Power, Beauty & Passion
As we are approaching the 35th anniversary of this recording, I thought this might be a good time to reflect on my feelings about this performance in Central Park, NYC in 1973. As one reviewer said at the time..."the music must have stopped a few muggers in their tracks"...is totally appropriate. The original MO certainly changed my life...forever. I personally saw them only once...Princeton, NJ in late 1973...three months after this recording. Sidenote: Chick Corea's Return To Forever opened for MO at this show...featuring Bill Connors on guitar. Tickets were $4.00...those were the days...yes indeed. No need to get into the superlatives about the level of MO's musicianship...intricate compositions...innovations...etc...they have all been beautifully articulated by the other reviewers of this and other MO recordings. What I do want to simply say is that this music continues to reverberate in my consciousness in 2008...it opened artistic doors that I didn't even know existed. John McLaughlin has always been a musical visionary...starting with Extrapolation...ending to where he eventually winds up. It's a beautiful...fantastic...journey.

Final sidenote to fans: check out some of the unauthorized recordings of the original MO on the net...OMG...

between nothingness and eternity
the more time goes on, the more i appreciate the original m.o.; each musician was a show-stopper in himself. this is one terrific recording. if you can't get enuff of this, try to dig up the live m.o. bootlegs they made at berkeley, hunter college, cleveland and miami - they are available if you spend some time looking.

Bliis-filled Memories
I was there. Both nights at the Wollman Skating Rink in Central Park; 15th row, center aisle. To this day, it remains one of the most beautiful and most powerful live performances that I have ever seen. Only one other show by the Mahavishnu Orchestra ever matched it for both sheer virtuosity and that special spark between all of the players and that was at the Capital Theatre in Passaic and I saw that too. This album is as close to your getting share such a memory with me as we can get; most of the stuff on YouTube is in sad condition, but still worth a peek. This, on the other hand, is crisp. The only glitch to the recording is when Jan's keyboard head blew and that long space in Dream comes from the road crew having to get a new one in place. How's THAT for memory? LOL!!! Yes, this is Lost Trident Live, but it also has pieces from Like Children (c'mon, Sony, release that chestnut!). A "must" for fusion lovers. Sat Nam!

Fusion at it's best
If you haven't heard this one, buckle your seat beat and put on a flame retardent suit, it's a wild ride and these guys are on FIRE on this CD.
Classic live recording which demostrates the intensity the group possesed which is not eveident from the studio recordings as great as they are.

"trinity of sounds"
The greatest band there possibly will ever be! Why all of a sudden is there so many tributes going along concerning this band. What happen was John McLaughlin set the guitar world on fire. Nobody had ever heard the guitar played like that, and it changed the way guitarist play today. He gets very little credit from the mainstreamers of the guitar world. But it wasn't all about John's playing as it was his own concept of music. He started this genre of music that later many would crop to follow. With that said, the other band members played just as an important role as John. Jan Hammer played keyboards like nobody, (he was ahead of Zawinul at the time). Jan had a personal voice that was new to the musical world, which he doesn't get enough credit for. What he did with the keyboards (is like what Jaco did with the bass). Billy Cobham's drumming was second to none. His duets with John were legendary every night, to be honest nobody had ever played drums with a guitarist like that every before. (Holdsworth/Husband were right behind them in the 80's). The man was on a mission. Jerry Goodman was raw as anything!! He could keep up with Hammer and McLaughlin, which is impressive enough. I have many bootlegs of this band and I will tell you that Rick Laird was no slouch, the man played melodically many nights that were right on time. If only the members would have shared and effectively communicated to each other, more music would have been recorded and performed from this great band.

When the band would rave up into the "trinity of sounds," when the guitar/violin/& keyboard would intertwine they would reach the visions of the emeralds beyond!!

I never saw this group but I want to share some more. I am sure all our fans have the MO show in Germany 1972. This is when the band began to start its apex. They have a video of the show and it's around 45 minutes total with the two parts. The other scenario is that we have the concert on CD (Spirit of Bird) as well that goes beyond 80 minutes. The sad part is, where is the rest of the video? They cut out Mclaughlin's solo on Meeting of the Spirits (which is killer); they cut out One Word (except for the drum solo and the ending); and they cut out The Noonward Race. But the second part of the video has them playing "A Lotus on Irish Streams" and it's not on the CD. They probably played 2 hours!! The "powers that be" decided to edit this performance of the greatest band that ever was. All we want is a complete show of this particular band and we know that it's out there somewhere. Heck they played everywhere. Somewhere in Germany they need to rebroadcast the complete show and release it on DVD. If you saw this band live, you are a fortunate human being. For the rest of us who weren't born to see them we will have to wait until Sony gets off their hindmost to release some live material.

(it's also a shame Colombia/Sony hasn't released the full two day shows of this concert at Central Park. What we got was 1/4 of the concert.)