Already a tried and tested road-hardened artist with a successful songwriting pedigree, for the many fortunate enough to see him play live,
this full and detailed remastered concert recording captures Egan in aspic two albums into his solo career and with his star firmly in the ascendancy. His hit song Magnet And Steel, with Stevie Nicks on vocals, climbing up the charts, Egan and his band hard-nosed the highway in support of his superb Lindsey Buckingham produced Not Shy long-player.
As with any prized artist stepping out on the boards, there’s a palpable crackle of expectation at the El Mocambo venue in downtown Toronto as the band are announced to a pumped-up audience. Such was the clamour following Egan, wherever he played, that as his band rev up the opening riff to Sweet Southern Breeze the rapport between audience and artist rises to a fever pitch.
A set crammed full of songs chronicling the carefree energy and emotions of post-teenage love, wishful thinking, freedom and pure escapism – I Wannit, When I Get My Wheels, Surfin’ & Drivin’, I’d Rather Have Fun, When I Find A Girlfriend and, in Hot Summer Nights, another timeless hit single, it’s a souped-up tune heavy wild ride seductively narrated by Egan’s lexicon of cool prose and on stage poise.
Even after a few spins, the power and immediacy of this remastered concert will still blow the listener away as much as it did the eager Egan punters on this memorable evening that stirs the soul and engages the brain’s pleasure receptors.
With songs from both Fundamental Roll and Not Shy intersecting with Annie McLoone’s Tonight that she sings with a not dissimilar quality of delivery to Stevie Nicks; the Nicks penned Sisters Of The Moon intended for Not Shy, and eventually surfacing on Egan’s Mad Dog album via Mac’s Tusk, is also outed here in all of its enchanting glory on this confident performance by an artist and band on a roll.
It’s easy to imagine that those who stepped inside to witness this vibed up live show then floated back out with collective Cheshire Cat grins at its conclusion, will no doubt want to revisit the raw elegance of this masterfully remastered recording as much as newer fans and the many who have and have not yet seen this contemporary of Gram Parsons, Jackson Browne, Tom Petty and Fleetwood Mac convey a golden era with his expert prose and tuned up ear for strong melody. And, as an encore, there’s a further two exquisite EPs of material that also contain brand new live recordings of his two big 70s hits to quicken the pulse and entrance the ears.
As definitively evidenced on this detailed redux recording, Egan and his troupe of players unquestionably prove to be the true Meaning of Live.
Walter Egan
The Meaning Of Live
(Red Steel Music)
9/10
By Paul Davies