Live at the Royal Albert Hall

Listening notes

Inside Live at the Royal Albert Hall

Live at the Royal Albert Hall does not hide the album being toured. “Sunday Girl” opens; “I Could Fall in Love With You,” “Fly Away,” “Storm in a Teacup,” “Sucker for Love,” and “When a Lover Leaves You” keep Light at the End of the World present throughout the set.

That commitment distinguishes the recording from a ceremonial hits night in a prestigious room. “Blue Savannah,” “Chains of Love,” “Chorus,” and “Sometimes” provide the inherited scale, but the 2007 material has to share the architecture rather than wait politely between classics.

Choose this live album when you want one tour era represented clearly. It is less intimate than the Union Street documents and less retrospective than a compilation; its value is the sound of current work being asked to stand in public beside the catalog that preceded it.