At last, Mr.Big release again a –kind of- acoustic album! Surely, listening to four musicians of such worth as Paul Gilbert, Billy Sheehan, Pat Torpey and Eric Martin reaching a different approach on their songs, is something very interesting from the beginning. Their first acoustic attempt in 1996 at Singapore’s Hard Rock Café was good, so why the delay?
So, during a tour break in Japan (where else?) they played an almost acoustic –Billy Sheehan was using an electric bass that we can enjoy on this album. The result, as it was expected, is very good with Mr.Big playing their hits, plus two new songs, “Undertow”, and the beautiful “All The Way Up”, while they are obviously having fun awarding the lucky show-goers, as well as us who can at least listen to their music the best way.
The band after its recent reunion looks and sounds great, even though I can’t say that I was impressed with “What If…”, but at least the playing remains excellent. Once more despite the undisputed and impressive individual skills, the songs remain the same with light deviations from Paul Gilbert, as well as the addition of a string quartet is some of them. Eric Martin’s amazing voice, I wonder why he is not recognized as one of rock’s best vocalists more often, is awesome performing every song flawlessly contributing to the great atmosphere that enchants the listener, even when the CD reaches the multi-million times played “To Be With You”. At the end of the day, if you leave such a huge hit out, most people will be asking you why you did, instead of congratulating you for doing so!
