Flogging Molly – Alive Behind the Green Door

I’ve never been a big fan of live albums, mostly because I’d rather experience the real thing in person. There are only a couple of exceptions to this rule: Nine Inch Nails - Live: and All that Could Have Been, Depeche Mode – 101, Morphine – Bootleg: Detroit and Metallica – S&M (there are also a couple of live tracks on The Essential Iron Maiden that aren’t bad); but for the most part I don’t seek these out for my library. Alive Behind the Green Door, on the other hand, is a necessity as it was the only remaining piece from Flogging Molly’s discography I didn’t have.

All of that is beside the point as you probably don’t care. ANYWAY, Alive Behind the Green Door was recorded with virtually no budget and may as well be a bootleg. The quality is weak, there’s no one accurately running the sound board and you can’t escape the senseless babble of the crowd or clinking of glasses. However, what it wreaks of is all that makes Flogging Molly so great –captured in its purest form- raw, emotional, (no pun intended) alive and soaked in whiskey and sweat. The unpolished aural attack is a welcome distraction from the sheen that is glossed onto so many other sub-par live performances. I especially love the fact that Alive ... features some of the bands’ earliest incarnations of their later songs: “Laura” and “Between a Man and a Woman”. Suffice it to say, if you’ve never seen Flogging Molly live, this is an indicator of what you’ll expect when you finally do (and believe me, you will).

 

Captain Morgan
Big Wheel Music Contributor
 

 

 

 

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