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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Great LP ruined as an edited CD, 5 Feb 2006
After such a long time Warrior Rock, undoubtedly one of the best live albums ever recorded, has been released on CD. So you think that maybe you'll get to hear all those massive tracks performed by stunning musicians of the calibre of Simon Phillips and Phil Spalding in pristine quality, free of vinyl crackle from your overplayed and much loved LP? Sadly no. What you get is the two LPs transfered to one disc, so Toyah's interraction with the audience, part of what gives the LP it's 'event' feel has gone. Okay, maybe that doesn't matter too much, as long as the edits don't creep into the music.. oh but they do. The aforementioned Simon Phillips, well known for his huge body of work and for the way he has been the powerhouse drummer to so many major players since (Jeff Beck, The Who, Mike Oldfield) played a wonderful tribal drum solo/intro to War Boys. This was never some self-indulgent moment, it began the build towards the final 15 minutes of the concert and cranked up the power and energy of the event. But it's gone on this CD. And Ieya, the massive track that closed the show is also edited(!) So this leaves you with the feeling that the CD is just a tick the box track presentation, with no attention paid to how the original live performance grew to a fever pitch. The perfect LP presentation has been needlessly truncated and makes this CD a massive and annoying disappointment. Let's hope for a double CD of the original before too much longer - we've been waiting long enough!
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Perfection., 9 Jun 2005
By A Customer
This live double album, I am reliably informed(by her Personal Assistant proudly showing off the confirmation!), has been voted THE BEST LIVE ALBUM OF ALL TIME. The true power and essence of Toyah is here for all to hear. The original recording has been transferred to cd, in the process it was re-edited, losing the Toyah snippets between tracks.....most noticeably Toyah's dedication of 'Angel & Me' to 'anyone who is mad in the audience,'. Anthemic songs that are still as fresh and as vibrant as ever, this album is timeless, the ethereal quality of one of our finest songstress's. Warrior Rock showcased a large proportion of The Changeling with the fan favourites too.raw power exudes from Toyah and the passion of the audience is palpable too. There is not a bum note or bad breath on the entire album....this lady rocks....even today. The songs are timeless. This is the culmination of everything Toyah learnt and then some, a performer without peer. This woman dominated and created the female role within today's pop market....this is the original exponent of 'girl power'. Toyah is that rare breed of musician....very nearly without equal in the recording field and dominates in a field of 2 for live performances......the other being The Mission.
You need to listen to this album....if you buy no other album this year..you need to buy this one!
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Toyahs best live album!, 10 Mar 2005
With the release of this album, Toyahs back-catalogue comes a little closer to completion in the CD format. I have to say, I've never been a fan of live albums (it's probably just a me thing) but this album is one exception. The album is brilliant, let me say that to begin with, just so no-one gets the idea I'm slagging it off. I do, however, have a few criticisms (glancing at the other review titles for this album, I see I'm not alone).
Already owning the album on vinyl, I was looking forward to owning this on CD as both my vinyl copies jump (in exactly the same place - a fault I found with my 3 copies of The Changeling but that's another story) so a clean, non-jumping copy of this album was expected and that's exactly what I got. However, prior to listening, I didn't do the maths which would have told me that the vinyl double album just wouldn't fit on a single CD.
So what we have here is just the music. Some of the talk that linked the songs and added to so much atmosphere as Toyah interacted with the audience is gone - most of it in fact. So whilst the rather naff 'this is a really depressing one' (is it? I quite liked that one!) intro to The Packt is blissfully absent, so is the great intro to I Want To Be Free and, most disappointingly, the audiences excited chanting of 'Toyah!' that closed the original album. However, running at over 79 minutes, there really isn't that much that could have been done save from releasing it on 2 CDs (now there's an idea!). As it stands, the music isn't affected, and you still get the energy of Toyah and her bands performance. Stylistically and in production terms this album towers over her previous live album, but that served a different perpose. Recorded early in her career, that was a gig. This is a Concert at the Hammersmith Odeon. This is Toyah at the peak of her popularity and you can tell.
Album highlights are the superior-than-the-studio-version Good Morning Universe (I'm sure I've said that about every other recording of that song!) Jungles Of Jupiter, Brave New World, obviously I Want To Be Free which lasts for twice as long as the single and has the audience singing along too, and the splendid closing track Ieya which outguns the first live recording and even the studio versions simply by being so HUGE! When I first heard this album on vinyl some 15 years ago, I was non-plussed. I still say live albums aren't my thing - I'd rather see it, that after all is surely the point of a concert so if I couldn't be there a video is the next best thing - but as live albums go, this one's won me over. Maybe it's because I can listen to (nearly) all of it in one go without flipping the disc, maybe it's because there are no jumps to remind me I'm only hearing it, or maybe it's because this just is a really good live album. If it had been released in it's entirity on 2 discs, you never know, I might have given it 5 stars!
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