This looks potentially really interesting. The 1978 Live At The Rainbow/Live in Germany/Live releases were all stunning (If you can find Live At The Rainbow it has most of the other 2 releases included as bonus tracks). Acadia's Spirit releases have been really uneven, so I'm crossing my fingers on this. I think they officially recorded a number of shows in this period. They were a trio with California, Cassidy & Larry Knight.

Amazon is currently showing this at $39.99. Based on the wholesale, I expect it will come down or their will be cheaper alternatives.



2008 three CD set from the late, great Randy California and Spirit containing all previously unreleased material, alternative and live versions of classic Spirit material recorded between 1977-79. Features 'Phoenix, (Land Of The Rising Sun)', 'Stone Free', 'Cold Rainy Night', '1984', 'In Just A Little While', 'Hollywood Dream' and many others.

Disc: 1
1. Phoenix, (Land of The Rising Sun)
2. Stone Free
3. Cold Rainy Night
4. Zandu
5. 1984
6. Rock and Roll Planet
7. Natures Way
8. These Are Words
9. Like A Rolling Stone
10. Animal Zoo
11. All Along The Watchtower
12. Downer
13. That's My Number

Disc: 2
1. Zandu
2. Fresh Garbage
3. Looking Down
4. Cold Rainy Night
5. Miss This Train
6. Darlin If
7. Same Old Naturally
8. Mr Skin
9. Its All The Same
10. I Got a Line on You
11. Walking The Dog
12. Morning Will Come
13. Day Tripper
14. I've Got Use To My Imagination
15. Wild Thing

Disc: 3
1. Rock and Roll Planet
2. Something New
3. Love Charged
4. Midnight Train
5. Leavin It Up to You
6. Bass Feuge
7. Zandu
8. In Just a Little While
9. Hollywood Dream
10. Same old Naturally
11. Hawaiian Skies
12. Brian Berry Blues
13. Peter Franklin
14. These Are Words
15. So Happy Now
16. Storm in the Night
17. We've Got a Lot To Learn
18. (When I See You In The) Morning Light
19. Open Up Your Heart (instrumental)
20. Livin In this World
21. 10,000 Days
22. Thinking Of You
23. Don't Give It All Away
24. Seems Like 1000 Years
25. Rainbow On The Water
26. Monkey See, Monkey Do

Amazon USA (Jul 15, 2008):
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0018BF19U/?tag=imwan-20

Amazon UK (May 26, 2008):
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0018BF19U/?tag=imwan-21

Are there any live Spirit recordings with Jay Ferguson on board? I think he is sorely missed in the latter day Spirit.

There is a boot of the 1984 reunion tour running around. I honestly couldn't tell if Ferguson was on it or not. If memory serves, he was on the album.

On the nights when Randy sung on key (which were a bit intermittent) I didn't miss Ferguson as they have pretty similar sounding voices. Some of the later Spirit bands (late 80's until Randy's death) were awfully sloppy though.

Bump ~ added cover art and tracklisting to the first post. (And thanks to Geff for letting me know he'd already posted about this release! )

Ordered mine today

I'm waiting to see if the Amazon 3rd party sellers really have it in stock - they're $10 lower.

Ordered from an Amazon 3rd party drop shipper named cybercitymedia. I'm normally wary of drop shippers, but they have 99% + fb which is unheard of on Amazom for a large drop shipper, so I hope/assume all will be ok.

As much as I love the original band, I think this is my favorite Spirit period. Much after this they got really sloppy, & between the breakup & this period the songwriting was mediocre.

I received an email from Amazon that it has been delayed to mid to late July

It's already out in Europe. I THINK the delay has to do with whoever Amazon's using to import it.

I've never figured out why Amazon doesn't just use themselves as their own importer, I'd think it would save them quite a bit. In the past, many of their listings showed them using Phantom/Super D; they're just about the highest priced import wholesaler I know of.

THANKS for the heads up on this one. Amazon only lists it as "1 disc" but fingers crossed what the 3rd party sellers have is the 3 CD import. I just ordered it...

Mine SHOULD be here any day now.........

