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***Being on tour is like the storyline of a moderately exciting adventure novel: stumbling from one bizarre situation to the next and after some predictable plot twists and a little luck, a happy ending is reached, in this case the successful entertainment of 300 to 3000 people by means of a gig. It's a ride in the fast lane and everything is amplified to the extreme-- junk food, sleep deprivation, raging hormones, reckless bus drivers, flat tires, border guards-- any little thing can spark the always improvised miracle machine of stage action. Even a band born in the studio realizes the magic of sound possibile from the stage, and any group with a great live show dreams of capturing that magic on tape. However, live albums are in a way absurd. Trying to package the spur-of-the-moment artist/audience dynamic may not be possible. So many live albums are like holiday photos-- pale two-dimensional documents of a once-enchanting moment. For that reason Mouse on Mars avoided releasing a live recordings for ten years. They left the documentation of their stage shows to bootleggers, secret archivists and fidelity resistant butterfly collectors. Apart from a limited seven-inch and some quietly-tolerated bootleg CDRs, the band had never released anything that hadn't been painstakingly assembled and galvanized in the studio. But now Live04-- highlights of extensive touring in 2004 culled from about 600 hours of live material-- makes clear as day why the band's gigs can be just as exciting and unpredictable as their records. The music of Mouse On Mars is constantly reinventing itself and this magical energy, benefiting from ten years of live performance, is especially evident when the band takes it to the stage. |
