Label: UMe Music
Release date: March 27, 2020
Production: Tesla
Album length: 66.09 min
Genre: Hard Rock
Rating: 10 / 10
If the eighties were thoroughly shaken up by the glam metal phenomenon, they also gave us a band that never got sucked into that vortex. Tesla “slipped away” from it and can boast a completely self-made brand of hard rock that’s nowhere near that scene. Not Guns N’ Roses, not Cinderella either, two other absolute hard rock detours from the second half of the eighties. But Tesla? Come on. They’ve been kicking around the scene since the end of 1981. Studio albums don’t exactly come easy to them, mind you. At the end of the eighties, after »The Great Radio Controversy«, they landed a big (commercial) hit, and the band cemented their position with an acoustic live document called »The Five Man Acoustical Jam«, released in 1990. Yep. Exactly 30 years ago. It became the Tesla record that climbed to number 12 on the Billboard best-selling albums chart, and to this day it’s still the best result of the band’s career.
Let’s fast-forward thirty years! At the start of last December, Tesla were roaming around Europe and swung by London, where they found themselves in the famous Abbey Road studio. Yep. The very place where The Beatles recorded their albums, among others. And the band used the occasion very cleverly: to indirectly mark 30 years since »The Five Man Acoustical Jam« by playing a brand-new acoustic show. Right there in the studio, and on top of that, they captured it on record too.
Have Tesla aged in the meantime? Of course they have, the years slip by quietly, but that’s a fact nobody escapes. At their shows, though, they radiate incredible liveliness and sparkle, as if they were still guys in their mid-twenties. That this moment is tied to the legendary live document from 30 years ago is announced right away by the opener Comin’ Atcha Live, which rolls along on a “lazy” boogie / blues rhythm and (as expected) spills over in the second half straight into The Greatful Dead classic Truckin’. Just like 30 years ago. Sure, the wine is more mature, the venue is different, and the select crowd who witnessed this gig was considerably smaller. There’s one more cover with a direct link to »The Five Man Acoustical Jam«. The incredibly well-pulled-off Signs, which originally belongs to the Canadians with the fittingly named The Five Man Electric Band, was played 30 years ago on that related document too. The band also tied this 30-year anniversary and the contents of their first official live document to The Beatles classic We Can Work It Out, which hits even harder in this fresh live rendition, 30 years later at Abbey Road studio. It’s one of the few tracks where Keith doesn’t “show off” vocally, and it brings an extremely neat contrast, not only to the material, but it proves that as a vocalist with that recognizable gravelly vocal aura, he’s still utterly captivating even without it. Needless to say, Keith caught an excellent vocal form on the day. Since his is a one-of-a-kind voice, “dressed” in acoustic pastels on top of that, his distinctiveness and charisma stand out all the more. The sound is incredibly solid, the performance coherent and tight, and the chemistry and telepathy between the guys is omnipresent again – it grabs you right away, and the atmosphere captured and unfolding here gave me goosebumps more than once while listening. The band shines in its precision and, no need to stress it, in its consistently excellent adaptations and solutions in the acoustic arrangements. The metallic sound of the guitars is phenomenally contrasted with the warmth of Brian Wheat’s thick, voluminous bass lines.
So. All three new songs (Tied To The Tracks, Forever Loving You, California Summer Song) from the band’s newest and, sadly, probably weakest effort to date, the album “Shock“, get dressed in acoustic veils, and thankfully they grow decisively in character and work really well alongside the rest of the repertoire that fans have long made their own. This time the special treats for all lovers of this unique hard rock outfit are the acoustic takes on Miles Away and Stir It Up from “Psychotic Supper” (1991). Into the Now always ignites at full blast. In every version. It caught fire on the band’s album of the same name in 2004, it caught fire on the “Twisted Wires & Acoustic Sessions” acoustic album from 2011, and with its megalomaniacal, distinctly dark riff it once again brings a superb contrast to the repertoire of this new acoustic document. Well, apparently they ran out of time to surprise us with a track from the somewhat unjustly overlooked, yet all-round very good classic Tesla album »Bust A Nut« (1994). And Love Song? Can’t be missing, and this time it isn’t. At the tail end of the show, of course. Hannon grabs an electric guitar at this point for a great solo seasoning and the closing electrified crescendo of this live document!
The performance of the rearranged Paradise brings the probable atmospheric peak of this album (Brian Wheat moves over to piano). The drama within this phenomenal version of the melancholic ballad vividly grips with its moods and builds an extreme, ravenously gripping tension. This time the version has a serious rival on the album in the otherwise excellent “Psychotic Supper” ballad Miles Away.
So! The memory of »The Five Man Acoustical Jam« lives on, and carried 30 years forward, it finds a mature reaffirmation in the band’s new collection of acoustically arranged goodies, »Five Man London Jam (Live at Abbey Road)«. Simple as that. It’s the band’s third “unplugged” album in total and fresh confirmation that Tesla are an incredibly distinctive and powerful outfit whenever the word “unplugged” lands at the center of any debate. Hard to find a real challenger. Even in 2020.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Track list:
01. Cumin’ Atcha Live / Truckin’
02. Tied To The Tracks
03. We Can Work It Out
04. Signs
05. What You Give
06. California Summer Song
07. Forever Loving You
08. Miles Away
09. Paradise
10. Call It What You Want
11. Stir It Up
12. Into The Now
13. Love Song
Lineup:
Jeff Keith – vocals
Frank Hannon – guitar
Dave Rude – guitar, backing vocals
Brian Wheat – bass, piano on track no. 9, backing vocals
Troy Luccketta – drums, percussion
