Sweeping up the spotlight : live at the Fillmore East, 1969

"Jefferson Airplane were less focused in 1969 than they had been in the Summer of Love two years before ... In the era of Cream and Hendrix, the Airplane had become entwined with jazz-influenced improvisation and the distorted, electric end of the blues; the softer, folkie side of the band was nowhere to be found. For what the Airplane were doing at the time, there's no doubt that this was exciting and adventurous music, albeit without the intimate yin to the blazing yang".

"Jefferson Airplane were less focused in 1969 than they had been in the Summer of Love two years before. Recorded at the Fillmore East, these performances find the Airplane coming off their most recent album, Volunteers, released a month earlier, with the band a lot looser (drug use aside) and fractured".

"The musical power displayed throughout the disc constantly leads one to wonder why the Airplane didn't stay together through the decades like the Grateful Dead did -- this is quite simply "the stuff". Sweeping Up the Spotlight unquestionably belongs right up there with the Dead's Live/Dead, the Rolling Stones' Get Yer Ya-Yas Out, and Jimi Hendrix' Band of Gypsies as the best live albums of the era".

Read review