OK, I'm a sucker for this band's later period, when they were loud & rambunctious, and turned their backs on the pretentious aspects of early 70's Progressive Rock. This is the best sounding, best filmed, and best edited Gentle Giant concert available to date. They do play a lot of their earlier, contrapuntal stuff (which should thrill their long-standing fan base), but they approach it more like The Yardbirds wailing out "Train Kept A-Rollin" than one might imagine. The tempos kick as the band works up a sweat, and gives us a glimpse of where Rock 'N Roll should have gone in the 80's. After the concert we're treated to 6 Gentle Giant "rock videos" : Interview, I Lost My Head and Give it Back - plus 3 others from "Giant For A Day". Until now, these were legendary films that had hardly seen the light of day.

There are 2 additional live videos from 1974 on disc 1: "Excerpts From Octopus" (from The Old Grey Whistle Test, April 1976, which is of good quality, though not quite up to par with the main concert footage), and some super-8, hand held footage from the "In A Glass House" era . The latter doesn't do the music justice, but the band is well-known these days (26 years after their demise) as an organization that will give the public their due money's worth, warts and all. If you're a fan, you'll probably enjoy this addition, as it can have you reminiscing about a time when it was cool to be freaky - before the real sickness and schlock set in to Rock 'N Roll. Also on the first disc: Two galleries of Gentle Giant still photos from guitarist Gary Green's private collection.

Disc 2 is the audio of the Golders Green concert footage and is, to my ears, an improvement upon the previously released CD form, "Gentle Giant In Concert". This was the band's 2nd genuine live album, posthumously released in the 90's , now out-of-print.

I suppose this set could be an embarrassment of riches for some, and a guilty pleasure for others. For me it's both: To regain my composure, and get over the compunction of enjoying it so thoroughly after the first sitting, I had merely to remember where I'd come from.