Like I’d imagine a lot of her listeners did, I first got into Sia’s music after hearing “Breathe Me” used in the stunning final sequence of Six Feet Under, easily the best closing of any television series ever. Following this, I got her album, Colour the Small One, a wildly successful collection of emotional, beat driven songs. Sia got her start as the singer for Zero 7, and I think she surpassed her old band with her solo album. So, I wasn’t thrilled  this live collection features a large percentage of Zero 7 tracks.

However, it opens with a new studio track, “Pictures,” a fairly bright, track that stands up to most of what’s on Colour. From there, we segue into the live songs. Sia’s performances are great, and her musicians do a fantastic job of capturing the sound of the record, perhaps a bit too good. The point of a live record should be to experience the joy of hearing music created in the moment. Listening to a live album like Led Zeppelin’s How the West Was Won, you’ve got no idea where they’ll go next, as they do 20, 25 minute renditions of their songs. You can hear the joy of musical creation, and that’s not what we’re getting here.

Now, Sia’s music is more vocal centered, so it wouldn’t make sense to do the lengthy instrumental jams that so frequently make live albums unique. However, in being so tight, they essentially render this album superfluous. Her rendition of “Don’t Bring Me Down” is full of emotion, but is it significantly different from the recorded version? Not quite enough to justify buying this instead of her album itself. And, if you’ve already got the album, I don’t feel like this gives you that much more. If it wasn’t for the audience applause between tracks, there’s a lot of tracks where you wouldn’t even know this was a live performance.

That said, a lot of my lukewarm feeling to the album comes from the fact that I don’t think the Zero 7 tracks are as strong as her solo tracks. If you were primarily a Zero 7 fan, this might be more worthwhile. There’s some gorgeous keyboard work, and nice atmosphere on “Destiny.”

Ultimately, I think it would have been bolder to do a more ragged, improvisatory set. In sticking so close to the studio renditions of these songs, Sia renders the album essentially superfluous. If you like her stuff, you probably already have these songs, and if you don’t, this live album isn’t the best introduction. That said, I always love to hear “Breathe Me,” and the performance here is quite powerful. It’s certainly not a bad album by any means, I just don’t think it does enough unique to justify its existence.