VI Decades Live (This Is What We Do)
Rhino, 2018
REVIEW BY: Tom Haugen
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 07/02/2018
Chicago fans, this is the package you've been waiting for.
Four CDs and one DVD that span six decades, this collection includes plenty of obscure live material, a 24-page booklet with rare photos, and plenty of tunes from their early albums.
The first two discs are devoted entirely to Chicago's headlining show at the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970. Classic songs like “Beginnings,” “Ballet For A Girl In Buchannon” and the then-unreleased “Mother” are sure to please diehard Chicago connoisseurs.
The following two discs are an assortment of live songs from 1969-2014, recorded in Paris, Australia, D.C., Los Angeles and Las Vegas, among others. Disc Four contains the most current recordings, with “The Pull” and “In The Mood” from the 1994 Big Band Tour, and an acoustic version of “Look Away” from 2002. The most up-to-date the box set gets is “America,” recorded in 2014 in Delaware. Surprisingly, there’s little documented from the ’80s, despite their comeback, although deeper tracks from the ’80s like “Forever” are present.
The DVD consists of a rare live television spot on the German show Rockpalast in 1977, as well as the band's fan favorite performance of “What's This World Comin' To” from the 1973 ABC television special Chicago In The Rockies.
With the bulk of the material here recorded between 1969-1977, there's much included of Terry Kath's guitar work (Kath died in 1978). Though the band is active today, many fans consider the late ’60s and ’70s to be their golden era, and this collection solidifies that with plenty of fan favorites.
Like many live recordings, especially those captured on early technology, the sound quality isn’t always top notch here, but a collection like this is aimed for the unwavering fan, willing to overlook these flaws to catch a glimpse of their stars shining.