Album of the Day

Living Proof, by IQ (1992): Back in 1985, while preparing to tour in support of their second album, The Wake, IQ appeared on a British TV show called Live From London. In an hour-long set, they ripped through tunes from the new album and Tales from the Lush Attic (plus the early favorite "It All Stops Here"). To the band's surprise, someone bootlegged the soundtrack from the show and released it on an LP. It became somewhat of a collector's item, so when the band started their own label back in the 1990s, they cleaned up the sound as best they could and released the show as Living Proof. The result is a neat little time capsule of the original IQ, but it suffers from a few things. For one, the sound is just barely better than bootleg quality. For another, Pete Nichols had a truly off night. But, while it wasn't their best performance, it is (to my knowledge) the only artifact of the band from this period. So for IQ fans, like me, it's a nice thing to have around.

As you know, in the DVD era, everything old is new again. The powers that be have been releasing the Live from London concerts on DVD since 2005 (the title link in this post actually goes to a review of the DVD, but its the same set and soundtrack as the album). In addition to IQ, other struggling neo-prog bands of the time make appearances, like Twelfth Night and Pallas. Having Netflixed a couple, the IQ one, filmed at the Camden Palace, comes off better than the Twelfth Night, which was recorded in the much more cramped (but more famous) Marquee Club. In addition, whoever filmed/edited the IQ show correctly figured that fans of a progressive rock band might have some interest what the keyboard player might be doing!