The Crowns In My Living Room?....That's Livin'!
Crown Pimp | Monterey, Cal. USA | 06/26/2005
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Taken from one of their shows in Bonn Germany, this is a great representation of the band who was heralded "LA's best bar band" a few years back..Considering the thousands of groups there, this is no small feat. The songs here are a good blend of their first and second cd's, replete with vocalist and harp ace Jimmie Wood's between song banter, which is usually an intense mix of profanity and spirituality, delivered in his own inimitable style. And I'm so glad they left it all in. Jimmie's epic, articulate ravings are an essential ingredient to any Crowns concert. They could probably make a great cd just of them alone. But throw JJ Holiday and Billy Sullivan into the mix, and you have a rockin' blues machine that doesn't let up. I was puzzled by the crowd though, here in California, there's not the docile, deerintheheadlights immobility at their gigs that's portrayed by most of the Bonn audience. The sound is mixed properly, lots of different angles camera-wise and some amusing extras make for 2 rockin' hours of this fine collaboration. They always have different bass players and John Avila has great energy, fitting right in and adding some competent harmonies. This is truly one of the most creative groups out there, why they're not more well known is...par for the course I guess..These cats have impressive resume's..I won't go through all that.. The music stands on it's own. One of the gig posters says "Johnny Depp's favorite band". If that motivates you to buy this, fine. Pick this up, there's nothing out there like the Imperial Crowns.."