Sometimes we can type until our fingers are battered, bloodied stumps and still fail to come up with anything that’s a patch on that which some poor, harried blurb writer managed to spit out seconds before popping down the pub for a few pints. So what are Ten Years After all about? Take it away Blurbie...

“In the beginning God made the guitar. Then he created a new breed of guitar Gods to play it, and Alvin Lee of Ten Years After was the fastest guitar-slinger in the West.� Yes, those pints were well and truly earned.

Actually, that remarkable piece of literary mastery is not the only part of this disc which conjures up visions of Spinal Tap. Ten Years After formed in the ‘60s, went through more name changes than a small eastern European nation and more break-ups and regroupings since than a child’s beloved jigsaw puzzle. They also had the same line-up of guitar, bass, keys and drums, and pumped out a sort of electric blues rock hybrid that may sound eerily familiar to those previously unaccustomed with Alvin and his gang. All that’s missing is the wee Stonehenge - oh, but they did, in fact, release an album entitled Stonedhenge, so...

Brought to prominence in the classic film version of THAT late ’60s love-in, Woodstock, here Ten Years After appear in a reformation gig from 1983, at the famed and much-loved London venue The Marquee Club. Fairly staunchly adhering to the unwritten prog-rock rule that frowns upon any song that clocks in at less than five minutes, only seven tracks make up the just shy of one hour of concert time we’re presented with. They even manage to stretch their famed I’m Going Home out to almost 14 – with a little help from a few randomly inserted rock classics along the way.

Track listing:

The full frame footage presented here is almost 20 years old, and it certainly shows. All is a tad washed out and somewhat fuzzy and suffers from many of those live staple issues such as flaring and graininess, but to be positive it always could have been worse.

Two mixes are offered up, one in Dolby Digital 2.0 and one in Dolby Digital 5.1. It certainly isn’t a 5.1 mix to get particularly excited about though, with little in the way of surround usage and scarcely a whimper from the subwoofwoof. In fact, the 2.0 mix is strikingly similar and even attempts to turn it up to 11 in hopes of getting a bigger bottom out of it all won’t help you any.

Two extras have been added to give the package a little more appeal. First up is a rudimentary ‘follow the white rabbit’ type affair whereby pressing your remote’s ‘enter’ button when a little peace logo pops up at bottom right (man) brings up, in turn, an introduction to the disc and potted history of TYA from ‘VJ’ Tommy Vance, and then brief introductions to each song from the same rocky jockey. The other bonus is a brief segment from the ‘60s doco Groupies, with plenty of quite relaxed examples of the kind espousing the virtues of hangin’ around with the band, and plenty of guitar histrionics from Alvin thrown in for good measure.

If you like your music loose and often almost interminably long with more guitar solos than Jimi Hendrix managed in his tragically short lifetime, then this disc’s for you...