Little Feat – Waiting For Columbus

You couldn’t get Little Feat fans to spill a negative word about this album, embracing Waiting For Columbus as the finest live emancipation to stumble from the 1970’s, a stoner’s delight, a must have for anyone who’d not managed to catch the band live. On the other hand, those who were not fans, yet listened to the double disc anyway, have almost nothing good to say, claiming that Waiting For Columbus was half baked, included a handful of songs that were rather lackluster, plucked from the band’s later albums, due in large part to the slick synthesizer of Payne, especially on “All That You Dream,” an anthem where Payne is just an annoyance, a monumental distraction, swaying one’s attention away from Lowell’s lamenting soulful vocals.

At this point I’d suggest that Little Feat, who danced on the fringes of the late hippie 1960’s, were a solid delicious concoction of California country-rock and an imaginative blues style that cultivated a ionate response from fans; a band who charmed the pants off me. Yet again, ask most and you’l hear that Little Feat was not a Grateful Dead style jam band. Still, this outing certainly suggests that the Feat were capable of some serious astronomic jamming, an outing that has now been expanded on compact disc to a staggering eight CD box set which includes each of the complete concerts that provided the source material from which the original double vinyl LP was drawn.

So here’s where I thrust my hands deeply in my pockets, saying that much of the charm and chemistry of this collection happened only because the music was masterfully tweaked, yet tweaked it was, in the studio, with Lowell overdubbing additional vocals and guitars during a three week period, where he fashioned the songs with a smooth flawless balanced luster, a heightened reality of time and space, distilling the album with unmistakable unforgettable head-bobbing bliss that will roll you through the night and into the wee morning hours.

There’s nothing nostalgic about Waiting For Columbus, it’s fresh, it stands the fifty year test of time as if you’re hearing these notes the first time in the twenty-first century … and if you’ve not heard this album, I suggest you find your way to the nearest record shop and avail yourself, treating your ears to probably the best and most definitive live album of all time.

*** The Fun Facts: Waiting For Columbus was titled after the painting “Waiting for Columbus” by Neon Park, depicting a laidback cherry-red tomato gliding away the afternoon in a hammock, just waiting to be discovered.

The first four shows were at the Rainbow Theatre in London, and the final three were at George Washington University's Lisner Auditorium in Washington, DC.

Review by Jenell Kesler

I've had this since 1978 and I still love it!
I have a different variant:
Side 1 N 2-W(strike out) BS-1-3140 Record 1 LW-1. TML-M 2 *

You can tell by the 1st song , this is an fantastic pressing . Bass and drums , vocal are very clear . You can't go wrong with this record . I have this one "Variant 2 "
Matrix / Runout (A Side etched TML-M ✲ stamped Variant 2): N 2-WBS-1-3140 Record 1 LW-1. TML-M 1✲
Matrix / Runout (B Side etched TML-S ✲ stamped Variant 2): 2-WBS-2-3140 Record 1 LW-2. TML-S 2 ✲
Matrix / Runout (C Side etched TML-S ✲ stamped Variant 2): 2-WBS-3-3140 Record 2. LW-2 1 TML-S ✲
Matrix / Runout (D Side etched TML-S ✲ stamped variant 2): 2-WBS-4-3140 Record 2. LW-2. TML-S 3 ✲

Not just a good record. But the best record I own. And it's live. With the tower of power.horn section.

This is one of the best pressings I have. It’s a VG+ but I use this to show off my system! This is an amazing pressing! Just outstanding! Beats the late 2000s Mofi hollow, probably the definitive version! The magic of the first pressings!

Was thinking about picking up the remaster release but had forgotten about this copy in my collection. Gave it a spin and all I can say is wow... WOW. Not only have a cancelled my preorder for the new remaster, but I am flat out STUNNED at how amazing this record sounds—it's so clear and dynamic. This is the pressing to get!

Honestly one of the best sounding records I’ve heard and it’s LIVE. Long live Lowell George and Little Feat

Don't bother with either of the MFSL versions.
This is the one you want.

Perhaps the best vinyl pressings I’ve ever heard. Totally underrated and well worth buying.

This pressing sounds great, nice full sound spectrum, very dynamic.