Still, some things are worth waiting for.
Restricted to 3000 copies signed by surviving Small Faces, Kenney Jones and Ian 'Mac' McLagan, this heavyweight box contains 75 remastered songs spread across four CD's, three rare EP's on coloured vinyl, an Olympic Studios rare 7" acetate replica disc, a 64 page lyric book, a 72 page hardbacked book and a host of extra goodies such as a facsimile press kit for 'Ogden's Nut Gone Flake', postcards, posters and some Gered Mankowitz fine art prints.
The extra bits and pieces are all very nice but it's really all about the music, so how does that measure up? Well I happen to think that the Small Faces were one of the most underrated bands in the 1960's and I don't just mean for the quality of their singles. Which was why I ordered this set in the first place. Included within the CD tracks are both sides of every single released worldwide by Immediate Records between 1967 and 1969. On top of that we get a host of unreleased material, studio outtakes, live tracks and early and alternate versions of many numbers. Among the live tracks are some from a concert the lads performed at Newcastle City Hall on 18 November 1968. I wasn't there so this recording will compensate me for missing it.
The sound quality of the recorded tracks is superb, wonderfully enhancing every single note that went into each recording. Of course the same cannot be said for the live recordings but the quality is still pretty good bearing in mind that the recording was made in 1968. Discs 2 & 3 contain a variety of outtakes and alternate versions which of course include a number of false starts which perhaps will not bear repeated listens. Nevertheless it is interesting to hear the lads working on these numbers and unencumbered by vocals, the backing tracks enable the listener to discover just what good musicians these four lads were.
While still with Decca, the band were already becoming a little more progressive with singles such as 'All Or Nothing' and 'My Mind's Eye'. On the Immediate label however, they really came of age and their singles became more than mere 'pop' songs.
It may have been a long wait but now this package is in my possession, I have no complaints whatsoever.
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