Live At The Cambridge Folk Festival

Live at the Cambridge Folk Festival finds Robyn Hitchcock & the Egyptians at the height of their considerable powers as a trio, coming off as a more workaday version of the psychedelic-era Beatles. The group add subtle, often acoustic, variations to the songs, which come mainly from Perspex Island and Respect, their final two releases. It does not appear that the entire set is represented, so in the very least some sort of bonus material should've been added to pad the paltry 30-minute running time. More unforgivable is the clumsy, out-of-sequence editing of the songs, which hurts the flow of the disc. To make matters worse, the track listing and actual playing order differ significantly. In fact, Live at the Cambridge Folk Festival could have been as inspiring as the group's 1985 classic live album, Gotta Let This Hen Out, and a nice bookend to the band's career. Instead, it seems a hastily slapped together afterthought, albeit one with unbeatable music. ~ Brian Downing