Ian Hunter unofficial CD: "Overnight Angels Live"

Sleeve and track listing

Rock 'n' Roll Circus #7.

Review

Overnight Angels was Ian's 1977 album (and also the name of his touring band). He promoted it with a series of gigs in the UK and Europe, but a planned USA tour was pulled when CBS refused to release the album. This CD captures the band onstage at a Swedish festival, towards the end of that tour. The source is an audience recording.

The set opens at a furious pace with Golden Opportunity, the its straight into One Of The Boys and then Overnight Angels, delivered as fast if not faster than on the album. Very much a heavy metal album, the pace and delivery both on vinyl and live was perhaps a response to punk.

Ian intersperses new material with Mott classics delivered perhaps faster than ever before (or since), the exception being Roll Away The Stone which is the "slow" version.

Guitarist Earl Slick twiddles out the notes at every opportunity, bassist Rob Rawlinson (Ian introduces him as "the corpse", so little did he move about on stage) is firm and businesslike while drummer Curly Smith "can't do a drum solo, so he'll do a harp solo" (at the start of Violence). It actually sounds quite reasonable here, which was not this reviewer's opinion earlier in the tour.

Sound quality throughout is reasonably good, with a well balanced sound and few if any peaks or dropouts. This is taken from one of the better-sounding Overnight Angels tapes, and seems to have undergone some further cleaning up to produce a quite acceptable sound.

If you liked the Overnight Angels album, or indeed any music delivered hard and fast (dare I say it, heavy metal?) then you'll like this album. Recommended.