Indiana-now-Chicago, Illinois jam band Umphrey’s McGee certainly knows its biggest strength: live performances. From its earliest days at South Bend at the campus of Notre Dame in the late '90s to breakthrough appearances at the Bonnaroo Festival in Tennessee in the early 2000s, this sextet have made a name for themselves as a must-see live band.
On Live At The Murat (SCI Fidelity), the band’s first “officially” licensed live album, Umphrey’s McGee brings it all home. Recorded over two nights at the Murat Egyptian Room in Indianapolis, Indiana from April 6-7, 2007 and produced by “honorary seventh member” Kevin Browning, it features 18 tracks from those shows and spreads them out over two separate discs that total over two hours in length.
These well-schooled musicians and former music majors played such live favorites as “Push The Pig,” “Nothing Too Fancy” and “In The Kitchen,” which on their 2004 CD Anchor Drops is four minutes long but on this album extended to a twenty-minute suite that is divided into acoustic/electric segments. The true highlight of this CD though is “Higgins,” a melting pot of musical genres that touches everything from reggae to Rush-like hard rock to blues and heavy metal. The speedy guitar glories of “Nothing Too Fancy” (from 2002’s excellent Local Band Does O.K. LP) is a close second.
The centerpiece—to this reviewer, anyway—of the seven-track long second disc is the eleven-minute long hard rock/fusion of “Push The Pig.” It’s head-boppin’ beats, Pink Floyd-ish synth rushes, double harmony vocals and melodic staccato guitar riffs and soulful solos make for a constantly compelling listen.
The Murat 2-CD live compilation is a sprawling display of UM’s top-level musicianship and tight arrangements (a la Steely Dan), but even at two hours and 12 minutes, the set could have used a few more of their popular tracks. And, the band could have cut down the jamming time on “In The Kitchen” by a few minutes, or at least made the musical interplay halfway through it a bit more interesting to follow.
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