Mine arrived yesterday. I've only played disc 1 (& read the liner notes) but wanted to mention if you are buying this to get "Live at The Rainbow/Live Spirit/Live in Germany - DON'T. This is basically an official bootleg. The author of the liner notes makes a somewhat veiled comment about master tapes that the Randy California estate actually has access to (& tapes it doesn't have access to). Since no major label released the 3 similar albums I mention above, not quite sure how that fits in, but it does explain why they're not here. I'd kind of assumed this was going to be built around those 3 similar releases & fleshed out.

Disc 1 & 2 are 2 track soundboard recordings in varying quality; disc 3 is said to be unreleased studio & demos also in varying quality. There are some interesting comments about the 3 officially released live albums that clear up some things for me. The author says that other then "Rockpalast Jam" all 3 releases are the same basic UK performances with differing overdubs for each release! & that the US & Germany editions are not the Florida recordings they were previously stated to be. I tend to believe that, having owned all 3.

Based on what I've heard so far, this is worth the $20 i spent, but i wouldn't be happy if I'd bought it at list price or was only a casual fan.

If you can get ahold of the Live At The Rainbow or Live In Germany cd's; or even the Live Spirit LP's at a reasonable price - DON'T HESITATE - GRAB 'EM!

The liner notes mention they plan a release of the original 2 hour Rainbow show from a soundboard cassette with no overdubs in the future & he prefers it to the official overdubbed releases. I will buy that, but based on various recordings I've heard from that tour, I prefer the overdubbed version; specifically the USA edition on First American (vinyl only); some of which is reprised on the Live At The Rainbow UK cd as bonus tracks.

I finished the first listen. It's not bad, especially about 1/2 of the live stuff. I've probably heard 2/3 of the 9 or 10 similar releases they've done since Randy's death. On the bright side, this is the best of the bunch, & as a collector I SHOULD be happy that they filled all 3 cd's to the brim.

As a listener, I think this would have made a really good single cd with judicious editing.

As I said above, if you're a huge fan get this, if not but you'd like to check out this period seek out one of the releases I mentioned above.

Geff's pretty much right on with his writeup. I just got my set today. Am listening to it now (1st disc). Sound quality-wise it is a pretty sterile/wimpy soundboard feed, probably just a straight mono or 2 channel feed from the board, not something "professionally" recorded via a multitrack and mixed later. Not worth getting for the average fan but for diehard SPIRIT/Randy fans like me it is well worth the money.

Also something weird to mention; I ordered this from an Amazon marketplace seller called "deep_discount_dvd_cd" who had the best price for it I could find on the net. Including http://www.deepdiscount.com where I had recently ordered some DVDs on sale. But it came today along with my deepdiscount DVD order! I never knew that they also sold their stuff on Amazon! And a few bucks cheaper via Amazon too. Who woulda thunk?

I got mine from Cyber City media, another Amazon 3rd party. They had the best price at the time, only complaint is from order to delivery was 15 days.

my CD1 is still spinning....sound quality drastically improves about 5 tracks in! (i haven't looked at the booklet, dunno the story behind what track/source is what)

They unfortunately don't give specifics for each track. Grr.

Quick update of my earlier review:

While I would still choose Live Spirit/Live At The Rainbow over this, the 2 live discs have been spending a lot of time in my cd players. While almost totally different then the original Spirit band, this version of the band really was great & while the sound quality does vary quite a bit, I'm really enjoying the 2 live discs.

As far as the studio cd goes, the only thing on there worth having are the demos of the new songs that were only released on Live Spirit (Rock & Roll Planet, These Are Words, Hollywood Dream; + maybe 1 or 2 more) & were never on a studio album. Most of the rest of disc 3 are flaky demos then weren't finished for a reason......

If disc 1 had featured all the versions of the previous Rainbow releases & then they had added the 2 live discs, this would have been the release of the year.

Amazon UK is still offering the Rainbow cd at 14.50 pounds (about $30 USD including shipping). That's actually cheaper then the Amazon US 3rd party sellers who are asking over $50.........
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_ss_m_h ... ow&x=0&y=0

This cd has all but 3 of the released tracks from the 3 different albums. It's missing Rockpalast Jam from Live In Germany (which is actually pretty dreadful), & the USA live album versions of Looking Down & Rock & Roll Planet (which I prefer to the UK versions, though they're similar).

If you're a Spirit fan & can afford the $30, I highly recommend buying live at the Rainbow before it goes out of print. Amazon.uk shows that they have 2 copies in stock. I have no idea if it's still being manufactured.