Crass - Christ-The Bootleg

Belvedere Jehosophat - Monday, 3 January 2005 - Print Version

This was meant to be the first in a Top Ten Live CDs That I Purchased in 2004. Unfortunately, as you can see, I became inconsolably bored and stopped at one.

This concert was recorded live on 5/2/84 during Crass' last tour. I was but a sprat of four years when this gig took place.

The songs are taken from Crass' second through fifth albums with a nice mix of b-sides thrown in. (These b-sides were nicely chronicled on the Crass album Best Before... 1984.)

The sound quality of this recording is absolutely atrocious.
In fact, because the guitars sound like nothing more than distorted noise and because Crass were never terribly proficient at playing their instruments to begin with you sometimes can't tell what song it is until the "singing" starts.
The singing is often nothing more than out-of-tune ranting and shrieking.

Having said that, I would suggest that Christ-The Bootleg is absolutely essential for those looking for a document of the Crass live experience, partly because all Crass concerts probably sounded like this, and partly because of the energy.
The energy that is contained on this compact disc is palpable, and it is this same chaotic, messy, but passionate energy that is sadly missing from punk music these days.

Also, www.akpress.org is selling the CD for a mere $4.98US, and shipping is pretty cheap there too.

It looks like this:

Should this be in Live Music, Not So Live Music or Paradox of Sets??

Belvedere Jehosophat