Live albums are usually sort of a waste of a review unless there is something exceptionally gripping about the live performance that the recorded versions missed. If you're a fan of Sunny Day Real Estate, by all means, buy this album. You get songs from their "Dairy" album ("The Blankets were the Stairs", "Song about an Angel" and "In Circles"), the "LP2" album ("J'Nuh" and "Rodeo Jones") and making the bulk of this album from their last effort in '98 "How it feels to be Something on" ("Pillars", "Guitar and Video Games", "Every Shining Time You Arrive", "The Prophet", "100 Million" and "Days Were Golden"). Jeremy Enigk is in fine high warble mode (often walking the line between "genius original" and "kind of annoying" in tone) but his dramatic swoops and passionate howls relay an honest, if not insecure presence.

The music itself (for those not familiar previous) is in the vein of "emo" (the new tag word for melodic indie rock) with the formula revolving around melodic guitar lines that show intelligent breaks in both tempo and structure and big wash of emotion choruses and broken by unexpected shifts in either pace or instrumentation. Sunny Day's music often rides the more slow, moody and repetitive angle, so a little patience is required, but the band is among the best that play in this field and is set apart by Enigk's incomparable warble which serves as the most intimate element in this "live" release.

Since the only aspect the live album offers the listener over the released version is some crowd noise of pleasing recognition before and after the songs and simple "Thank you very much's" from a modest Engik, this serves as a "greatest hits" to a band that never managed to have any hits and should please those shoe gazers that already claim kinship to the Sunny Day Real Estate.