Celtic Folklore Live is a 10 track vinyl album released as part of Record Store Day on Saturday 26th September 2020.
Celtic Folklore Live 1988 Track listing :
Side One – Hammersmith Odeon, London W6, England – 9th February 1988
Newtown Jericho
Knife Edge
Howling Wind
Presence Of Love
Absolute Reality
Side Two – Cabaret, San Jose, California – 17th March 1988
One Step Closer To Home
Marching On
The Stand
Sixty Eight Guns
Bound For Glory
Record Store Day Press release
The Alarm – Celtic Folklore Live LP was originally recorded back in 1988, during The Alarm’s Celtic Folklore Tour of the UK and USA, and with this brand new Record Store Day 2020 release of completely unreleased ‘live’ tracks, it effectively expands the original 1988 live album – ‘Electric Folklore Live’ into a double album.
None of the 10 live recordings on Celtic Folklore Live have ever been released before, and the album track listing is made up of a host of Alarm songs featured on the 1988 concert tour, but not released or selected for Electric Folklore Live.
Celtic Folklore Live features classic Alarm songs including Newtown Jericho and the US Top 40 single Presence Of Love both recorded at the legendary London venue Hammersmith Odeon. Side Two was cut from an incendiary 1988 live show in San Jose, California, and features a stunning version of The Alarm’s live classic One Step Closer To Home with a powerhouse vocal from Dave Sharp, plus early Alarm signature songs Marching On, The Stand and Sixty Eight Guns.
All of these recordings pre-date (by only a matter of weeks), the Boston, Massachusetts concert at the Wang Theatre Boch Center which created the content for Electric Folklore Live.
The brand new Celtic Folklore Live artwork design by Karl Parsons really enhances the connection between the two albums, using the original layout of Electric Folklore Live; but with the brand new and previously unseen photographs from the Celtic Folklore Tour, including the dramatic cover shot by US’ photographer Kelly Dougherty. (Source http://www.thealarm.com)
Record Store Day promotional video – Mike Peters at Wax & Beans Records, Bury, Lancashire, England with new live video for Newtown Jericho – video link
Reviews
A long-awaited sense of completion for the Electric Folklore Live Album
Despite there being a lack of time to distance the live recordings on Electric Folklore and the just-released second half, Celtic Folklore, it feels to me as if Celtic Folklore has some added depth or melancholy in its yet familiar rock sound – but perhaps that is because I’m only listening to the second half of this live collection 32 years after the first record was released! Listening to Celtic Folklore was not only a trip down memory lane to the glory days of The Alarm, but in the current climate it has a renewed message of hope, togetherness and a good old love of great music!! My personal favourite was the Celtic version of ‘One Step Closer to Home’ – always a fan-favourite live, but the energy could never be captured in the same way in the studio, which is why this version is so important for encapsulating this. It was also very special to hear side one from the Hammersmith Odeon show, as it just takes me back to my youth.
Pauline Redman. (With a little help from Hannah!)