Free
Live

THE REVIEW

A roaring boom greets a random note, an almost intimidated "Hello" and one of the most famous riffs of the '70s. Thus begins the gritty and totally imperfect "Free Live," an album from 1971. The idea of a live album did not arise for commercial purposes, but was absolutely humanitarian: breaking up the band would have meant accelerating the slow decline of guitarist Paul Kossoff, whose dependencies were already firmly entrenched in the oblivion of hard drugs. It was only for this reason, then, that the two great personalities of the group, Rodgers and Fraser, recorded two more albums after the breakup that followed the release of Highway, the lowest point of their career in terms of sales. The two hotheads had already quarreled many, many times, and songwriting together could no longer recreate the magic that had produced some of the group's most beautiful and refined pearls.

This live album can be considered one of the most beautiful collections of Free, certainly from a spontaneous point of view. Many collections have indeed been released over the years, but none really manage to do justice to this great hard blues band, mainly because most of the tracks have been re-mixed, losing that sense of vintage that creates a mystical aura around the albums.

A handful of tracks characterize "Free Live." Almost on purpose, the album opens with one of the worst renditions of the epic "All Right Now" in the group's history. Kossoff is surely under the influence of some substance because often the simple but ingenious riff is out of tune, crackles, and disappears entirely. Even Paul Rodgers' voice is not at its best, and although the grit is there, the boy has accustomed us to much better (see the live at the Isle of Wight to believe it).

With the other songs, Free seems to recover, retracing the highest points of their career, although in general, the execution often turns out to be a bit slower compared to the originals, especially "I'm A Mover", "Ride On A Pony", and the cover "The Hunter", resulting less aggressive. A little gem is the rendition of "Be My Friend", poignant and emotional as never before, perfectly charged by Paul's voice, which recovers to the fullest, hoarse and sensual just right, and by the perfect intersection between Fraser's devilishness and Simon Kirke's very simple drumming. In short, compared to the track on Highway, this version is much better.

Kossoff is also in better shape with "Mr. Big", where the guitar solo is even longer than the bass one, which seems quite uninspired and thrown there haphazardly. The album closes with a previously unreleased song, "Get Where I Belong", another high point of the album: the acoustic guitar is a novelty (there are indeed few acoustic songs by Free), while special kudos go to Fraser and his magical touch alternated with fitting choruses, and to Paul Rodgers who daringly adds some piano chords at the end. The song is therefore a pleasant final surprise. If you want to listen to the album, I recommend getting the version containing the bonus tracks, as other songs from the same concert are included, such as "Woman", "Walk In My Shadow", and "Trouble On Double Time", as well as a more decent version of "All Right Now".

A final note goes to the original idea of the cover, a package directly sent to the listener, with the faces of the band members on the stamps: a brilliant idea... Shamelessly copied in the same year by the Italian prog group Raccomandata ricevuta Ritorno, but someone said that to imitate is to admit you admire someone, so it's okay.