Spin Doctors - Songs from the Road (Live Album) (2015)

If you want the true measure of a band, listen to them playing live. Without the smoke and mirrors of the studio, some artists flourish while others fold. Now in 2015, 'Songs From The Road', captures a dynamite set from a band that has made it their business to blow off the roof. "We get up onstage and we turn it on," says Spin Doctors vocalist Chris Barron. "We play our hearts out." Stop the man on the street and he might tell you the Spin Doctors are the zillion-selling legends behind hits like 'Two Princes' and 'Little Miss Can't Be Wrong'. Ask a longer-term, harder-core fan, though, and they'll remind you that Chris Barron, Aaron Comess (drums), Eric Schenkman (guitar) and Mark White (bass) came up playing for their lives on the sharp-end of the New York blues circuit. "Those blues clubs were our bread and butter in the late-'80s," says Aaron, "and people loved that we stretched out and jammed out." The NYC scene took no prisoners. As such, when hysteria hit - around the time of 1991's Pocket Full Of Kryptonite album - the lineup were already a stingingly tight live draw. Over the next quarter-century, fashion moved on, but the Docs' talent for rocket-fuelling killer original songs onstage has only grown with age. And with 2013's restorative If The River Was Whiskey album giving their catalogue a blues-flavored adrenalin shot, there's never been a better time to catch them live. "I think a lot of people might come out and see us based on the hits," says Aaron. "But then they get there and they're like, 'Holy shit, these guys have a whole other thing that I didn't know about.' " Ruf's popular Songs For The Road live series has always been driven by the concept of capturing a band as they sound from the front row, and with this latest two-disc CD/DVD release, all the stops were duly pulled out in terms of production. Recorded live at the Harmonie club in Bonn, Germany, on October 17th, 2013, you can almost feel the gust of the speakers, the hot bounce of the crowd and the buzz crackle through the venue as much-loved studio material is twisted into bold new shapes. "Aaron, Eric and Chris are the most amazing improvisers I've ever played with in my life," says Mark. "It's almost like we're four jet fighters, and we've all got each other's backs." More than production values, though, Songs From The Road is about the songs with the Doctors chasing through a set list that runs the gamut of genre and vintage. Naturally, there's a healthy slug of Kryptonite-era material (alongside the aforementioned über-hits, look out for early fan favorites like What Time Is It? and Jimmy Olsen's Blues). But you'll also find the track listing rooted squarely in the here-and-now, with Whiskey cuts including Some Other Man Instead, About A Train, Scotch And Water Blues - plus the song that Chris deems the best he's ever written, Sweetest Portion. "Our tunes are not a drag to play live," notes Eric. "It feels seamless from the stage, like any of the new tunes can sit with any one of the Kryptonite songs. We can do any of them." So pull up a ringside seat at the rebirth of the Spin Doctors. This is 'Songs From The Road'. No smoke, no mirrors. Just an honest band, armed with their best material yet, still playing for their lives. "Some bands, you go and see them 25 years later and they're just up there going through the motions," says Aaron. "But I think because everybody is so serious about their craft, to me, we sound better than ever. We sound world-class now, I think."