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Saga - Detours

Artist: Saga
Title: Detours
Label: Steamhammer SPV 088-18002
Length(s): 59+60 minutes
Year(s) of release: 1998
Month of review: 04/1998

Line up

Michael Sadler - vocals
Jim Crichton - bass & bass keyboards
Ian Crichton - guitars
Jim Gilmour - keyboards and vocals
Steve Negus - drums
(After each song the number of the studio album and L denotes the song
being present on In Transit). There are no songs from Beginners Guide
and Wildest Dreams.)

Tracks

Disc 1:
1) In The Hall Of The Mountain King William 2.46 -
2) How Long 4.46 1 L
3) The Perfectionist 5.51 1
4) Careful Where You Step 4.32 3 L
5) Ice Nice 5.57 1
6) Don't Be Late 7.13 3 L
7) Interview 3.38 4
8) Wind Him Up 5.46 4 L
9) Welcome To The Zoo 4.18 12
10) Take A Chance 4.34 6
11) William's Walkabout 2.39 -
12) The Cross 4.12 11

Enhanced live video of Pitchman (.mov file) 5

Disc 2:
1) Scratching The Surface 5.26 5
2) On The Loose 4.55 L
3) The Security Of Illusion 5.00 9
4) I Walk With You 3.10 10
5) Time's Up 2.11 4
6) Heaven Can Wait 5.55 12
7) The Flyer 4.54 5
8) You're Not Alone 7.43 2,12 L
9) Framed 5.46
10) Humble Stance 12.02 1 L

Enhanced live video of The Intermission (.mov file) 5

Summary

Well this band needs no introduction. They recorded some great songs, but their first really good album (for me) is Generation 13 (the first and third are also okay). Don't Be Late is still one of my favourite tracks of all time. This live album contains seven of the nine songs also available on the In Transit live album, but the versions are can be quite a bit longer.

The music

opens with a rock version of In The Hall Of The Mountain King. This is no surprise since it seems any major progressive band does this. Admittedly they pull it of rather well with some nice guitar work. Then comes How Long from the first album (Humble Stance and Ice Nice are the other tracks from this first album). This is a rather typical live rendition of a Saga track with the not so impressive voice of Sadler, the very recognizable guitar of Ian Crichton, and rather varied drumming. The sound quality is certainly okay. At the end we hear some Happy Birthdaying since the 20th anniversary of Saga on stage is being celebrated this tour, the tour of Pleasure And The Pain, although very few of that last album can be found on this CD and also during the live concerts that were the source for it. Picking out a few of the more remarkable moments, there's a rather extensive keyboard solo (later accompanied with guitar) in Ice Nice and so typical for Saga, the song has this tendency bounce happily. Very good. Don't Be Late still has that mysterious air, but the singing along of the audience only leads to distraction. And the keyboard solo should have been louder. In the enthousiastic Interview I hear some faint Rush echoes. Again, there's that poppiness to Saga's music, a sort of musical joie de vivre, moving into another Saga classic Wind Him Up. This is a really great track. It is followed by the more straightforward heavy rock of Welcome To The Zoo of the Pleasure And The Pain album. Take A Chance, the only track from Behaviour is one of the weakest tracks on the album. On menacing The Cross Jim Gilmour adds his vocal two cents. His voice is very different, a bit husky, but also rather weak. Being from Gen 13 this is a great track with a remarkable keyboard riff and tasteful additions on the guitar and a fierce Negus.

The second disc opens with Scratching The Surface. Another track on which Gilmour sings. The drumming is a bit mechnical here and all in all not a very strong track, a little too poppy. After the evergreen On The Loose, The Security Of Illusion is one of the few recent songs. It is played here in an unplugged version. The vocals still lend the song its typical Saga sound. I Walk With You is also played in this fashion. After Time's Up, Heaven Can Wait also opens unplugged, but after a short while the band returns to the plugged version of Saga. Quite a nice track with which I was not yet familiar. It does remind me a bit of The Cross. The Flyer has been a single so it should certainly be played during an anniversary tour. Not a great track, but in the end it becomes a bit more adventurous. After some ole''s (wugh) we get a long version of You're Not Alone. After the not so interesting Framed (although the musical intermezzo is quite good) we get a twelve minute rendition of the classic Humble Stance. However, much of the time is taken up by a drum solo that starts after a short silence. This is a driven song with an extensive keyboard solo. After nine minutes or the keyboardist and the drummer return to play a little more of Peer Gynt with an added drum solo.

Sadler does not strike me as a particularly charismatic front man and his accidental wordings between the songs are generally quite cliche'.

I did look at the .mov files and it worked, but since my soundcard does not work under windows (yet), I couldn't hear anything. Still, under Windows it should be no problem to play them, just go to the multimedia player and load the .mov files from your CDrom player.

Conclusion

Marillion went as far to include Misplaced Childhood in its entirety on the Thieving Magpie live album (or Brave later on on Made Again) and one would not have heard me complain if the guys would have played the whole of Generation 13 right here. Of course, this was another tour and a "greatest hits" tour (it was the Pleasure And The Pain tour, but they played quite little from this album). With regards to their choice of songs I'm happy they chose to play many songs of the first and third album and I also do not mind them playing Wind Him Up and the others from Worlds Apart. All in all a very nice "compilation" of Saga material and one that can replace the shorter In Transit and with also one small eye open to newer material. Buy this and Generation 13 and you'll have most the worthwhile stuff in your collection. But then they should release a complete CD wih all the Chapters.
© Jurriaan Hage