Cinderella Live at the Mohegan Sun
by Joe Mis
Staff Writer
Legendary ’80s/’90s hard rock band Cinderella is back together and getting ready for a 2010 assault on Europe. In preparation they’ve dug into the archives and released Live At The Mohegan Sun. Recorded way back in July of 2005 at the Mohegan Sun Casino Resort in Connecticut, USA, the original members of the band show that they can still bring it.
More like a “Best Of / Greatest Hits” show, they hit all the musical highlights of their four studio albums with style and energy. The original Cinderella line up of Tom Keifer (vocals, guitar), Eric Brittingham (bass), Jeff LaBar (guitar) and Fred Coury (drums) put on a good show during VH1’s “Rock Never Stops” tour in 2005.
Founded in Philadelphia in the early 1980s, and pretty much discovered by Jon Bon Jovi during the ’80s hair metal frenzy, Cinderella released their multi-million selling debut album Night Songs in 1986. This album gave the rock world some of its more memorable tracks, familiar standards to any old-school rock fan: “Shake Me”, “Nobody’s Fool” and “Somebody Save Me.” The band followed up with another widely successful and memorable album in 1988, Long Cold Winter. This three million plus seller gave the world “Gypsy Road” and “Don’t Know What You Got (‘Till It’s Gone).” Their other two releases, 1990’s Heartbreak Station and 1994’s Still Climbing, were more blues oriented than glam metal and did not sell quite as well.
Cinderella broke up in 1995 after Keifer suffered from throat problems which delayed Still Climbing, reunited in 1998 and started to tour on-and off in 2000. After a number of successful tours, Keifer blew out his vocal chords again, but now is supposed to be back in top form as the band prepares for the 2010 European tour.
The choice of concerts for this album was an odd one. It was a good show no doubt, but is more than four years old so there are some lingering doubts about the current condition of Tom Keifer’s voice. Using an old concert as a way of drumming up publicity for a new tour after a singer has major throat problems may make fans wonder.
Performance-wise, Live At The Mohegan Sun is good and the band is on top of their game. They give some rousing renditions of their old classics, the highlights being “Heartbreak Station”, “Nobody’s Fool” and the always raunchy “Shake Me.” If you are familiar with the band’s discography there really isn’t much to say about each track since there is no fresh material here. LATMS suffers from the inherent weaknesses of any four piece band playing live (although they added a keyboard player): weak backing vocals, rhythm guitars disappearing during guitar solos, keys trying to fill in for complex guitar lines.
All of these weaknesses could be overlooked if the sound was better. Unfortunately the production and engineering are disappointing. It seems that there is no bottom end. Keifer’s vocals are clear, as are the acoustic guitars, but you can’t hear much of the drums beyond the high snares and cymbals, and the bass guitar is almost not noticeable at all. The keyboards are mixed way too high and drown out the rhythm guitars on many occasions. Whether this is an artifact of four year old engineering or the simple possibility that the show was not recorded with the intention of releasing it as a live album remains to be determined, but at no point does Keifer mention to the crowd that they are being recorded (which usually whips the fans into a frenzy).
All in all, Live At The Mohegan Sun is a disappointment. The songs are great and the band in good form, but the less that stellar recording and lack of new material make this album one to ignore unless you are a hardcore Cinderella groupie. Cinderella is a talented quartet and obviously can write good songs, but they need to put out some new material to avoid finding themselves playing a long term gig in a Vegas lounge opposite Donny & Marie.
The band has released other live albums with pretty much the same set list, so instead of being a “must have” Live At The Mohegan Sun is more of a “been there, done that.”
Label: Frontiers Records
Web: http://www.cinderella.net
http://www.frontiers.it/default.aspx?tabid=92&AlbumID=4636&cond1=WHERE%20AlbumID=4636
Track Listing:
01 – Intro
02 – Night Songs
03 – The Last Mile
04 – Somebody Save Me
05 – Heartbreak Station
06 – Coming Home
07 – Shelter Me
08 – Nobody’s Fool
09 – Gypsy Road
10 – Don’t Know What You Got (‘Till It’s Gone)
11 – Shake Me
12 – Fallin’ Apart At The Seams (bonus track)
13 – Push Push (bonus track)
14 – Still Climbing (bonus track)
HRH Rating: 5.5/10