I've always admired Mayday's live albums for their honesty. For example, singer-songwriter Ashin's voice is fine in the studio but wildly inconsistent when put on the spot. Mayday never plays tricks in the studio to cover anything up. It's as if they just want to preserve a great event as accurately as possible, because these albums seem to be more about myth-making than artistic achievement.
The latest one, "Sky City – 40,000 People Live Concert," is the most obvious case in point. In April 2004, a few months after releasing "Time Machine," its best and hardest rocking album yet, and embarking on an extended tour to support it, Mayday released a two-CD set from a reunion concert in August 2003. There are only three songs off "Time Machine," even though it must have been nearly in the can by then.
So instead of a live "Armstrong" or "Star of Perseverance," we're treated to one golden oldie after another. And though many of them feature a new instrument or a different introduction from the original, most end up very close to the album versions. That's frustrating because Ashin's best songs are so beautifully written that they could be reshaped a dozen different ways. We get a glimpse of that with the jazzy 11-minute, band-introduction version of "Fool" that concludes the album. But by that time, the ensemble sounds tired and looser than ever. They do sound happy, though. It's a fitting end to a show that, by the sound of it, was great fun for everyone who was there. That unmistakable joy, along with the dreadful recording quality, is really the best thing about "Sky City." It sounds like a bootleg lent by a happy, exhausted friend.