Knowing the Maxwell as I do I am not suprised to find this is a very echoey audience tape. The hall is best known for Nigel Ogden entertaining us with his organ or for the student body sitting its exams. I missed this gig due to a very adjacent wedding. The sound is mostly a muddy wall of noise - mostly audible but not much fun to listen to. Pretty dire in fact.
So where were the gruppe at at this stage? Plays and chart success were beckoning in the following months and there is a sense that the central ethic of the band was being lost to a wider, more pluralistic schema. That I have reviewed this just after I listened to a monumental gig from 1982 probably is altering my stance but it all feels a little bit overblown and stadium rockish to me. Despite the excellence of "Bend Sinister" as an album the band does not seem to be able to recreate it here in this situation. It may be the recording but this does not work for me.
There are limited highlights - an intense and mesmerising "Riddler" is great in most part but tends to get to frisky when Wolstencrofts drums kick in. "LA" is fine but perhaps a little too fast. I think what is getting me is Simon is playing with the beat instead of against it which tends to make the band sound too rock in places.
The usually excellent "Lucifer" is a mud of noise and whilst there are elements of fallabilly about it does not translate. "Gut" is weird - the drums in the opening section are completely wrong and the main part of the song is just far too fast.
When it slows and Hanley is allowed to dictate the pace it works - but I have to say Pauls sound is getting a bit Geezer Butlerish on "Bournemouth Runner" which sounds amazingly like something from the first Black Sabbath album in the opening section but resolves into proper fallness in the verses. Not sure I am all that fond of the cheezy Hammond patch that Rogers and/or Schofield are/is playing either.
The rest is pretty forgettable due to the recording.
Avoid.