Caught Live + 5 [Live]

Track Listings

1. Gypsy (Of a Strange and Distant Time)

2. Sunset

3. Dr. Livingstone, I Presume?

4. Never Comes the Day

5. Peak Hour

6. Tuesday Afternoon (Forever Afternoon)

7. Are You Sitting Comfortably?

8. Dream

9. Have You Heard, Pt. 1

10. Voyage

11. Have You Heard, Pt. 2

12. Nights in White Satin

13. Legend of a Mind

14. Ride My See-Saw

15. Gimme a Little Somethin' [Studio Track]

16. Please Think About It [Studio Track]

17. Long Summer Days [Studio Track]

18. King and Queen [Studio Track]

19. What Am I Doing Here? [Studio Track]

Editorial Reviews
Album Details
Features Five Extra Tracks. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

Tracks:

Gypsy (Of A Strange And Distant Time)
The Sunset
Dr. Livingstone, I Presume
Never Comes The Day
Peak Hour
Tuesday Afternoon
Are You Sitting Comfortably?
The Dream
Have You Heard (Pt. 1)
The Voyage
Have You Heard (Pt. 2)
Nights In White Satin
Legend Of A Mind
Ride My See-Saw
Gimme A Little Somethin'
Please Think About It
Long Summer Days
King And Queen
What Am I Doing Here?

Album Details

Features Five Extra Tracks.

Customer Reviews:

The "Classic 8" Album in the "Classic 7" Series? :).......2007-07-01

To start off, what a topnotch remastering job on this splendid release! :)

I was so glad when "Caught Live + 5" was finally released on CD, back in 1996! When I had a copy of the album on cassette, and compared it to the vinyl release, I was shocked at how much material was edited out of the cassette version ... I guess it was a matter of fitting the entire album onto the cassette, but thank goodness the CD featured the unedited full versions of the live songs, as heard on the vinyl release. I was also impressed that all of the material between the two original records fit on a single CD!

For the live portion of the album, "Gypsy" was a great way to open up the act, and it really rocked ... Both the mellotron and lead guitar really grab the listener's attention, here!

"The Sunset" sounded awesome on this release, and since the mellotron was really powerful, on this occasion, I call this the "To Our Children's Children's Children" rendition of the song! :) Notice that, on this track (and also on "The Dream"), Mike Pinder's voice is more audible on the left stereo channel, within the stereo field ... This reminded me of the stereo trick used on the earlier recordings of The Beatles (Ex: "Day Tripper"/"We Can Work It Out"), where the voices were offset to one of the stereo channels!

On "Dr. Livingstone, I Presume," you can hear some amusing screams, here and there, probably by John Lodge!

Both "Never Comes The Day" and "The Voyage" feature magnificent mellotron solos from Mike, near the end of each track. On the latter composition, the mellotron replaced the pianos from the original version, but the piece was played just as well, here!

The harmonies of John Lodge and Ray Thomas are great, as they sing the bridge to "Peak Hour" twice. Mike's mellotron solo is outstanding, once again.

The Moodies really rock well on both the bridge and ending of "Tuesday Afternoon!"

"Are You Sitting Comfortably?" features some well-done flute and mellotron solos.

Mike delivers Graeme Edge's poem, "The Dream," in an enthusiastic way, and I love the way he recreates the wailing sounds of the mellotron for the backdrop, sounding much like the original version!

On both parts of "Have You Heard," I liked the "gust of air" effects in-between the individual lines in the song, as well as the group effort of each of The Moodies chanting in their own way, in unison, near the end of Part Two.

The closing sequence of the live set was nice, featuring "Nights In White Satin" (More great harmonies from John and Ray on the "Oh, how I love you," parts), "Legend of a Mind" (An amusing mellotron track during the "Along the coast..." part of the song), and "Ride My See-Saw" (Featuring powerful drums from Graeme in the intro, as well as an amusing count-in, sounding more like "Fee... Fo... Fee... Fee," rather than "One... Two... Three... Four!").

To me, the "+5" tracks are just as enjoyable as any of the material from the "Classic 7" albums. :)

"Gimmie a Little Somethin'" sounds like it was recorded during the same recording sessions as "Dr. Livingstone, I Presume" or "House of Four Doors." There are some nice flute tracks in-between the verses, and I like the ascending notes on the piano and mellotron during the chorus ... Great stereo mix with excellent separation of the different instruments and vocals, too (Best experienced through headphones)!

Both "Please Think About It" and "Long Summer Days" feature wonderful harmonies and piano tracks.

"King and Queen" has a similar rhythm track to "Legend of a Mind," once the chorus kicks in. I enjoy this Justin Hayward track as much as "Voices In The Sky" and "The Actor" ... The acoustic guitars and mellotrons really stand out on this track, as well as Graeme's drumming on the chorus and during the fadeout!

"What Am I Doing Here?" features a lot of layered soaring mellotron tracks, making it sound like a selection from "Children's Children!" I like the piano and additional mellotron pieces during the fadeout, plus Graeme's thunderous drumming, especially near the end of the track, is outstanding!

To finish up, I enjoyed "Caught Live + 5" just as much as the "Classic 7" albums ... That's why I gave it the nickname "Classic 8" in my review title! The album was like an addition to the other amazing albums from the same time period. :) Thanks for reading! God Bless... :)

Worth it for four songs alone.......2007-06-01

NOTE: This is an edited version of my original.

This is a great collection of early MB's live recordings, tracks 1-14 that is. I thought all the live songs were fantastic, especially Lodge's 'Peak Hour' and 'Ride My See Saw'(awesome version!) and Pinder's 'Have You Heard/ The Voyage'. Hayward's "Nights" is a great one too, almost as good as the Isle of Wight performance. The live versions of these four fabulous songs alone are worth the price of the whole CD in my opinion.

