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Hot Water Music

Live At The Hardback (1999)
No Idea Records

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Contributed by: Scott
(others by this writer | submit your own)

Published on April 13th 2001

[sigh] It's all that I didn't want in a live recording. Hot Water Music has, does, and always will impress me with the amount of energy and urgency they put into their songs. So, when I see that they are doing a live album, I almost wet myself. Then I get it. The songs -- They left out my favorite ["The Bitter End'], but crowd pleasers like Alachua, Manual, and Just Don't Say You Lost It are there. The crowd -- almost nonexistant, except for when they let the audience sing the lyrics. This ruined it for me, not having any extra noise. In between songs, there is some talking by the audience and by HWM, but for some odd reason, it is set extremely low under the music, so to hear it, you have to crank your stereo. I wanted to feel what the crowd feels, I wanted to hear them scream, to hear them yell, to hear them go wild for this fucking AWESOME band. I mean, there were over 500 people at the show (so says the liner notes), so where's the energy? Unless you're a fan, I would pass.
[taken from A different kind of greatness webzine]

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calvinrhodes1 (June 1, 2011)

Somehow this is what got me into HTM.

chickswithdicks (July 27, 2006)

easily one of the best live records i've heard.

up there with the bruce springsteen at the hammersmith in '75

Anonymous (May 11, 2002)

This was probably the best live recording ever from the Hardback (r.i.p.) but i have heard soundboard bootlegs that have more dynamism to it than this....but it is still a great record. As far as the almost non-existant crowd noise....they probably used an 8-track recorder and couldn't spare any of the mics.

Anonymous (October 10, 2001)

You're right about the audio. I don't get it either. You can barly even hear the band between songs. I think it's made up for in the damn good sound quality. And they included Better Sense, what else could you want?? thebeltway.org

exhaustra (October 8, 2001)

You sir, are a complete fool. This is by far one of the best live albums I own. Especially considering every song was taken from ONE show. And yes, there were at least 500 people there, myself being one (big time punk points, right?), so it's actually a minor miracle that the songs came out as well as they did. The Hardback felt crowded with 100 people, let alone 500...