Recorded in concert at the ‘old’ Marquee Club in London’s Wardour Street, Live And Let Live dates back to 1983, and the final two shows that Twelfth Night would perform with Geoff Mann. Besides having become a new dad, the charismatic singer had decided to forsake rock music for the life of a minister, which rendered the two sold-out November shows all the more emotional.
Indeed, keysman Rick Battersby admits to breaking down and weeping during the final number, Love Song. Financial restraints matched the era’s technological limits. Forty minutes of the shows were all they could afford to record, and also all that could fit on a vinyl LP. Fortuitous, then, that the engineers they’d engaged enjoyed the music so much that the tapes were allowed to roll.
This new Definitive Edition pieces together an entire show from both nights. Epic numbers such as 19-minute epic The Collector rub shoulders with a handful of shorter tunes, including the specially penned farewell instrumental The End Of The Endless Majority, a band in-joke about circumcision (or, rather, the lack thereof).
Sadly, Mann died of liver cancer in 1993, but this remaster does his memory proud.
