Artist: Captain Beyond
Album: Live In Texas – October 6, 1973
Label: Cleopatra
Genre: Psychedelic Rock

This new Captain Beyond release is an “Official Bootleg” recorded in Arlington, Texas on October 6, 1973, exactly 40 years ago. They were opening for King Crimson, an English progressive rock band.

The supergroup consisted of former Deep Purple vocalist Rod Evans, drummer Bobby Caldwell (ex-Johnny Winter), Larry “Rhino” Reinhardt (ex-Iron Butterfly) and Lee Dorman (ex-Iron Butterfly).

There is also a recent interview in the liner notes with drummer Bobby Caldwell. In this interview, Caldwell tells the story of how he played Duane Allman an early Captain Beyond demo and that helped them sign with Capricorn Records out of Macon, Georgia. It also covers the recent deaths of Rhino and Dorman.

Since Capricorn focused on southern rock bands, Captain Beyond did not receive the attention they needed to breakout. They were on a different wavelength, versus the bands like the Allman Brothers and Marshall Tucker.

WARNING: The sound quality is not that good. Remember it is a 70s bootleg recording. The sound does get better later on in the album.

The CD starts off when Captain Beyond is introduced by a recording saying the “future has come sooner than expected.”

They go into “Distant Sun” and continue with “Dancing Madly Backwards (On a Sea of Air)” and its respective spinoff songs.

The audio gets better with “Drifting In Space,” this is when Evans said they were going to get loud and go into “megadeath” volume.

A humorous part of the concert happened during a break when Evans directed members of the audience to all start blowing a certain kind of smoke in the band’s direction.

Evans then recited a poem called “Pandora’s Box (It’s War),” it is a lull in action but certified Captain Beyond’s mystic nature.

It also features a full-length guitar solo by Rhino and a great drum solo by Caldwell.

The last song they perform is a cover of Jimi Hendrix’s “Stone Free.”

The bad quality must be overlooked, and the listener must focus on the historical perspective. This is the only live recording in existence of this supergroup.

If a person wants to learn about Captain Beyond, I would suggest starting out with the studio albums and getting a feel for Captain Beyond’s great production value. Then it would be appropriate to listen to this live album, and it will then be better understood.

Tracks include…
“Distant Sun”
“Dancing Madly Backwards (on A Sea Of Air)”
“Armworth”
“Myopic Void”
“Drifting In Space”
“Pandora’s Box (It’s War)”
“Thousand Days Of Yesterday”
“Frozen Over”
“Mesmerization Eclipse”
“Stone Free”