30 Jahre Live

Album Review

Good grief, did we really need this?! What?! A three-disc, 30-year retrospective of live Guru Guru, as it was entering into its (shudder) fourth decade as a going concern. Drummer and spiritual leader Mani Neumeier is teamed with the "classic" Guru Guru lineup of Roland Schaeffer, bassist Peter Kuhmstedt, and guitarist Luigi Archetti at the 1998 Finkenbach Festival, looking over the band's then-30-year career and celebrating it with the familiar fractured funk and disco, playfully pretentious psychedelic insanity, and absurdist live skit show. Disc one presents the band jamming live on a set of songs (mostly from all vintages) — "Ooga Booga Special," "Jet Lag," and "Moshi Moshi" are all included on the nine-cut set — along with bonus track "Rastafari in Bayuwari." Disc two, called "Supersession," has Neumeier inviting up Damo Suzuki and the late Michael Karoli (Can), Ingo Bischof (Kraan), and Ax Genrich, Butze Fischer, Hans Reffert (former Guru Guru), and Japanese guitarist Uchihashi Kazuhisa. This set is a mess. Lots of guitar wanking, but that's about it. The third disc in this package is something to get excited about in that it comes from a 1971 fan tape of the band in Frankfurt. There are three tracks on it, all of them long jam tunes — "Bo Diddley," "Babycakewalk," and "Oxymoron." Despite its sonic inferiority to the more modern sets included here, the dynamics, spontaneity, and sheer craziness that this band was capable of in their true 1971 prime is pure excitement. 30 Jahre Live is for the hardcore faithful only.