Live is interesting for hard-core fans... prolly not for all

There really aren't too many releases by rap artists of live albums. The only thing I really have to go off of are the three Roots albums/performances that I have (which sounds pretty crappy compared to what they are actually like in person). I was really pumped to see this album released because I already had four live tracks from 2Pac and I thought they were amazing. None of those tracks are on this album so I was hoping this would bring something new to the table.



These tracks were probably not meant to be released, so any lack of quality is probably not due to Death Row so much as the lack of preparation to record these at the time. I give props to Death Row for just releasing them and not worrying about it too much. At this point I would hope there would be some better Live recordings of Pac, but we should be happy to get anything. So, I'm primarily looking at the quality of the performances and save the Suge/death row ranting for another time.



The album starts off with a pretty big highlight. "Live Medely" is not just Pac rapping over the beats that a DJ puts on, instead there are live instruments! Although this is two songs on a really short track it sounds amazing. If anybody has the masters of this concert they have to release the entire thing in it's entirety.



The rest of the album has Pac rapping over a beat machine, in which they pretty much you are hear them select what tracks they are gonna do on stage. The Outlawz almost always accompany Pac and almost always unnecessarily do the typical hype man thing and finish every over line with Pac. With a lot of rap concerts they have to help the artist do this because they run out of breath, but Pac proves his talent never missing a single line or losing breath. This is great, but also makes it annoying when the Outlawz feel the need to support him anyway.



"Ambitionz Az A Ridah" comes off pretty well, especially as an intro song. "So Many Tears" is surprisingly short, as Pac almost seems bored with it requesting to change the song halfway through. Most songs are at least one verse short.

"Troublesome" is album highlight as Pac rips through all three verses, the Outlawz can't even keep up with him by the second verse and obviously out of breath when they do the chorus. "Hit Em Up" follows up with another solid performance.

"Tatoo Tears" & "Never Call You B*** Again" are the album highlights for me, as they present the original versions of the song. For the latter the quality actually seems better than the other songs and the Outlawz aren't as overbearing as on previous songs.

"Heatz of Men" is a mistake in general. Not only does it cut off "Tatoo Tears" but it starts at the end of "Hit Em Up", making the track order seem out of place, and then it's only 6 seconds of talking. "All About You" get butchered as the Outlawz sound pretty drunk.

The next tracks seem to be from a different show (I think the House of Blues or something). The quality for this performance defiantly is distracting, they decided to just play the actual song with vocals and all underneath and Pac tends to actually go faster than the track. It's nice to see KC & Jojo on "How Do You Want It" (even with the "Freakin' U" intro), but the performance ends up sounding pretty forgettable. The quality again sucks for "2 of Amerikaz Most", but it's great to see that both Pac & Snoop could actually duplicate their studio performances live. "California Love" sounds again like it's from another performance sounding like it was recorded from the audience. It really ends up almost worthless.



It's defiantly too short at less than 40 min of actual performance time. The liner notes really suck. Instead of giving us any actual information about the performances or songs, we get another letter about 2Pac's legacy and his greatness blah blah blah, we've heard it a thousand times. Of the 4 performances the last two defiantly lack in quality performances and the quality of the recordings as well. In the end, I'm really glad they released this material at all... when it comes to Pac's live performances I'm more happy with something as apposed to nothing. Sure they defiantly could have done better and there's defiantly more stuff out there.



Bottom Line: Although all of it is defiantly interesting for hard-core 2Pac fans to listen to, I'd say only half of the album is really worth listening to repeatedly.

No "All Eyez On Me" but great nonetheless

Pac at his best in this CD. Great production work and beats. Pac raw and hot. Love, man. Love.

Pretty Good but needs a DVD

This CD is aight but it wouldv'e been worth it to have a DVD of the concert then it would've gotten 5 stars