"The River Sessions" first disc takes the listener back to the last gig of
Gun's highly successful Tour in support of their debut album "Taking on the World".
Gun had already played their hometown Glasgow earlier on the same Tour, but they chose to finish in Glasgow in February 1990. Luckily the show was recorded and now released on disc 15 years later as a strong testimonial to one of Scotland's strongest band.
Gun was a live band. Personally I experienced their high energetic show on the "Swagger" Tour, but this show is definitely something special. Clearly
Gun has been on the road for a long time, since the band sounds tight and also a little tired. However, the crowd is amazing and certainly gives the band energy back on the rousing version of their hit single
Better Days.
It is so obvious that this is a special show for the band as well and they play a stellar concert with a breathtaking version of
Taking on the World. This is truly the local heroes returning back from a Rock 'n' Roll crusade and conquering most of
Europe with their fantastic energetic live show.
Mark Rankin is the toastmaster of the party. Rankin's vocals are strong and overall what characterizes
Gun along with a band that play like a rocking beast. The Gizzi brothers are a solid backbone and even on the cover songs
Gun rock like veterans and show no weak signs of ONLY being an album debuting band.
Disc 2 is a true gem with some surprising and entertaining cover versions. Actually CD2 puts the rise and fall of
Gun in perspective. There are some amazing performances and three songs off the ill fated "0141 632 6326" album.
The CD starts with some goodies, a rocking version of David Bowie's
Suffragette City and T-Rex's classic song
Children of the Revolution, where
Gun maintains the nerve of the original. A very odd cover choice is
Rage Against the Machine's
Killing In The Name Of.
Gun deliver a boiling version of the hard-core kick ass tune. Common for all the covers is that the musicians play with such emotion and energy that they make every song rock.
The unplugged session from Radio Clyde 1997 is in contrast to the very rocking covers.
Gun play 3 tracks off their last studio album and while
Going Down sounds pretty good, both
Crazy You and
My Sweet Jane is a good example of why the record was disastrous. The piano is the most visible instrument and the guitar is rarely heard. This is nowhere the
Gun I - plus most of the fans - know and love
Steal Your Fire and
Welcome To The Real World is from a radio session in 1992. There is lots of energy in both versions. From the same session is
Better Days performed acoustic and actually
Better Days doesn't loose anything being stripped down.
Gun re-created the drive and energy performed on acoustic guitar.
Taking on the World is Disc 2's highlight. Mark Rankin's power organ is accompanied by acoustic guitar only. The sparse arrangement ironically makes the song powerful. Rankin's voice is so strong and the song is a timeless classic
Overall "The River Sessions" praise the memory of
Gun. There was something magical to the band with Rankin's eminent voice and the powerful Gizzi brothers backing him.
Gun released 3 splendid records and one horrible. However, we will always remember them as a great live band and "Taking on the World", "Gallus" and "Swagger" still enjoys lots of playing time on my stereo. "The River Sessions" is a very welcomed quality release to the
Gun catalogue.
Written by
Michael Saturday, November 19, 2005
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