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Axel Rudi Pell | Knights Live

Die-hard Axel Rudi Pell fans will love this double live album, but anyone else might want to sleep on it first.
CD, SPV/Zomba

Tekst: Vinodh Lalta

Publicatiedatum: 16 november 2002

Knights Live is the fourteenth solo album by Axel Rudi Pell. For those who've never heard of the good man: Axel Rudi Pell has been active in the rock scene since the 1980s and is one of the most renowned German rock guitarists.

Knights Live is a double live album recorded at one of the shows on the "Shadow Tour." To be exact: the performance registered on this album is the one at Zeche, Bochum, in Germany. According to the sleeve information, that entire show is featured on this album, "complete and without overdubs."

Normally, this would be something to rejoice about, as this method of recording ordinarily results in an actual image of a live performance of the artist in question. But, in this case, some editing would've been more than welcome!

The first disc of Knights Live starts off properly with some up-tempo, melodic rock songs, like 'Edge of the World' and 'Nasty Reputation.' It's obvious that Axel Rudi Pell is a huge admirer of Ritchie Blackmore, as these tracks (and many of his others) are very reminiscent of Rainbow and similar bands from that era. However, during the 27-minute-long medley following these songs, my initial excitement about this album starts to turn to boredom.

Don't get me wrong: I have nothing against medleys. In fact, medleys can be a great solution for an artist with a huge discography, like Axel Rudi Pell, who would like to play as many of their hits as possible in the time span of one live show. But in this case, the medley consists of only three (fragments of) songs, and the rest of the time is wasted on a rather dull drum solo and sing-along. And worst of all, the entire medley is put to disc as a single track, so it's not even possible to skip the boring parts.

But disc two of Knights Live is what really puts me to sleep! Just do the math yourself: This CD has a playing length of well over 52 minutes, but only FIVE songs on it. Almost every track on this disc is either spun out incredibly by huge instrumental jams or contains another sing-along, keyboard solo, or whatever. Either way, it really demands a lot of patience from the listener.

This is quite a shame, as all of the tracks on Knights Live are decent, melodic, hard rock songs. But four songs in a row, each more than ten minutes long, is simply too much! They could've placed twice as many songs on this album, if only Mr. Pell had chosen to leave all the messing around out and had given us more for our money's worth.

Now, only the die-hard Axel Rudi Pell fans will love Knights Live, but anyone else might seriously want to think it over before buying this.

http://www.kindamuzik.net/recensie/axel-rudi-pell/knights-live/2056/
Meer Axel Rudi Pell op KindaMuzik: http://www.kindamuzik.net/artiest/axel-rudi-pell