Live Music: Europe 2010 (CD)

The record is a document of the fantastic European tour from 2010. While 2003?s Volume 4 and the seven-month tour that followed that brilliant record featured the reunion of the entire original, iconic Joe Jackson Band from the late 70s, the follow-up, 2008?s Rain, was made with three of those four members: Jackson (vocals and keyboards), Graham Maby (bass/vocals) and Dave Houghton (drums/vocals). This is the band that appears on Live Music, which is made up of 12 tracks culled from board recordings from a variety of cities. Jackson approaches the live setting with a very different mindset than he does his studio recordings. For that reason, his tours are always must-see events as the songs take new shape and evolve over time. His writing leaves much room for re-interpretation and he derives great pleasure from bursting the boundaries and exploring new avenues and readings of his own work. The 2008/09 tours were no different, as it featured a piano-based trio without guitar. Jackson always enjoys the energy that an audience brings to the creative process and he often likes to authenticate the experience by releasing a live record as a historical document of his ideas. Live Music will be the sixth live record in his career. His first was the groundbreaking Big World in 1986, which was all new songs recorded in front of an audience. The second was Live 1980 - 1986, which was a double album featuring songs from every phase of his career up to that point. The third was 2000?s Summer in the City: Live in New York, which was also a trio record, though that one featured more recent alum Gary Burke on drums. Next was 2001?s Two Rainy Nights, released after the Night and Day II tour, and the most recent was 2004?s Afterlife, which documented the Volume 4 performances. Live Music features nine Jackson classics and three covers: The Beatles' quot;Girl,quot; David Bowie's quot;Scary Monstersquot; and Ian Dury's quot;Inbetweenies.quot; the tracks are heard as they were performed. There aren't any fixes, overdubs or corrections.