On the back of this album the band toured extensively through the US and Europe, along with Japan, where the band’s song "Hiroshima Mon Amour" had become popular. This had led to the band deciding to record the concerts that they performed at the Nakano Sun Plaza in Tokyo on January 28 of 1984, with the intention to release a live recording to showcase what the band could do in a live setting. When they listened to the tapes on playback, Yngwie Malmsteen was particularly unhappy with the quality of the recordings and fought hard to prevent them being released as an album. He failed in his efforts, which just added to the list of grievances that he had been having with the band and in particular Graham Bonnet himself. The resulting album was then released less than three months after the concert had been played, and as a play on words of the name of the band was titled “Live Sentence”
The original release of the live album had nine tracks, four of which came from the band’s debut studio album. The double A-side single “Island in the Sun” which gained the band popularity in Japan because of the song “Hiroshima Mon Amour” attached to it has both songs on this album, and both do sound better here in the live environment than on their studio versions. Bonnet’s vocals especially on “Hiroshima on Amour” are fantastic and showcase what a terrific voice he does have. The old man youth anthem of “Too Young to Die, Too Drunk to Live” (or perhaps it’s just a Bonnet autobiographical song) opens up the album here and gets the energy flowing from the outset. And the final of those four tracks is “Kree Nakoorie” which opens up side two of the album, and again translates well to the live environment.
This left more than half of the album filled with songs that weren’t by the band themselves, which seems strange even in an environment where with only one studio album having been released it would have necessitated bringing in songs from the outside. “Night Games” came from Bonnet’s third solo album, released after his short stint with Rainbow. This single had reached number six in the UK on its release, so acts as a track that some fans at least would have recognised. Speaking of Rainbow, two of the songs from Bonnet’s album with that band are also featured here, the two singles released from that band’s “Down to Earth” album “Since You Been Gone” and “All Night Long”. One assumes this would have appeased Malmsteen as well as he was such a Ritchie Blackmore fan, and listening to him playing guitar on both these tracks you can tell he is ecstatic at the prospect. The other two tracks are down to Malmsteen himself, soloing on a track simply called “Coming Bach” which has a popular and well known tune from the famous composer, and “Evil Eye”, an instrumental song written by Yngwie here, that eventually also showed up on his debut studio album “Rising Force” later that year, and became one of his signature pieces.
The 2016 remastered edition of the album contains the whole setlist and the track list is restored to the concert running order, and includes other tracks from the debut album in “Big Foot” and “Suffer Me”, along with the brilliant Michael Schenker Group song “Desert Song” and another Rainbow song in “Lost in Hollywood”. If you were indeed to wish to buy the album, this would be the version to hunt down, as it also contains a DVD of the performance.
Throughout the album, the band sounds fine, but the dominating factors are Graham Bonnet’s vocals and Yngwie Malmsteen’s guitaring. Both are just amazing on every song, and it is unfortunate that the two of them couldn’t find a way to work together longer, as their combination is truly something worth listening to.
Having come across Alcatrazz at the end of the 1980’s, essentially through the names Graham Bonnet and Yngwie Malmsteen, I have always found them to be a band that has all the ability in the world, but for the most part their albums fell short of what I expected, or at least what I was hoping for. Let’s face it, both characters named here have been known for their volatile natures, and neither can seem to hold a place down in a band for longer than one or two albums at most. In this case Yngwie lasted one, before striking out on his own with his Rising Force solo project, where he still seems to be unable to retain a solid band around himself, but at least he is in charge of the hiring and firing. Bonnet’s previous history and litany of bands is well known, and would continue beyond this album and band.
And yet, as I always say when it comes to a live album, it should be a highly rated album, as it contains all of the band’s best songs, in their best environment. And that certainly occurs here. And even if you are a little ambivalent about the band’s debut album, what you do get here is those songs energetically performed live, surrounded by a host of other great tracks from Bonnet’s other bands, and some Malmsteen composed acoustic songs where he showcases all of his guitaring talents.
While I have listened to this album in the past, it has never really been with wholehearted interest. It comes up next in the rotation, and I have shrugged my shoulders and let it run. So when it came around to review for this podcast, I put it on and thought, ‘well, if it isn’t very good, perhaps I’ll just skip it’. Well, that didn’t happen. Instead, I’ve had it running for over two weeks, at least once a day in that time period, and have found it most enjoyable. And yes, it is for Bonnet’s amazing vocals, and every magical Malmsteen guitaring moment. Both are hard to ignore, and both have been terrific. If you are a fan of either, then I would suggest you grab this and have a listen, if only to experience this era of the two main conspirators. If you aren’t a fan of these two... then I’m sure you’ve already decided that this podcast episode will suffice for you ever having to track the album down.
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