Consumer Guide Album

Al Green: Tokyo . . . Live! [Cream, 1981]
You can tell when Green is bad live because he doesn't sing, often deserting mike or even stage for emphasis, which would be hard to render on disc. So his in-concert double had to be pretty strong. Like Otis's Live in Europe, it captures a sensitive soul man at his toughest and most outgoing. But unlike Live in Europe it offers no ecstatic epiphanies to make up for the forced crescendos--"I Feel Good" is louder in this version but wilder on The Belle Album. And speaking of loud, somebody fucked up the drum mix. B+