Music Review // Tommy Z "Tommy Z Is Live In Colombia"

  One of my favorite parts about the live music album is when you get one that is themed around the blues.  As is the case here with Tommy Z, there tends to be more of a free flow, there is more of an almost jam band-like sound going on that can be fun.  You can just feel the energy of the audience as all of the instruments go in for their solos and show off what they got.  This album is the closest thing you will get to being at this show in terms of audio.

When the first song starts it sets that tone right away.  It's heavily instrumental so you know what you're getting into.  The second song is called "My Eyes" and is about how much he likes pretty women.  Many of the songs have intros before them or just some form of talking between Tommy Z and the audience so that you can get these inside stories as to what the songs, such as "Tommy Guns", are about and how they came to be.  This is always the part that gets me on live albums as you may know the songs but you begin to memorize and recognize the bits in between you don't get on studio albums.

The song "Donde Esta La Fiesta" has a bit of the roadhouse blues sound to it and at times you can even hear some ZZ Top coming out in here but I feel like there is just a sound in here which you will come to know as Tommy Z.  If you take nothing else away from this live album, I hope it is the musicianship as each person who appears on here playing an instrument feels like they are at the peak of their craft.  

Having live albums felt special back in the day when it was harder to record them, but with modern technology I'm not sure why everyone isn't recording every show and then promoting it as such.  Being all the way in Colombia though does make this crowd feel like they're going that extra special mile and so this is not just going to become another live album amongst the existing live albums, but I feel like this is an instant and one those who love music as much as I do will be talking about forever.