the arkive

  • The Go-Betweens - Live On Snap
    • 1. Introduction
    2. Rock 'n' Roll Friend
    3. Dive for Your Memory
    4. Quiet Heart
    5. Clouds
    6. Love Goes On
    7. Introduction
    8. Bye Bye Pride
    9. Bow Down
    10. Right Here
    11. The Clarke Sisters
    12. I Just Get Caught Out
    13. Twin Layers of Lightning
    14. Cattle and Cane
    15. Apology Accepted

The Go-Betweens

Live On Snap

Beggars Banquet
Released 3 May 1999
BBL-2020

Based around songwriters Robert Forster and Grant McLennan, The Go-Betweens were perhaps the quintessential cult band of the '80s: they came from an exotic locale (Brisbane, Australia), moved to London in a sustained bid to make a career out of music, released album after album of music seemingly tailor-made for the radio in spite of their having little use for contemporary Top 40 musical/lyrical formulas, and earned considerable critical praise and a small but fervent international fan base. Although the Go-Betweens were absent throughout the '90s before re-forming in the new millennium, both of the band's songwriters embarked on respectable solo careers in the interim and, while rarely reaching the heights the Go-Betweens scaled, they still managed to uphold the group's legacy.

Live On Snap was initially released as a limited edition bonus disc with the Bellavista Terrace: Best Of The Go-Betweens CD.

Tracks 1 to 6 recorded for KCRW-FM, National Public Radio, Santa Monica, CA. on 10 November 1988.
Tracks 7 to 15 recorded for KCRW-FM, National Public Radio, Santa Monica, CA. on 11 September 1987.

From headphonenation.net:

Sometimes a band’s true greatness can’t be heard in the studio but rather in the flesh, though not necessarily during a concert with thousands of loud people surrounding you drunkenly requesting “Freebird”. Sometimes, a live set in a small intimate setting with only a few instruments brings out the best in a band. You can actually argue that the best bands played their best music during their more intimate performances (think Nirvana and MTV Unplugged in New York).

In the case of The Go-Betweens, one of Australia’s most beloved indie-pop bands of the 80s, their finest hour (in my opinion) isn’t in any of their studio albums but rather during two live sets at Santa Monica’s KCRW-FM radio station in 1987 and 88 which make up Live On Snap With Deirdre O’Donoghue.