DESCRIPTION:
Live 1973 television performance. Let's start with the video's faults first... (1) camera features way too many closeups and dominance of Eric Carmen (not his fault of course), (2) band mates are grossly underplayed, (3) orchestra seems to be generated by keyboards, and (4) not enough variety of audience, band and other visuals. Now, let's get to the positive. 'I Can Remember' was a masterpiece off the Raspberries debute LP (you know, the one with the pleasant raspberry smell), which was one of those rare albums where every track was simply superb... no filler at all. Though the Raspberries crafted perfect 3 minute pop ballads, ICR was the exception... over 7 minutes of goosebump-inducing classical angst drama at it's finest! Because of it's length, it never made it to radio play and is seldom remembered as one of their big hits, though it easily could have been. But this performance was the one which won-over several of my sceptical college-buds who had previously ridiculed anyone that might enjoy the Raspberries, (serious music listeners weren't supposed to like top-40 music in that era). When this performance opened on our TV screen, the room grew silent, people actually stopped talking and listened attentively for the entire 7 minutes. At ICR's conclusion, exclamations soon followed with "wow!", "incredible!", "that was fantastic!", "I'm speechless!", "boy!!", and "now tell me about those guys again." No, this video is not perfect but it reminds us that for a few short years in the early '70s, we had the Raspberries... and they were candy to the ears!