Live from Nowhere: Volume Four

Description

Live from Nowhere: Volume Four is a double disc live album by the American alternative pop band Over the Rhine, independently released on the band own label Great Speckled Dog in 2009. The album was recorded December 19, 2008, Live at the Taft Theatre in Cincinnati, Ohio. Mixed by Paul Mahern at Echo Park Studio B in Bloomington, Indiana. This release documents the group’s 20th Anniversary Reunion Concert with Karin Bergqvist and Linford Detweiler joined by original bandmates Ric Hordinski and Brian Kelley, and as well featuring backing vocals by Julie Lee and Kim Taylor.

A good friend and I often debate who are the key members of a band. For example, he says without Jagger and Richards there can be no Rolling Stones but I insist Charlie Watts has to be included. For Over The Rhine we have to have Karin Bergqvist and Linford Detweiler but, at the start, they were joined by Ric Hordinski on guitar and Brian Kelley on drums. For some Rhinelanders this quartet defines the true OTR and, you know, they may just have a point. The original line-up released four albums in the years up to 1996 when Ric and Brian left the band and it took time for Karin and Linford to figure out what to do next. In December 2008 they celebrated 20 years in the music business by putting on two shows in their hometown of Cincinnati, dividing the two evenings into the first and second decade. For the first time since 1996 the four original members were together on the same stage and the double CD that resulted from the occasion gives an outstanding overview of the band’s first four albums (‘Til We Have Faces‘; ‘Patience‘; ‘Eve‘; and ‘Good Dog Bad Dog‘). We open with the very first track of the very first album, «Eyes Wide Open», and from there it just gets better and the chances are that whatever your favourite tracks from the first four albums they will be here. For me «How Does It Feel (To Be On My Mind)» sounds as good live as it did in the studio, «Like A Radio» will be one of my Desert Island discs, «Daddy Untwisted» rocks, and then we reach my personal live favourite, the 10-minute epic «If I’m Drownin» with Ric’s beautiful soloing leading up to Brian’s grand finale on the drums. Wow. If ever you caught the original OTR live – Greenbelt comes to mind – then this will bring back many happy memories and if you know only the later, acoustic material – good though it is – it’s time you travelled back and heard OTR rock. [Steven Whitehead, Cross Rhythms, May 2016]

After four volumes it is safe to say that these annual limited edition Live from Nowhere live highlights-of-the-year collections are a tradition. If that is the case, I’d like to do my bit to preserve it.

This year was the band’s twentieth anniversary, so they hired Cincinnati’s Taft theatre to spend a Friday night celebrating their first decade and the Saturday reliving their second. This collection is from the Friday night, and needs two discs to cover it all.

Even within the one night, the two discs each have a different emphasis. Disc one feels a little more solid, while the second is more varied. But bringing it together is Paul Mahern (producer of Ohio and Drunkard’s Prayer), who got this one sorted before he flew off to work with T-Bone Burnett.

As someone who – with the exception of one track on the Roaring Lambs compilation – came to OtR as recently as 2005, half of this material is new to me, the only songs that I have heard being the few that were also on their Discount Fireworks introduction CD. What strikes me is the amount of influence that original guitarist Ric Hordinski had on the band in their early days. Virtually the entire first disc comprises Dettweiler / Hordinski compositions, and his occasional extended solos are so much a part of the material that, were he not back to celebrate the decade, the feel of the whole disc would be very different.

He uses his effects pedals well, adding texture and variety, but never to show off his toys. What amuses me is the amount of style-theft that he employs – surely with great respect. You can’t go too far into «June» without hearing Dave Gilmour’s contribution to Dark Side of the Moon and expecting it to suddenly break into «Breathe (Reprise)». Elsewhere «A Gospel Number» is like Atlanta Rhythm Section’s «Spooky». (Mind you, Karin Bergquist joins in too, with a vocal line nicked straight from John Farnham’s «You’re The Voice» in «Paul and Virginia».)

You don’t reduce your first decade to just one evening and find weak songs making their way into the set, so there are plenty of cracking tracks here – «Eyes Wide Open» starts it off, «How Does it Feel» follows with its guitar and rap second part, then «Within Without» and the eerily beautiful «Like a Radio», which features some of the best guitar of the night extending the track to over seven minutes.

The second disc begins with more of a country edge, but rocks up again soon after. «If I’m Drowning» and «I Paint My Name» are both over seven minutes, due to some extensive guitar work from Hordinski. Tracks like «Latter Rain» still give me goosebumps from the classic melody and that little bit of magic that has made it an undroppable encore for so long. Hearing just a simple piano and vocals track sets us up, presumably, for Linford Detweiler to play noticeably more keyboards on the second night.

Problems? The bass is a bit out of tune on «I Painted My Name», but otherwise this is a very enjoyable romp through the music of this superb band’s first decade. With so many good tracks to choose from, the set list was never going to be a problem.

I am now desperate for someone to tell me is that the second night will become another 2-CD set called Live from Nowhere, Volume Five. Heaven knows it must have been a great night full of great songs. And as much as I want to preserve their tradition, I would be thrilled if they broke their only-one-release-a-year rule. [Derek Walker, The Phantom Tollbooth, 2009]

> Apple Music (https://music.apple.com/us/album/live-from-nowhere-vol-4/444969681)

2CD tracklist:

Disc One

1-01. Eyes Wide Open – 5:41
1-02. How Does It Feel (To Be On My Mind) – 3:56
1-03. HDIF Reprise – 2:42
1-04. Within Without – 4:37
1-05. Like A Radio – 7:36
1-06. Conjectures Of A Guilty Bystander – 4:58
1-07. June – 5:39
1-08. Circle Of Quiet – 4:02
1-09. Daddy Untwisted – 6:13

Disc Two

2-01. Paul And Virginia – 5:14
2-02. Poughkeepsie – 5:44
2-03. Faithfully Dangerous – 5:20
2-04. A Gospel Number – 4:48
2-05. All I Need Is Everything – 5:02
2-06. If I’m Drowning – 10:48
2-07. I Painted My Name – 7:03
2-08. Latter Days – 5:39