When Rivers Meet

I saw When Rivers Meet on the ‘Breaker Of Chains’ tour and they were mighty. Now the Live CD has dropped, and I’m instantly drawn back to that magical night in Milton Keynes. On record, they are brilliant but Live, they are something else.

There are dozens of Live albums, every band tries to release one during their career. There are far fewer that actually capture the majesty of a great live performance – Thin Lizzy ‘Live & Dangerous’, Grateful Dead ‘Steal Your Face’, The Who ‘Live At Leeds’, Allman Brothers ‘Live At Fillmore East’ – but this one is up there with that exalted company.

Grace is a perfect frontperson. Big engaging smile, she works the crowd to a relative frenzy and that voice – she swoops and hollers, wails and entreats – a perfect foil to Aaron’s guitar playing. They are joined here by Adam Bowers on bass and trumpet & James Fox on drums laying down the drive and the melody in lockstep with Grace & Aaron.

The material is drawn from the three albums and there are a few ‘top’ tracks here. ‘Did I Break The Law’ has a huge slide riff, very dirty and tons of fuzz and Grace gets the crowd right with her on the catch line. Aaron breaks out the acoustic for ‘Bury My Body’ with gorgeous harmonies and hammerblow drums – utterly chilling. One of my favourites is ‘I Will Fight’ – loaded with atmosphere, the epitome of what makes WRM so popular.
‘Lost And Found’ features Arielle on an uproarious number and then there is ‘Breaker Of Chains’ itself – all darkness and ponderousness.

The album gets over what When Rivers Meet are all about and it is one of the live albums that should be featuring on ‘best of’ lists in the years to come.