Thoughts on Live Revelations - Third Day

Third Day are a band that have been round since the early '90s, however really took off when they signed with Reunion Record in '97 and released their self titled album which has sold over 300,000 copies to date. From there the band has just grown, not only in America but internationally as well.

Live Revelations is the live recording of Third Day’s latest studio album Revelations which was released in July last year. The live CD is made up of nine tracks recorded from four different venues along the tour schedule; Atlanta, Houston, Nashville and Raleigh, and as a result the album just feels that it has been stuck together with applause and cheering put over the top to cover the breaks so that it flows.

Don’t misunderstand me, the quality of the recordings are solid, all nine tracks are recorded really well and on their own are fantastic. The highlights of the CD for me are Run to You (track one) and Revelation (track nine) which just sound awesome, Mac Powell’s voice is just stunningly captured. However out of the nine tracks that are included one third of the tracks could end the gig… Call My Name (track six) could end the album, until they pick it up again into Otherside (track seven) with something like an encore, which annoys me generally, encores are almost always pointless at gigs (onehundredhours had the right idea there) and on the CD it just sounds forced. Then the gig really does end on When Love Come To Town (track eight) which is a U2 cover, yet Revelation is just sticky taped on at the end, as I have said it is a great recording of a really good song, however why put it after the gig has ended?

My other main gripe about it, other than the track order is that the CD is just too short, nine tracks in total, which adds up to a total of 35 minutes. To cap it off one of these tracks is a U2 cover! Third Day didn’t produce a live version of Wherever You Are, their previous studio album, and only one track, Cry to Jesus (track 5) appears on the album, it would not of been difficult to add 5 or 6 minutes to this CD by including a couple of live recording from that CD, it wouldn’t of detracted from it.

As with Live Wire also included with the CD is a DVD which is presented as a documentary crossing between the onstage concert, and the backstage behind the scenes of the part of the tour which enables you to get to know more about the band and how they are almost as a family, yet this is something we have already seen on Live Wire…

So who should buy this CD? People who want to have live recordings of the tour, the production on the individual tracks is really well done and the live recording really does bring a new element that can never be captured in a studio recording. You also get a lot of Mac Powell introducing the songs, the introduction to Cry out to Jesus is really powerful as he describes what the message of the song is and what it means.

Third Day are a fantastic band, they have released some amazing material, Wire, Live Wire and Revelations all make it into my favourite CD list, this one, however, just doesn’t hit the mark with me.