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2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
 Great Companion to "Last Flight" Mar 01, 2008
After buying "Last Flight," and being wildly (and happily) surprised at the high level of playing and downright funk coming from a band on the brink of dissolution, I because curious about the official release from the last JA tour, "30 Seconds Over Winterland."
Although "Last Flight" contains the entire last show performed by JA, the more limited track list of "30 Seconds" boasts stronger performances of at least four songs. "Saucers," "Feel So Good," "Milk Train," and "Twilight Double Leader" all soar into the stratosphere on "30 Seconds." In fact, the version of "Feel So Good" is the definitive one. This track will peel the paint off the walls when played loud. (And how else would you play it?)
The most compelling reason to buy this 2008 Japanese edition of "30 Seconds" is the killer remastering. I hate to say it, but the sound here puts Bob Irwin's remasters to shame. "30 Seconds" sounds like it was recorded yesterday, not over 30 years ago.
This CD, although short by comparison to "Last Flight," is most highly recommended. It shows that JA still played mightily, even as they were falling apart. Long live the Airplane!
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
1973 Model 'Plane: Still Soaring Mar 08, 2007
What a truly long, strange trip it was - for this country, the emerging post-War "youth culture", and popular music during the decade following JFK's murder November 23 1963...The Beatles and Stones arrived in the US within a few short months and sparked the sort of seismic shifts in perception that only occur during what can be seen in retrospect as a true renaissence period. By 1964-65, many musicians from the early '60s 'folk boom'- or the best and brightest - were suddenly growing their hair and forming bands such as the Byrds, the Music Machine, and the Airplane. Few rock 'n roll bands so vividly reflected the glory and the contradictions of the era, with its giddy sense of boundless possibility - political, artistic, personal, cultural - as Jefferson Airplane. Songs like "Today" and "House At Pooneil Corner" and live performances such as those captured on "Bless Its Pointed Little Head" are as cathartic as any in rock 'n' roll ("I'm so full of love I could burst apart and start to cry," Marty Balin sang in '66 - and if you hear him you believe it) - all the joy and wonder and energy, articulated in music fueled by desire and that barely contained dread underlying it all. Though the Grateful Dead's popularity and aura of hip cachet grew as the decades passed, the Dead could never figure out how to make records, at least until the '70s ("Workingman's Dead", "American Beauty", and "Wake Of The Flood"), yet JA (whose own legacy has faded at least in part thanks to the depressing success of Jefferson Starship during the late '70s and '80s). But from their very first single, recorded in 1965, the Airplane knew how to make records (thanks at first to Dave Hassinger, who engineered "Aftermath"). The Airplane were THE most successful band to emerge from the San Francisco scene, as a glance at their Billboard LP chart history confirms. Not coincidentally, the Airplane made a series of classic albums that remain complex, vital and fresh even today, when those of their contemporaries - the Dead, The Fish, Quicksilver, or Steppenwolf, to mention the most obvious - feel uneven, far less audacious, or indifferently made. As the times changed, so did the band's music, and by the 1970s chaos, rage and betrayal became part of the mix, and fantasies of escape met post-Altamont skepticism of what "we" can do "together"; communication breakdowns were followed by ennui and retreat. This headlong rush towards who knew what vividly, convincingly infotmed later, darker artifacts released by the band.
From their formation in 1965 and throughout its career JA was a group functioning as an uneasy collective, with no real leader but shifting power bases. Bursting with talent, everyone wrote songs and all but Jack Casady sang. From the beginning these were sophisticated, educated, intelligent artists, not teenaged kids, with strong personalites and emotional temperament, each with his/her own musical roots/values and (more importantly) vision of how and where the band should fly. But volatile as this mix always would be, JA could cohere with an almost telepathic sense of singular purpose, and that life force fuels the thrillingly mind-warping music on the Airplane's first live album "Bless Its Pointed Little Head" (recorded late 1968). These ex-folkies and blues purists, pop singers, jazz and r&b fans, made passionate and incredibly intense music, exploratory yet soulful, full of fury, originality, and vitality.
