If you want a full album's worth of Mountain in concert, this is the one to have. It showcases the best of what it was that made Mountain as strong a concert attraction as a studio one in the original quartet's brief but memorable existence. "Long Red" (a track from Leslie West's solo exercise, "Mountain," of early 1969) leads off genially, but then the band gets down to serious business. West's "Waiting To Take You Away" pries open a hole for what would become in due course the power ballad and rounds it off with some pretty, spiky guitar playing. "Crossroader," as derivative a blues as can be found, gets a roaring take thanks to West's howling slide guitar and Felix Pappalardi's rumbling bass. The real treat, though, is an extended performance of "Nantucket Sleighride" which surges, ebbs, and pulls firmly into port with some of the band's loveliest and most ethereal playing.
This was the last of four albums from the original working quartet; the ultimate verdict has to be that, though they made some lovely music and at their best fired a rare lyricism into what became heavy metal music, Mountain never quite lived up to their promise in the end. They did go on, of course, in a slightly new configuration a couple of years after the original band broke up, but it was far from the same.
Track listing
1. "Long Red" (West/Pappalardi, Ventura/Landsberg) - 5:44
2. "Waiting to Take You Away" (West) - 4:40
3. "Crossroader" (Pappalardi, Collins) - 6:22
4. "Nantucket Sleighride" (Pappalardi, Collins) - 17:33
Credits
Leslie West - guitar, vocals
Felix Pappalardi - bass, vocals
Corky Laing - drums
Steve Knight - organ
Notes
Recorded at: Woodstock Festival, Bethel, New York, August 16, 1969 (Tracks 1-2)
Genre: Psychedelic Rock
Length: 34:28
Label: Island Records
Producer: Felix Pappalardi
© 1972
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