Live at the Rainbow [Live, Original recording remastered]

Live at the Rainbow features Focus at their creative and commercial peak. The combination of prog. rock/blues and jazz fusion is a wonder to behold. The material is drawn from the albums Moving Waves and Focus III and the live performances are inspired. This CD is an ideal introduction to the work of these giants of Dutch music. Make no mistake these guys know their stuff and can rock with the best of them. Just listen to the live version of their worldwide hit Hocus Pocus and be instantly converted to the cause. These latest CD issues are definately superior to past versions, it's just a pity that this CD lasts only 40 or so minutes. having said that ,if you can only afford one Focus album then this is the one!

This is the only live recording of Focus at their peak (or at least the only one that is legally available, which is the same thing in Amazon terms) and, given that they were one of the greatest live bands of the 1970s, it's one that should adorn the cd rack of every serious music fan.

Dutch band Focus burst on to the music scene in 1971 with their second album 'Moving Waves'. The double album (remember those?) 'Focus 3' followed in 1972 and 'Focus at the Rainbow' (recorded in May 1973) came next. Featuring their definitive line-up (Thijs van Leer - keyboards and flute; Jan Akkerman - guitar; Bert Ruiter - bass; Pierre van der Linden - drums) it contains live interpretations of 6 of the tracks from the two earlier albums, plus a madcap reprise of the already completely bonkers 'Hocus Pocus'.

Focus used the studio versions of their songs as a starting point for their concerts and prided themselves on never performing the same show twice. This improvisational ability was one of the many things that measured the distance between them and their contemporaries and it is evident in every note on this album. Equally prominent are the band's two other landmark features: their technical virtuosity and their compositional brilliance. Drawing heavily on their European musical heritage (van Leer studied composition at the prestigious Amsterdam Conservatoire and Akkerman was to release an album of medieval lute music the following year) they proceeded to throw into the mix everything else that grabbed their fancy - jazz, rock, blues, avant-garde, you name it - with results that are frequently astonishing and often sublime.

Opening track 'Focus 3' is a dark, moody scene-setter - and surely the missing theme to some 1970s spy flick - with van Leer's haunting four note refrain pierced by sudden flashes of light as Akkerman's guitar streaks across it like lightning. It segues into 'Answers? Questions! Questions? Answers!', a piece of sustained improvisation that comes direct from some smoky underground jazz-blues dive on the wrong side of the Amsterdam tracks. 'Focus 2' (titles weren't always van Leer's strongpoint) contains one of their sweetest melodies to date and features more of Akkerman's signature 'violining' technique as the king of high-speed pyrotechnics shows that the space between the notes is often as important as the notes themselves. An excerpt from 'Eruption' follows (sadly only an excerpt as the track took up the whole of side two of the original 'Moving Waves' album) and this is perhaps the primes inter pares stand-out piece: a multi-movement classical structure (courtesy of van Leer), unbelievably tight playing from Ruiter and van der Linden in the rhythmn section and Akkerman's astonishing, sublime playing on the closing movement 'Tommy', which single-handedly justifies not only the invention of the electric guitar but quite possibly the creation of life itself. A helter-skelter, high speed version of 'Hocus Pocus' is next (complete with yodelled band introductions) in which all four show off like mad things before a slightly thin version of the then current Top 5 hit 'Sylvia', which misses the studio double tracking of Akkerman's guitar and which is perhaps the only one of their songs that didn't sound better played live. Another mad sprint through the single version of 'Hocus Pocus' and that's your lot.

In retrospect, 'Focus at the Rainbow' marked the high water point of the band. Everything that they set out to accomplish musically - classical themes developed into rock, improvisational mood swings, superb melodies and harmonising - is documented here. Two further albums were to come ('Hamburger Concerto' in 1974 and 'Mother Focus' in 1975) but the magic was seeping away. Drummer Pierre van der Linden quit in 1974 and in early 1976 Jan Akkerman walked out on the eve of yet another sell-out UK tour (see reviews of Focus at the BBC). And that really was your lot.

So buy this album if you remember Focus from their glory days but also buy this album even if you've never heard of them, because the stage was their metier and talent like this never really goes out of fashion. And for under a tenner you'll be getting something that you'll be listening to for the rest of your life.

I remeber as a teenager watching the live broadcast of this concert on tv, which I recorded on an old reel-to-reel. I played it continuously untill the music was embeded in my sub-consious, to the extent that even now I can replay Jan Ackermans solo from 'Questions? Answers!...' almost note perfect. This particular solo is one of the most lyrical and exciting guitar solo's I have ever heard. What the average listener might not be aware of is that Ackerman had broken a string early on in the piece and rapidly restrings his guitar while Van Leer solo's. You can hear him re-tuning as the flute ends and the solo is about to begin which creates a sense of anticipation that is met with Ackerman playing at his best as the solo takes off. (Ackerman was to leave Focus and more or less disapear into obscurity, which is a shame given that he is such a fine player) Just Gibson Les Paul and amp, thats all he uses thruogh out the recording, occasionally using his little finger to tweek the volume control, giving a violin like effect (believe me! I watched him do it on the tv, no volume pedal in sight!)

Some years later, I like many of my peers picked up on Punk and New Wave. This great music brought to an end this curious decade which began with the death of Hendrix, the emergance of Proggresive Music and the musical rebelion of the late 70's. Howver, the British music media still to echo's the Punk mantra that 'all things proggressive are CRAP!' The reality is that those who embraced Punk and New Wave etc where the same people who listened to Focus and Yes and all the other Progressive bands. That was because this style of music was in itself an underground reaction against the mainstream and an attempt to produce new and inovative music.

Focus where as much a part of that innovation and rebellion as anyone else and produced music the like of which had not been heard before. OK, so Hocus Pocus was a bit iffy, and the album 'Mother Focus' bland and tediuos nonsence. But there is still a richness in their sound, and for me in Ackernmans playing that still stands the test of time. Perhaps at some point in the future their music will be intelligently reconcidered, along with the other bands of that era, and the days of 'prog bashing' be put aside in favour of proper musical analysis.