After hearing "Lit Up" and "Check Your Head" for a while on the radio and falling in love with "For The Movies", I decided I'd import this CD from Japan since Buckcherry are, to put it simply, a good band, and I'd heard they were a great live band too.  The 13 tracks are split into two shows.  Although both do a good job of capturing Buckcherry's famous live spirit, both are incomplete, and have their own set of problems.

    The first 8 tracks were cloned from a Westwood One High Voltage disc (recorded @ The Viper Room, Los Angeles, CA; 25 May 1999).  Although the tracks are professionally mixed and mastered, they are edited because of the FCC guidelines (although, thankfully, the cusses aren't beeped out like on another Westwood One show I have; they're played backwards), and the commercials aren't cleanly edited out.  Joshua Todd does a teensy bit of chattering; he gives his thanks to the Viper Room crew before "Fastback 69" (the last song of the show? I doubt it's a complete set), sings "cocaine, cocaine" a bunch of times in the middle of "Lit Up", and does "a few na-na's" before "For The Movies".  Listening to the disc, I could feel the energy pulsing through my speakers, and it makes me wish I could see Buckcherry live next time they're on tour (compare this to other bands and concert discs, especially official ones, which sound exactly like the record, only with applause).  It is indeed reminiscent of the classic rock sound that Buckcherry uses as inspiration; raw but focused.

    The last 5 tracks are filler tracks (recorded in San Francisco, CA; 21 May 1999), but they come from a horrible source.  I don't mind the fact that it's an audience source, but there were many pops and gaps while playing (it's at it's worst in "Check Your Head", although they've all got their pretty bad spots).  In fact, it's a very good audience source; its pretty clear, no one is over-driven, and, were it not for the appalling number of pressing errors, it would've received a higher rating.  Todd is a bit chattier than the first show on the disc (the talk was probably edited out by Westwood One); one of my favorite things is when he says in a Cheech-and-Chong accent that San Francisco "is like a big pussy, waiting to be fucked".

    Two great shows, but quite a few problems.  You'd be better off seeing if you could trade for full sets with no problems, or if you must, picking up the original promos/singles with the tracks from The Viper Room (and hoping someone has a fixed, complete San Francisco set).