Live at Kelvin Hall is a 1967/68 live album by British rock groupthe Kinks. It was recorded at Kelvin Hall in Glasgow, Scotland, in early 1967. The album was released in August 1967 in the US, and January 1968 in the UK. Live at Kelvin Hall received mixed reviews upon release, and sold poorly. The album was first re-released on CD in 1987. In 1998, the album was reissued with both the mono and stereo mixes present. Unlike many albums in the Kinks catalogue which have received Deluxe Edition formats, Live At Kelvin Hall was passed on by Andrew Sandoval, who, at one point, attempted to remix the album. The mono mix was absent from the 2011 box set The Kinks In Mono, but was present in the 2005 box set The Pye Album Collection.
Recording
The Kinks played two sets in the Scene '67 Theatre inside Kelvin Hall on 1 April 1967; one at 6:30 and the other at 9:30 pm, with the bands Sounds Incorporated and the Fortunes opening. The entire concert was recorded on a 4-track Pye Mobile Recording Unit owned by the group's label, Pye Records. The Kinks' set was the finale of a ten-day teen music-festival, sponsored by a local discotheque club and The Daily Record, a Glasgow newspaper. On 3 April, post-production was underway for the scheduled live album. The group also took part in sessions to "enhance" the recordings—writer Andy Miller notes that ...Kelvin Hall "is perhaps not as live as all that. Sessions were undertaken to 'sweeten' the original tapes. Close listening seems to reveal that the audience hysteria is an extended, repeating tape loop." It is also notable that an entire fourth of the 4-track mix was devoted to the crowd's screams and yells. Doug Hinman, in his 2004 book All Day And All Of The Night, also states that "it appears that overdubs made." A press release followed on the same day, announcing that a live album was scheduled for future release.
Release and reception
Live at Kelvin Hall was released in the US as The Live Kinks on 16 August 1967, where it went virtually unnoticed. It stalled at number 162 in the Billboard charts, during a four-week run. The album fared no better in the UK; upon release in January 1968 as Live at Kelvin Hall, it received only moderate advertising and mixed reviews. New Musical Express: "... at Glasgow the Kinks had every encouragement to give a good show and what you can hear above the audience noise is good. I don't know if I like a backing of whistles and screams." Live at Kelvin Hall failed to chart.
Charts
Track listing
All songs by Ray Davies, except where noted ;Side one
