Little Feat — Waiting for Columbus (Super Deluxe Edition)
Qobuz reissue review (July 2022)
When Rhino gave an official vinyl release to the legendary Little Feat bootleg Electrif Lycanthrope for a 2021 Record Store Day, fans of the band were — at least as much as fans of any band ever can be — actually satisfied. That album was culled from a 1974 radio broadcast performance and had long been the stuff of legends among collectors, as it presented the band at the beginning of their long creative peak, performing in a relaxed and up-close atmosphere. Couple that with 2002’s excellent expanded edition of Waiting for Columbus (which tacked on about a dozen previously unreleased live tracks from the original album’s shows), and you’ve got some amazing and in-depth evidence for this band’s live legacy. But that was two decades ago. Waiting for Columbus has long been considered one of the best live albums of all time, so why not stretch that thing out to a 73-track 20th anniversary super deluxe edition?
Little Feat was running hot during this ’77 tour and operating at a more quasi-rockstar level than they were three years prior, but they never lost the sense of loose-limbed adventurousness that made them so appealing. While Waiting For Columbus was, like most other live albums of the era, culled from recordings of multiple shows on the same tour, the thing is, all of those shows were pretty great. And this edition proves it, as each of those shows — Manchester City Hall (7/29/77), The Rainbow, London (8/4/77), Lisner Auditorium, Washington, D.C. (8/10/77) — is included in full here, each in incredible fidelity. In addition to multiple previously unreleased versions of the songs that made their way onto the original album, this set also includes many that weirdly didn’t make the double LP’s cut. “Rock and Roll Doctor” and “Skin It Back” aren’t nearly as iconic Little Feat tracks as “A Apolitical Blues” or “Mercenary Territory,” but they certainly were barnstorming features in the band’s sets, making their belated inclusion more than welcome. This latest iteration of Waiting For Columbus utterly dwarfs Electrif Lycanthrope in size and scale; but for sure, Little Feat fans have got to be satisfied now.
