Live celebrates their transition from the majors to Vanguard Records with
Live at the Paradiso Amsterdam, their first live recording which is accompanied by their first live video release. The CD and DVD bear slightly different track lists -- the DVD has the full 17-song set while the CD is truncated by three songs ("Mirror Song," "They Stood Up for Love," and "Wings" were all sliced) but is graced by two OK new studio cuts, "Forever" and "Purifier" -- a situation that's bound to frustrate the hardcore fans who are the very audience for this release...and evidenced by the enthusiastic European crowd that sings along very, very loudly with every international hit
Live plays, there are still a lot of them out there. They're the audience for this live album, just as they're now the audience for any
Live album these days, as the band has fallen out of fashion with not even the endorsement of
Daughtry on 2006's American Idol giving the band an uptick on the charts. For some bands, this would be a death knell, but
Live always had a palpable sense of faith in their music that leads to legions of faithful fans, the ones who will appreciate how the band hasn't really changed over the years, only grown tighter and muscle-bound, knowing how to turn every arena rock trope without quite seeming like a cliché, at least to the devoted. All of this is on display on either incarnation of
Live at the Paradiso Amsterdam and while it will hardly win new fans, it will go a long way to explaining to the doubters why they still have fans almost 15 years after
Throwing Copper. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine