Danger Unit (Siréne–128)
El Mocambo, Toronto, ON, Canada – June 27 1978: Intro., Alaska, Time To Kill, The Sahara Of Snow, Carrying No Cross, The Only Thing She Needs, Thirty Years, In The Dead Of Night, By The Light Of Day, Presto Vivace, outro. Bonus tracks, Nakano Sunplaza, Tokyo, Japan – May 29th, 1979: Danger Money, The Only Thing She Needs
Danger Unit is Sirene’s release of the well-circulated CHUM-FM Toronto broadcast. The Toronto tape captures the complete broadcast in excellent quality. U.K. were on the radio several times that summer, most notable in Philadelphia and Boston, but this is arguably the best sounding tape and concert of the three.
The Sirene release, compared to the older ones, sounds much fuller and livelier making this the definitive release. Previous releases of the tape include The Sahara Of Snow on Off Beat and the no label Club Gig. Final Option (HL087#U3) on Highland contains “The Sahara Of Snow” from this show along with the September 1978 Boston show and “Forever Till Sunday” from a Cleveland recording.
The tape begins with the disc jockey introducing the band to the radio audience and ends with him giving the technical credits (but thankfully the commercials are missing). After the opening salvo “Alaska” and “Time To Kill” they play Bruford’s “The Sahara Of The Snow”.
The virtue of this these radio broadcasts are the inclusion of “Carrying No Cross” and “The Only Thing She Needs” which were never officially recorded by the first line up and appeared on the second LP Danger Money with the trio.
The balance of the show is the complete first side of U.K. with the “In The Dead Of Night” trilogy being performed impeccably. That the El Mocambo adds a small club atmosphere is a benefit so that the focus is entirely upon the music.
The bonus tracks are a very good and clear audience recording of U.K. as a three piece, after Bruford and Holdsworth left and were replaced by drummer Terry Bozzio. These two tracks come from one of the shows taped for the official live LP (and U.K. swansong) Night After Night.
The complete audience recording has been released many times before including twice on Sirene’s predecessor label Ayanami as Third Impact Complete “Night After Night” and Air Live At Nakano Sun-Plaza. The prolific cdr label Mindwarp released Sought After Night (MWCD-010/011) and Presto Vivace on Sirene also documents this show.
This two-song fragment comes from a new tape source that is much better sounding that the other. Overall this is a great release by Sirene who are the only ones issuing silver U.K. titles these days.
