Hearing the most incandescent moments during the Allman Brothers Band’s Syria Mosque: Pittsburgh, PA January 17, 1971, the thought occurs this might well have been the very occasion that prompted the ABB to act upon the thought they’d been harboring to record live for their next album.
Extremely well-paced and often as not fiery in its intensity, the performance contained herein is the latest in a long line of vault releases featuring the original six-man lineup of the Allman Brothers Band. And while it is yet another iteration of the brilliance self-evident on At Fillmore East, it’s noteworthy insofar as it constitutes a complete performance, in generally acceptable audio quality, inside a stylish and detailed packaging bereft of informational faux pas.
The first of two appearances within nine months at the Iron City venue actually predates by about eight weeks those March shows from which the seminal concert album was taken. And comprised of virtually the same setlist as virtually all the shows of that era–with the notable absence of “Stormy Monday–it makes for easy comparison to all its predecessors, including the most famous one.
In that respect, it may still be redundant at best to the bonafide aficionado and overkill at worst to the casual music lover. Nevertheless. it posits the legendary Southern band ready for the limelight they were inexorably approaching in what would be a crucial year for them. The savage yet subtle slide on the signature opening of “Statesboro Blues” is a homage to opener Taj Mahal that reaffirms Duane Allman’s verbal tribute, while younger sibling Gregg sings “Trouble No More” with a similar abandon.
Those purposefully economical readings are the corollary to the extended improvisational warhorses that so dramatically conclude this performance. This frenzied twenty minutes of “Whipping Post” precedes a rendition of “You Don’t Love Me” much more focused than many such takes, even as both proffers majestic closes proportionate to their respective lengths.
The aforementioned numbers by Blind Willie McTell and Muddy Waters’ also set the stage for the band’s original material. “Midnight Rider,” a cull from the sophomore Allman studio LP, Idlewild South, did not make the cut for AFE, but in its just shy of three minutes here, it presents a sharp contrast to the first extended improvisational adventure of the eight-song, roughly hour-long set.
As the musicians flawlessly navigate the shifts in tempo around the escalating procession of incendiary guitar interludes on Dickey Betts’ “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed,” the Allmans sound like they realize they’re in reach of their pinnacle as a performing unit. The excitement is palpable in the quick transitions around the sextet, despite the fact some of the fretboard work is camouflaged by undue prominence of Berry Oakley’s assertive bass playing.
Mastering engineer Jason NeSmith’s technical expertise generally minimizes such blemishes (presumably inherent in this uncredited recording). Still, there’s noticeably little bottom to fully delineate the intricate drum work of Jaimoe and Butch Trucks; in fact, the balance is (momentarily) so far off during “Don’t Keep Me Wonderin’,” the hammering of tom-toms, rhythmic as it is, unduly obscures some vocal passages as well as those of the keyboards.
Fortunately, that audio shortfall can’t hide the collective swagger of the Allmans in those moments, led by founder Skydog’s signature slide guitar work. It’s a tribute to Terry Bradley’s package design that Syria Mosque: Pittsburgh, PA January 17, 1971 looks as stylish as it sounds at such inarguable peaks: adorned with a striking image of the mushroom logo, the front cover and overall color scheme belies the alternately cliched and hyperbolic liner notes by John Lynskey filling one inside panel of the sleeve.
To be fair, play-by-plays simply can’t do justice to the uncanny interactions that populate musicianship. Perhaps co-producers Bill Levenson and/or Kirk West might’ve lent their own insights in prose. Failing that, more (or larger) action shots of the Brothers on stage would’ve been preferable.
Hopefully, though, this official release of a long bootlegged (and often misidentified) show on CD and digital (and eventually vinyl) will eventually stand as a precursor of things to come from the Allman Brothers archive. A definitive box devoted to this same period is purportedly in the works, along with further and more wide-ranging vault exhumations to follow from later stages in the influential Dixie rockers’ history. If those subsequent titles are in line with Syria Mosque ‘71, they will be worth waiting for.
