John Wetton Live at the Sun Plaza Tokyo 1999 Review by Gary Hill
This live album is pretty good. It suffers a bit in terms of sound quality. It sounds like it was recorded toward the back of the hall. There is a distant, echoey vibe to it. That said, it's only a little annoying. The sound is good enough to enjoy the set. This lands perhaps a bit more on the AOR side, but still has a lot of prog built into it.
This review is available in book format (hardcover and paperback) in Music Street Journal: 2017 Volume 1 at lulu.com/strangesound.
Track by Track Review
Disc: 1
The Circle of St. Giles
This electronic introduction is good.
The Last Thing on My Mind An AOR rocker, this is good. It's not a real standout, but it works reasonably well.
Sole Survivor Here they bring some serious metallic crunch to this Asia tune.
Battle Lines This makes good use of the contrast between mellower and more rocking movements. It's another solid live tune.
Book of Saturday This mellower King Crimson song gets a great live performance here.
Martin Orford's Solo This keyboard solo is quite pretty and compelling.
Emma This is a mellow ballad. I like it a lot. It's intricate and very evocative.
The Smile Has Left Your Eyes This Asia tune is deliver in a nice sort of mellow prog approach.
Hold Me Now
This balladic cut is strong. It has some great hooks. It's more piano based here.
The Night Watch Here we have another King Crimson song. It's a solid rendition.
Only Time Will Tell Here we get a strong live performance of the Asia classic. There are no surprises here, but rather just a fairly faithful version.
In the Dead of the Night This is a scorching hot rendition of the UK classic.
Disc: 2
Easy Money
This gets started with an extended instrumental focused on some seriously intricate acoustic guitar work. It eventually works out to an intriguing arrangement of the King Crimson classic.
After All This balladic cut has an AOR powered up chorus. It's a strong tune. It has a lot of prog built into some of the later sections.
Rendezvous 6:02 Here's a rendition of a classic from UK. They play it pretty faithfully early, but work into some cool prog work in the instrumental section.
Time Again
Here's a bit less obvious Asia tune. It's a smoking hot rocker, and this is a great live version of it.
Starless This performance of one of my favorite Crimson tunes is a strong one. They turn it almost metallic for a time later in the track. They really turn it into a powerhouse prog jam as they continue.
Heat of the Moment They turn in a solid live rendition of this Asia tune.
Don't Cry The audience claps along to this one. It seems to have a bit more of a rock and roll vibe than other versions of this Asia tune I've heard. It's a solid rendition, though.
