Advertisement

From the Vault: 1971

Reading Time:2 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP

The Allman Brothers Band

Advertisement

At Fillmore East

(Mercury Records)

For a band with only two modestly successful studio albums behind them, to put out a live double must have looked impossibly arrogant back in 1971.

Nevertheless, At Fillmore East broke the band internationally and remains their one indispensable recording, compulsive listening from the first electrifying bars of Statesboro Blues.

Advertisement

It also set a precedent, which continued throughout the 1970s, for sprawling 'in person' sets, of which Peter Frampton's Frampton Comes Alive was the biggest seller, while Emerson Lake and Palmer's Welcome Back My Friends to the Show That Never Ends and Yes' Yessongs vie with each other for the distinction of being the most self-indulgent.

At Fillmore East was long, and is even longer in the current 'deluxe edition', but unlike the majority of extended live recordings that followed it, it never flags.

Advertisement