In 2006, it was pretty hard to deny Dallas Green aka: City and Colour. His stand alone alter ego, a side project away from his day job as guitarist and vocalist for Alexisonfire had a resounding success with his third solo effort Sometimes, which yielded two hit singles “Comin’ Home” and “Save Your Scissors”. Green also contributed to last summer’s hit “The Grace”, collaborating with Daniel Victor in Neverending White Lights. So Green is a busy man to be sure, and as he sights in his liner notes, perhaps a little too busy to do extensive touring with his City and Colour material. Hence, the creations of this combo live CD and DVD.



One of the interesting things I found while listening to Live is how much more I enjoyed the Green’s music; it had a much more genuine quality to it. Not that I’m saying that Green is a great big phoney, of course. What I mean to imply is that the album feels like I’m hearing the music in its pure form, the one perfect version of these songs as Plato might infer should he be reviewing this CD in my stead. These live cuts are very no frills, often only Green and his guitar although there is some occasional percussive or keyboard back-up. New material includes two previously unreleased songs called “Forgive Me” and “Confessions”, and a solo performance of the Alexisonfire tune “Happiness By the Kilowatt”. The album also includes alternative cuts of Green’s two top hits which give “Save Your Scissors” an especially haunting, more atmospheric feel.



The DVD is more or less the video documentation of the CD material as both were recorded during a Massey Hall show in Toronto. I don’t think the DVD works as well because there’s only so many ways you can shoot one guy singing on stage playing a guitar. After a while you start thinking idly, “Wow, that guy has a lot of guitars” rather than focusing on the music. Like the CD, the DVD contains bonus material from two other Green performances. The first is from the Malkin Bowl in Vancouver that looks a bit like a music video with its black & white photography. The second is the more interesting of the two, as it involves a Green duet at the Halifax Club with Ron Sexsmith and while it looks a bit like an amateur video, the music is as good as it gets.



Live is a great audio/video collection for anyone that’s a Dallas Green fan or anyone that likes good acoustic music. No matter the presentation the material itself is solid and I can easily say that it’s the next best thing to being there. Although being there wouldn’t be so bad either.