Van der Graaf Generator: Vital тікелей концерттік альбомы

Vital: Van der Graaf Live is the first live album by English progressive rock band Van der Graaf Generator. It was recorded 16 January 1978 at the Marquee Club in London and was released in July, one month after the band's 1978 break up. The album (on vinyl and, later, on CD) was credited under the abbreviated name Van der Graaf, like the previous year's The Quiet Zone/The Pleasure Dome (1977), and featured the same line up plus newcomer cellist/keyboardist Charles Dickie, who had officially joined the band in August 1977,

After this, a two night stint at the Marquee Club in London was scheduled for 15–16 January 1978, and David Jackson, who had left almost exactly one year before for financial, personal, and musical reasons, was invited to join Van der Graaf for these shows. "Urban" was a composition that was sometimes played in 1975 (without the instrumental section taken from "Killer"), but was the only then new song of which no studio version was recorded. The newly reformed Van der Graaf returned to Urban for the spring tour 1977, now with the added section from "Killer", then dropped the track again for the rest of the year, before it came back to the set in 1978. It is now the only song from Vital of which no studio version is known. The "Medley" is a combination of the "A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers" sections "Eyewitness" and "The Clot Thickens" with the 2nd part of "The Sleepwalkers". A studio version of this unique track was recorded for a Peel session in Oct 1977, and has been released on the VdGG BBC compilation After the Flood: At the BBC 1968 1977. The studio version of "Still Life" was on the eponymous 1976 album, a studio version of "Last Frame" was on The Quiet Zone/The Pleasure Dome, and studio versions of "Killer" and "Pioneers Over c" are the bookends of H to He, Who Am the Only One (1970). The studio version of "The Sleepwalkers" is on Godbluff (1975), and the studio version of "A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers" is on Pawn Hearts (1971).

All tracks are written by Peter Hammill except where indicated.

(*) Peter Hammill solo album.

The European release was a double LP on Charisma Records, ref'ed CVL0D101; the US release on double vinyl LP was on PVC Records, PVC 9901. The album was originally issued twice on CD in the UK (CVLCD101, 1989), first with the entire 2LP track listing on the cover and label, but only actually containing sides one and two, and then reissued restoring some of the songs from sides three and four (excluding "Sci Finance" and "Nadir's Big Chance") and correcting the cover and label. The entire album was only originally issued on CD in Japan (VJD 25023~24, 1989), and this had a booklet with incorrect lyrics (for instance "Sit down with the greats" on "Still Life" instead of the correct "Citadel reverberates"). In 2005, a remastered double CD version (CVLCDR101) restored the omitted tracks, as part of a Van der Graaf Generator reissue series from Virgin Records, who revived the Charisma Records imprint to commemorate the 2005 reunion album Present.

Vital has been reviewed twice on AllMusic. Bruce Eder's review covers the 2005 re release, which is called Vital [Bonus Tracks] despite the fact that the tracks in question are merely those deleted from the earlier CD pressing and were on the initial double LP. Eder writes that "the group presents the raw, up close, in your face approach that made Van Der Graaf Generator favorites of the punk bands despite the group's prog rock origins – between Hammill's loud, raspy vocals and his crunchy overamplified guitar, 'Still Life', 'Door', and 'Pioneers Over c' all sound almost like punk band performances." Both reviews give Vital a three star rating out of five. At the time, critical response was generally positive. A positive review appeared in Melody Maker that called VdGG "a band with enough enigma to keep Sherlock Holmes on the case for three volumes," and stated that "[Vital] indicates more fully than ever the inspired maelstrom of bitter vision and controlled desolate grandeur that Van der Graaf can create". John Gill, reviewing for Sounds said "Unashamedly betraying my partisan affections, 'Vital' really is," and that "[the album] captures the dark soul of VdG, laying past and present musical nightmares on to vinyl". A negative review published in NME by John Gray said " even endless ecstasy can be boring." While Gray praised Vital's revamp of "Pioneers over c" as sounding "well rehearsed and complete," favourably compared Nic Potter's bass sound to Jannick Top of Magma, and approved of some of the violin and cello work, he was critical of "torturous renditions of two of Hammill's best songs" ("Still Life", "Last Frame"), claimed the deliberately omitted lyrics in the medley of "A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers" and "Sleepwalkers" "rendered [them] ineffective", and responded to the "Nadir's Big Chance" lyric "jerks in leather bondage suits" by writing "what Hammill doesn't realize is that there's more bondage in his songs than there will ever be down the Kings Road."