Live at the Padget Rooms, Penarth ~

My elder brother was one of those quick and lucky enough to get an original copy of this album it was just the three tracks then. The fact that it sold out within the first week, shot to No.1 in the Mid Price album chart and then it was gone. This made it much in demand and it became a bootleg classic. The bend themselves even started selling cassette bootleg copies of it at gigs. Eventually BGO Records got the licence to release the original album in 1997 and so  Live at the Padget Rooms Penarth was finally available now with Esoteric Records rising from the ashes of Electric Records the classic Man albums are available in expanded form. This album is expanded to six tracks; it now opens with the 24 minute version of Spunk Rock. This illustrates Man's slow burn building up of momentum and the album as a whole presents a much truer picture of why Man was such a powerful live band at the time and they should have been the "Next Big Thing" following this album but that never really happened despite an increased popularity for a short time this was never sustained. They did, however, go on to record some brilliant albums nsuch as Be Good to Yourself at Least Once a Day ~ Remastered plus bonus tracks-deluxe edition and  Back Into the Future ~ Remastered + Bonus Tracks , both now in expanded form and Esoteric have given them rather good packging too. The Live album that I had and the one that I considered as my Man album was B0016QCAJQ which is still a great album.This is a band that deserves to be remembered and this album is well worth checking out.I am slightly puzzled and disappointed that the introduction to Many Are Called has been left on the end of the previous track. , so to get the expected intro to thattrack I have the listen to 24 minutes of the previous track first, I think that if they wanted to separate the intro from the main track they should have made it an additional track between the two numbers. The approach here is inconsistant as Daughter of the Fireplace gets it's intro added on at the start of the track. These, however, are minor irritations, this is a wonderful album.I bought this from the excellent Caiman USA but they did drop a bit of a clanger. This Welsh band's live album, recorded in Wales and they stuck a "Made in England" sticker on it!

Originally issued as a limited edition lp which sold out in a week, this album was long unavailable and copies of the lp sold for up to £40. This at least tells you the album is popular among diehard fans of the band, but if you like exploratory twin guitar stuff this is a fascinating and, despite only three tracks, varied album. The opening Daughter Of The Fireplace is a basic rocker and, in all honesty, not one of guitarist Deke Leonard's best songs, but the performance they give it here is so scorching that it doesn't really matter - it's good enough to support some really fiery playing and singing, they really tear it up. This is followed by the best track, Many Are Called But Few Get Up, which the band very rarely failed to play to this day. This is one of their more "prog" oriented songs, with several changes of time signature and riff, but it's also one of the shortest and best versions and if you like this sort of thing it's very good indeed. Third and longest track H. Samuel, presumably named after the downmarket UK jewellery chain for no very good reason, is far more of an acquired taste. It's basically a jam, with elements of a piece on their third album discernible in the second half of the track. But it's also quite unlike anything else they did, with a decidedly spooky and psychedelic atmosphere that is pretty unique. Not for everyone but certainly not brainless noodling. One for connoisseurs I guess.NB: this album has now been reissued as a double CD containing the entire concert - 6 tracks - for a similar price, and as the extra material is worth having it makes this CD pretty redundant.

This was a favorite album of mine when I was a teenager (I had it in vinyl at the time of course, I'm now 64). I was actually disappointed at the additional tracks and the overall recording quality which to my ear was a poorer mix than the original release. One advantage of CD's is that you don't have to get up halfway through the listening experience and turn the record over but the order of play on this 2 CD set means that to enjoy the full content of the original album you have to change CD's. I'm a big fan of Man but there's a reason why some tracks didn't make the original release. Also the price, I see on a further browse that I could have got the original album mix along with 4 other Man albums for £4 less.

I bought the original 'low price, limited edition' album when it was first released when I was in my early teens and was completely freaked out (a 70s version of 'blown away') by it. It was, and still is in my opinion, one of the best 4 or 5 live albums of the 70s, despite 'H.Samuel Jam' being a little aimless and uninspiring. 'Many are Called..' and 'Daughter of the Fireplace' are classic versions of virtually unknown classic songs of their generation (outside of the select few who knew of the band). I first heard Man after buying a UA sampler called 'All Good Clean Fun' which featured the studio version of 'Daughter of the Fireplace', I then went on to buy all of their albums up to and including 'Do You Like It Here...'. The live versions of 'Many are Called..' and 'Daughter...' have to be heard to be believed, the improvised guitar driven intro's are inspired. This CD features additional songs from the gig which must have been difficult for the band/label to sit on all of these years. I still think whoever chose to include 'H.Samuel Jam' on the original album rather than 'Romain', 'Angel Easy' or 'Spunk Rock' (and yes I know there was a version released as part of the 'Greasy Truckers' album) must have been on acid or summat......Still sounds brill...