Bill Bruford’s Earthworks - Revel Without A Pause (Teatro Opera, Buenos Aires, 28th Sept 2002)

Visit Bill’s online store for exclusive and signed items: Welcome to this hot September 2002 evening in South America with Earthworks on very good form. ‘Revel Without a Pause’ is a track on the band’s final studio album ‘The Sound of Surprise’, recorded in London in 2000. The studio version of this song (not yet uploaded here) was recorded early in its life and had brushed its hair, adjusted its necktie and was ready for repeated public listening. But here in Buenos Aires, it’s an unscrubbed, over-caffeinated, one-off, highly interactive version of the piece, that has dirt under its finger-nails and takes no prisoners. Too many notes, probably, but the audience seemed to like it. Sometimes there are two or three live versions of a song on this channel, often quite different from one another: different people, tempos, interpretations, soloists, venues, shirts. I’ve always thought other renditions are worth including for critical comparison: is one better than another?