C.O.D.E (Complete "Osaka" Definitive Edition)

Sound 9.5 Packaging 9.5 Performance 9.5 Video

Label: Seymour Records SR-030/31
Source: Festival Hall, Osaka, Japan - March 5th, 1976
Format: 2cd
Running time: 29.53/62.55
Sound / source: Audience
Packaging: standards 2cd case
Features
Video / source

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Review by SEVENTY$ROBBERY More articles by SEVENTY$ROBBERY

Track list

Disc 1: Tell Me Why, Mellow My Mind, After The Gold Rush, Too Far Gone, Only Love Can Break Your Heart, A Man Needs A Maid, No One Seems To Now, Heart Of Gold

Disc 2: Country Home, Don't Cry No Tears, Down By The River, Lotta Love, Like A Hurricane, The Losing End, Drive Back, Southern Man, Cinnamon Girl, Cortez The Killer

Bonus disc: Festival Hall, Osaka, Japan - March 4th 1976: Country Home, Don't Cry No Tears, Down By The River, Lotta Love, Like A Hurricane, The Losing End, Drive Back, Southern Man, Cinnamon Girl

The review

Great sounding release from one of the new batch of outstanding Japanese source tapes. Really beautiful quality with astonishing range and depth for a 1976 audience recording, comparable to many of today's highest standard tapes. If you've heard some of the recent Tarantura discs such as "Wet Show", this tape is from the same taper so recording quality is very similar with remarkable clarity and very little audience intrustion.

These were great performances too. You really can't go wrong with Neil in 1976 since he was at the top of his game: a beautiful solo acoustic set graces disc one, while disc two features a rockin' set backed by Crazy Horse.

Disc one looks short on paper, clocking in at just under half an hour, but it works to split these discs into 'acoustic' on disc one and 'electric' on disc two. Personally I prefer it this way than to force everything on disc one, have 2 songs from the main show on disc two and then clog up the remainder of the second disc with filler. The discs may be short on running time, but it works with the format of the show in this instance.

Initial releases came with a bonus CD-R from the March 4th show. I went for the standard 2cd edition, so can't really comment of whether you'd be interested in the third disc.

Packaging is lovely and you can tell that Seymour put more time and effort into their releases that they did intially. The glossy covers and sepia toned graphics and great cover photo make this look wonderful.

It's a keeper that you'd want to have in your Neil collection. Hopefully there's more Neil releases of this standard from Seymour in the future.