Cream was a band born to the stage. This is their most consistently brilliant album. Four of the five cuts appeared on Fresh Cream. The fifth, "Lawdy Mama," is a traditional blues piece that makes its first appearance here. All but "Lawdy Mama" are given extended jazz-based treatment. The dialog among the three musicians as the jams develop is fascinating. Foreground and background seem to dissolve as all three musicians take charge, using the full range of their instruments. Performances like this single-handedly raised the stakes of musicianship in rock.
A great lost curio, Live Cream, Vol. 2 is not only vastly superior to its volume one predecessor in every way, it is also one of the greatest Cream albums in their slim catalog. Utilizing -- for the time -- state-of-the-art mobile recording equipment, the sonic excellence on this album surely must be acknowledged to the engineers: Tom Dowd and Bill Halverson. The feeling that you are in the front row is very much in evidence, and this is largely due to their ability to capture the band's live fury with clarity. As for the performances, this record captures the band at their peak. The group made their reputation as a live act with epic, lengthy jams that verged on jazz, and indeed there is one example of this on the 13-plus-minute closing cut, "Steppin' Out." On record, this occasionally made for tough listening. But on the rest of this album, compact, four- to five-minute versions of "Deserted Cities of the Heart" and "Tales of Brave Ulysses," among others, make it a vital, intense, and enjoyable listen that is ultimately rewarding.