Eric's Trip - Eric's Trip Show

All Music Guide

When Eric's Trip reformed for a small tour in 2001, it took a lot of people by surprise; Rick White's project Elevator was going full guns, and Julie Doiron was achieving some level of success as a solo artist. To whet people's interest for the tour, White compiled some live material from the group's heyday, ranging from 1996 all the way back to the group's early days, back in 1991. It's probably no surprise that the first album, Love Tara, is the best represented here, as it's been around the longest, but there are also bits from all of the other releases. As you'd expect, the sound here is pretty sludgy in a lot of places, but that's more because all of the instruments are loud and heavily distorted; in fact, the sound here is actually clearer than on some of the studio releases. While all of the material here is pretty energetic, there's a block of songs recorded in Montreal that shows the band at their peak -- they had just come off a year of touring in support of their debut album (amid all of the East Coast hype, no less), and they were giving the material all they had whenever they performed it live. Perhaps the most intriguing to longtime fans will be the three tracks recorded before the first album was released, back when the band was still slogging it out in the clubs of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia; these songs show a slightly rawer version of the band just waiting for their big break.

- Sean Carruthers, All Music Guide