, although he was thinking of Alfred Hitchcock (and presumably, of the film Strangers on a Train) at the time. More such revelations would have been welcome, but as it is the album constitutes an excellent Stevens best-of.