By 1973's "Thirty Seconds", an awful lot had changed. Jazz-inflected drummer Spencer Dryden left in 1970, to be replaced by the terrific Joey Covington, another very distinctive personality who brought a funkier style, drenched in soul and r&b yet capable of rocking out with sympathy and intelligence within the group. Covington also brought violinist Papa John Creach aboard later that year. The group's co-founder and true romantic, Marty Balin, having grown detached and disillusioned, split in April 1971, while the band was working on "Bark". And Covington himself was replaced in 1972 by the competent ex-Turtle/CSNY drummer Johnny Barbata, who had a session man's sensibility, and neither invigorated nor detracted from the music and is perhaps the least distinctive drummer ever to join the Airplane. "Long John Silver" (1972) was a harder, more aggressive album than its predecessor, one fueled by a dark energy and dense, edgy textures. Despite its considerable merits LJS was a pretty joyless affair. Jorma and Jack are in top form, the band churns and rumbles and rocks hard, but there's a sense of darkness visible throughout the project, especially on Grace Slick's material. This final studio album features some superb ensemble playing, and fine moments from each band member, capturing especially the interplay between Kaukonen and Creach, with more emphasis on texture and less on the famous vocal harmonies of yore. Among several highlights is the brilliant title track - a rare Jack Casady composition - with Grace's funky keyboards and steely, piratical vocal, Jorma's wailing guitar. And Kaukonon/Slick's closing "Eat Starch Mom" perhaps sums up the mood best, aggressive and sarcastic, massive Zep-like riffs driving one of the group's hardest rockers ever.
"Thirty Seconds", issued in April 1973, was the first Airplane album since "Takes Off" to miss the Top 20 on Billboard's Top LP chart. The band's second official live album always suffers in comparison to the great "Bless..." but put preconceptions aside and dig a band that is still creating compelling rock 'n' roll as it nears dissolution - big, loud, loose and grungey. Again, Barbata lacks Dryden or Covington's rhythmic invention, but he anchors the band, allowing Kaukonen and Creach (and lets not forget Kantner's always solid rhythm guitar)to soar. Hear Casady coaxing otherworldly sounds from his instrument, still as distinctive and brilliant a bassist as any in rock. The song selection emphasizes the group's '70s material, including the non-album single "Have You Seen The Saucers," a dazzling eleven-minute "Feel So Good" from "Bark", and three excellent tracks from "Long John Silver". The earliest song is "Crown Of Creation", with Grace's vocal asides letting you know how much has changed since '68, yet it still sounds magnificent. This edition is a Japanese pressing (available for under $20 as I write this) that sounds superior to the US CD from the late '80s, an inferior transfer from the early digital era. The Japanese disc is truly hotter than my first pressing Grunt vinyl, and will surely be played (loud) regularly in my house. The CD is housed in a gorgeous cardboard cover, and inner sleeve, that reproduce the original LP package precisely. I do hope, though, that Bob Irwin finally gets to remaster and expand this for US BMG, along with "Bark" and "Silver" and even an expanded "Early Flight", the other late-period albums that have not been upgraded as part of the recent JA reissue campaign. At just under forty minutes "Thirty Seconds" begs to be fleshed out with more material from those excellent Chicago and San Francisco gigs.
10 of 10 found the following review helpful:
A GREAT audio picture on the last gathering of JA!!! May 15, 2006
I COMPLETELY DIASGREE with the only review posted. First of all, one must remember this ISN'T the same JA the first reviewer is thinking it is. AND, this album was recorded at one of the last shows JA performed as JA. This was recorded at Winterland in 1972. The major differences between this band and the original JA: Spencer Dryden is not drumming, John Barbata is. Marty Balin isn't with the band at this point, instead David Freiberg is the other vocalist. Also, the great Papa John Creach is playing with this version of JA. As for "Trial by Fire", it's one of Jorma's BEST songs, and it simply rocks the house. The previous reviewer must not be aware, as this old man is, that while this obviously ISN'T the original band, it's still the mighty, mighty JA-a gathering of some of San Francisco's best musicians-PERIOD! Check the version of "Feel So Good", absolutely incredible stuff, Casady's solo is phenomenal here, as is Papa's blistering hot fiddle. AND, we're lucky to have the only LIVE version I know of Papa's own "Milk Train", which as he tells you on the vinyl I STILL OWN: "Grace composed the words to this." GET THIS ONE INTO YOUR JA COLLECTION IF IT'S NOT ALREADY THERE!!!
0 of 5 found the following review helpful:
 Good but not the best Mar 13, 2006
A very good live album, reasonable sound quality [lets face you ain't gunna get DDD sound from a '60's recording], good harmonies and playing.
Like the live version of 'Have You Seen the Saucers', and 'When the Earth Moves Again'.
Where it fails is some of the album probably doesn't seem to be typical JA sound and even becomes a more generic rock [anybody could be singing it]. This is especially so with the last two tracks 'Trial by Fire' and 'Twilight'. Not that they aren't JA songs and not that JA aren't performing them, but they don't have that JA feel or sound. Its a pity, because it makes the album end with a wimper rather than a roar. And the funny thing about it is tha the last two songs are probably a harder edged sound so they are trying to roar, it just doesn't come off!!
I keep looking for that wild inspiration that was captured so well on 'Bless its Pointed Little Head', it happens once or twice on '30 Seconds Over Winterland' and its good when it does, but its just not consistent.
Buy it, but don't expect another BIPLH part 2.
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