Goddo - Best Seat In The House (Lighve) (1981)

Hard-rocking Canuck outfit Goddo was a textbook example of that quintessential '70s rock aggregate known as the power trio. So it's no surprise that at the height of those powers, the group indulged in that most quintessential of '70s rock exercises: the double live album. Pleasantly, though, Lighve: Best Seat in the House -- which they didn't actually get around to recording until 1981 -- eschews the excesses often found on concert recordings. Although it had been a while since singer/bassist Greg Godovitz, guitarist Gino Scarpelli, and drummer Doug Inglis toiled in clubs, their show remained as lean and fiery as that of a bar band hustling for tips. Hitting the ground strutting with the clanging arena rocker "So Walk On," the boys bulldoze though an 18-song set of no-frills metal, rock, and blues, concentrating on crowd-pleasers like "Sweet Thing," "Cock On," and "Too Much Carousing." Ego massages are few; there are no 20-minute solos, no long-winded stories, no audience-participation epics. Godovitz straps on a six-string to thrash out some Chuck Berry-ish riffs before "Let That Lizard Loose"; Scarpelli dishes out some whammy bar abuse and trades fours with the rock-solid Inglis on "Pimpmobile." Otherwise, the overdub-free Lighve: Best Seat in the House offers 90 minutes of Goddo in its natural element. (At least, it did in the original LP form.) In the mid-'90s, an abridged CD version was issued, minus "Pimpmobile," "The Verdict's In," and, go figure, the anti-music biz screed "Sign on the Line."