Live

This release is hardly the first time that Spock's Beard have provided a live album; in fact, they have provided several others, which is impressive when you consider that so many artists never offer any live albums at all. This one was released as both a two-CD set and a single DVD, although the same songs are heard on both the audio CD and DVD versions; there are no songs that are included on one but omitted from the other. Spock's Beard are in very good form on Live, which documents a 2007 show in Holland and offers a healthy combination of material from the 1990s and 2000s. Band songs from the 21st century are not neglected, but longtime fans will be glad to know that Spock's Beard perform a lot of 1990s favorites — including "The Water" and "Go the Way You Go" (which are united as a medley) as well as "In the Mouth of Madness" and "Crack the Big Sky." The interesting thing is that most fans of Spock's Beard are not old enough to have vivid memories of progressive rock's 1970s heyday; Spock's Beard is a Gen-X band that has a predominantly Gen-X and Gen-Y following but favors a sound that is firmly rooted in the baby boomer era. The performances on Live are not the least bit ironic; this is a band that got started in 1992 at the height of the Nirvana/Pearl Jam/grunge explosion but has appealed to a Gen-X/Gen-Y audience by taking its Yes/Genesis/ELP/King Crimson heritage quite seriously. Spock's Beard have a reputation for being one of the more consistent and reliable neo-prog bands of the 1990s and 2000s, and this live double-CD/DVD release — although not quite essential — does nothing to endanger that reputation.