A Perfect Circle; A Perfect Circle Live: Featuring Stone and Echo

November 26th, 2013
A Perfect Circle Live: Featuring Stone and Echo

The long awaited box-set, A Perfect Circle Live: Featuring Stone and Echo, is a great example of why more bands should release their live shows to the mass public. A Perfect Circle played only a handfull of dates during the tour of which they played each of their three albums in their respective entirety that so many of us didn’t get the chance to attend the shows, and these releases give those of us a chance to experience the live concert at our leasure. The dedication the band shows in playing each of their releases live over the course of this tour to sold out crowds proves that the APC can pull off something that few bands can. For those of us who didn’t get to witness these history making shows first hand, it’s the perfect way to enjoy the band’s music whenever the mood strikes.
For fans like myself who were fortunate enough to have seen the band live, it’s a great way to make a playlist of the tracks from whichever show’s respective setlist and relive the glory of that one night so long ago. The live tracks are such high quality and the intensity of the show show translates brilliantly to their music. These albums also give so many of us the chance to hear tracks that have never been played live or were only performed at a handfull of shows. For many of us, it’s the first time we’re hearing APC’s versions of Ashes To Ashes and Diary of a Love Song, the mashup of Love Song/Diary of a Madman, both of which were played early on in the band’s touring cycles.
Recorded live during the band’s 2010 series of three-night, full-album performances, the tracks on Trifecta are brilliantly produced. But don’t think that these tracks being played live are exact copies of what you’d hear on the studio albums. Tracks like Orestes, Over, 3 Libras, Gravity and The Outsider are given extended intros and a heavier edge to keep the attention of the fans focused on the evolution of the band’s music. The live versions, while similiar to their studio versions, are given an art rock and progressive edge. The Emotive live album also features the live rendition of By and Down, the first new track written by Keenan and Howerdell in nearly a decade.
Where Emotive, Mer De Noms and The Thirteeth Step give us a glimpse of each album as a live creation and seperate entity to their respective studio versions, Stone and Echo gives us the opportunity to experience APC’s full live set with selections from their entire catalogue as performed during the band’s 2011 North American tour and recorded at the historic Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado. Recruiting Matt McJunkins and Jeff Friedl from Billy Howerdel’s Ashes Divide and Maynard Keenan’s Puscifer, and bringing back James Iha, founding member of The Smashing Pumpkins, who’d toured with the band during the Thirteeth Step cycle, A Perfect Circle’s Trifecta collection is the perfect addition for fans already familiar with the band and a great way to introduce new fans to a band that was pivitol in inspiring so many of today’s musicians and continues to create the soundtrack to so many of our lives.

http://www.aperfectcircle.com