Steppenwolf

398

5 Stars

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Definitely one of the finest of many good live albums from the early seventies, catching the live beast that was Steppenwolf at the peak of their undoubted powers.

All the hits are here, which in a way is kind of sad as this could easily be called “Greatest Hits Live” and it would be true. In one guise or another, Steppenwolf is still going today, although only lead vocalist John Kay is still flying under the Steppenwolf banner purely because he legally owns the name. However, no real new product has come out of the Steppenwolf pack for 50 years.

But that’s irrelevant to this album, a wonderful collection of great songs played by a group of musicians who were as tight as rugby’s front-row forwards.

There are only two cover songs in the set, which makes it even more of a mystery why things went quiet on the creative front, and both covers are songs that they turned into their own. Opener “Sookie, Sookie,” and perhaps the greatest anti-drug song ever recorded in Harry Axton’s “The Pusher,” where John Kay sings behind his sunglasses with venom and bile in his lyrics, making it more than clear what he thinks of these demons of the underworld.

All of the original songs are steeped in the turn of the decade: “Draft Resister” with rants against the draft; the Vietnam war “From Here To There Eventually;” and the American Government in general, “Don’t Step On The Grass Sam.”

Sensibly, the in-between banter from Kay has been left in place, and the interplay of keyboards and guitars is a forerunner of what was to come in the late seventies.

The song “Monster,” clocking in at over ten minutes, more than lives up to its name. This version wipes the floor of its studio-recorded counterpart from Steppenwolf’s previous album, showing what can happen to a song when it’s taken out onto the road and sharpened up.

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It is the last trio of songs that the crowd has obviously been waiting for, and in the hard rock stakes, the band doesn’t disappoint. “Magic Carpet Ride” is aptly titled and would be the jewel in the crown of most bands, but Steppenwolf can follow this with a sonic version of “The Pusher” and then push all the buttons with the song that gave birth to the term heavy metal “Born To Be Wild,” where Jerry Edmonton goes for it on the guitar, bringing the baying audience to a frenzy before closing the show.

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Both “The Pusher” and “Born To Be Wild” were immortalized in the 1969 cult motorbike movie, “Easy Rider.” The sights and sounds of Peter Fonda, Dennis Hooper, and Jack Nicholson driving across the screen to Steppenwolf are etched in anybody’s mind who was there for the sixties. “Steppenwolf Live” is not only a great album but a monument to its era.