On to a few of the 5 studio tracks. J. Lodge's 'Gimme a little somethin', the lead sung by Hayward, is a short but good tune. John's fab falsetto soars on the chorus parts. 'Please think about it' is one of the most "non-melancholy" tunes I've ever heard by Mike Pinder and I really, really liked it! Pinder's voice sounded so very good on this one. "Happier" tunes suit his vocals, I think. No, it's not THAT upbeat of a song, but it IS for a Pinder tune- lol! The harmonies are fantastic as well, reminds me of the 1950's style. Justin's 'Long Summer Days' is mostly sung by him in that somewhat lower register of his that I have always loved. Harmonies are great as well as the pretty melody. Hayward's 'What am I doing here" is a bittersweet poignant tale of lovers, heroes.... and death. Justin and mates' vocals and playing perfectly suited the tone of the song.

I had read a critique somehwere(maybe here?) that this album sounded like a recording of a Moody Blues rehearsal. I beg to differ with that charge most vehemently. If these live tracks of Prelude are a Moodies rehearsal, then this album REALLY speaks volumes as to just how wonderfully talented these men truly are. I'd love to "catch them live" any day of the week.

Caught "High" + 5.......2007-01-30

The Moodies have admitted are all very very high here LOL, but they give an incredible concert and make a lot of great music for 5 guys.
I still like them, but when I saw them last year 2005 it took 2 keys, 3 girl singers & 2 drummers with Justin, John and Graham and it still sounded weak, this band was excellent and very talented.
Yet, It took the original 5 Moodies and Melotron to pull off the real Moody Blues "sound" live.

Essential Moody Blues album, great for what it is.......2006-12-17

I find it a little hard to understand the negative reviews for this CD. The "classic" line up of Moody Blues is intact here: Hayward, Lodge, Pinder, Thomas, Edge. That's the line up that produced those great first seven albums. Hear those, and you'll realize that the band (and producer) could create terrific studio albums. But if you want more from that line up, you'll have to go for this disc, because Mike Pinder left the band between the seventh and eighth albums, and hasn't returned. Here the band plays a live set at the Royal Albert Hall on December 12 1969, and also gives you 5 studio tracks that were recorded during the creation of those first seven albums (but not included on those albums). One amazing thing here is that the 5 studio tracks are good, really good. They are finished songs, nothing wrong with them at all, other than they either didn't fit the theme of whatever studio album they happened to be doing, or there just wasn't enough space on a vinyl LP of about 45 minutes maximum length.

The other amazing thing is that the Moodies perform very well at their live show, and the recorded sound quality is quite impressive for the time. So why are my comments at odds with the comments of several others here? Probably because I didn't expect the raw live performance to sound like a polished studio album, and I didn't expect the sound quality of a 1969 live recording to be spectacular by modern standards. If you do have those expectations, sure you may be disappointed. But this is real music folks, performed live, no overdubs, one "take" only. The pace is a little fast on some of the songs, I'll agree with that. You get used to it though. Now how does this compare to the other live Moody CDs? The recorded sound quality on those other live CDs is better than here, and the performance on the other live CDs is more like what you hear on the studio recordings. But which of the official live recordings has the "best" performance?

Personally, I like this one the best. Because it's got Mike Pinder playing the keys/mellotron, just Mike - not a replacement keyboardist, or two keyboardists at once, no matter how good those multi-keyboardists might be. This performance just has just Graeme Edge playing the drums, not Graeme plus a second drummer - even as great the second drummer that they've had in recent years truly has been. This one has Ray Thomas on flute, the original, even as good (and attractive) as the woman who has recently played flute for the Moodies has been. You see, for me this is the best live Moodies CD because this is just "the five" that made it all happen, back at the time when it was happening. No string orchestra, as nice as that might sound. No back up singer/dancers. No second drummer, no extra keyboards, no additional musicians of any type - this is not a "Las Vegas Revue" type of performance. It's just the original five, live and raw, doing the best they can. When you hear this without the expectation of a flawless, crystalline, note for note, tempo for tempo reproduction of the studio albums, I think you'll greatly enjoy this. If not, well then you can always listen to those studio albums all over again. But give this a chance. At the price, for both the live concert and the five extra studio songs, this is a very good buy. Give it a little something, please think about it, this may provide you with some great listening for those long summer days (and winter ones too).

All in all...a great souvenier for 1969 Moodies fans.......2006-10-30

I will admit that the sound quality isn't the best...but anybody who was around in 1969 can agree that most all live recordings from this era sound about the same.

If you're a long time Moodies fan and never got to see them live....and if you never grabbed the vinyl version when first released in 1977...this would be a bargain for you....and a nice addition to your collection.

The recordings acoustics are similar to that of an arena...I believe it was recorded at the Royal Albert Hall...as that is the building pictured on the case. I personally like the audience and background noises....it gives a bit of realism and an audience vantage point to the listener.

The 5 bonus tracks were also released on the PRELUDE cd..along with 6 other unreleased tracks from the early days. Something else that all true devoted Moodies fans should be without.

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1. Gypsy (Of a Strange and Distant Time)
2. Sunset
3. Dr. Livingstone, I Presume?
4. Never Comes the Day
5. Peak Hour
6. Tuesday Afternoon (Forever Afternoon)
7. Are You Sitting Comfortably?
8. Dream
9. Have You Heard, Pt. 1
10. Voyage
11. Have You Heard, Pt. 2
12. Nights in White Satin
13. Legend of a Mind
14. Ride My See-Saw
15. Gimme a Little Somethin' [Studio Track]
16. Please Think About It [Studio Track]
17. Long Summer Days [Studio Track]
18. King and Queen [Studio Track]
19. What Am I Doing Here? [Studio Track]