Live At The Curran Theater (Remastered)

Albumbeschreibung

On November 19, 1961, Bruce gave a three-hour-and-seven-minute performance at the Curran Theater in San Francisco. Taped and edited down to a still-imposing two hours and 26 minutes, it was issued as a three-LP set in 1971 and as a two-CD set (lengthy original liner notes by Ralph Gleason intact) in 1999. In the context of Bruce's career, this was an important document, as he had just suffered the first of his obscenity busts (in Philadelphia and San Francisco) in October 1961, and was starting to work commentary on them into his shows. It could be argued that those not born when this was recorded, not having lived through the era, and thus not having experienced Bruce's groundbreaking ethos directly might be unqualified to judge the merits of this recording and go against the party line that has canonized his achievements. Nonetheless, it will be put forth here that on an artistic level, this endurance test is not especially funny or enlightening. Bruce was getting into stream-of-consciousness leaps from subject to subject, and his extensive monologues on Live at the Curran Theater are not engaging, without the visuals at any rate; it's often like cutting in on the middle of a conversation without knowing entirely what's going on. Lenny goes on and on about his arrests, the hypocrisy of American attitudes toward sex and vice, and government corruption, and while no doubt it was a revelation to hear these subjects discussed at all in the early '60s, his insights are kind of tame and obvious now.
© Richie Unterberger /TiVo