I have been a huge Dead Can Dance fan since their first LP came out. I’ve lost count of how many times I have seen them live (We saw them twice in Lisbon in June this year). IIRC I left @Wayward in charge of my room at the 2013 or 2014 Scalford listening to this very LP while I went to the loo and grabbed a pint.
This LP is great although it documents a tour that I thought was weak compared to previous efforts. The live DVD that accompanies this has some of the most ludicrously pretentious and pompous interviews you’ll ever hear. They are soooo awful they are almost good.
I have a sneaking suspicion that this might appeal to our Strayan prog-botherer, although he might hate it on grounds that Lisa Gerrard is Strayan who lives in Moe in Victoria.
Andrew Claxton, who played keyboards and percussion on at least some of this, and who toured with Dead Can Dance, was my niece’s piano teacher. He still teaches https://www.oxfordschoolofmusic.org.uk/andrew.html.
I love this album- the vinyl pressing is absolutely outstanding. I also admire Dead Can Dance’s ability to dick about with their loyal fanbase. This tour was undertaken notionally to support the release of Into the Labyrinth.Rakim the opening track on this album wasn’t on that album. In fact it wasn’t on any of their albums and wasn’t played again by them for another year.
We saw every tour apart from the tour in support of the first LP. As the tours went on the setlists contained more and more songs that were never released. Fully half the songs I saw them play over 4 or 5 shows on the Aion tour never saw release.
Haven’t listened to Dead Can Dance in years, I’ve got their first two 4AD albums and saw them live quite a few times in the early 80’s, Brixton with Xmal Deutshland and The Box springs to mind.
I think it was 83 or 84, but I can’t remember. I think I’d lost interest by 86 but it could have been. It was at the old roller disco that later became The Fridge.