The Bee Gees

One Night Only

1998 Album of the Year

Review Score:

(10/10)
It's not often that a Live album can cement the title of "Album of the Year", but clearly in 1998 the Bee Gees' effort on "One Night Only" merits a share of my choice for Album of the Year. The Bee Gees who were nearly 30 years into their career came together for a 1997 Pay Per View Las Vegas concert entitled "One Night Only". Before this effort, the Bee Gees had only moderate success as a performing group following the incredible success on the heels of the "Saturday Night Fever" era. This particular performance by the Bee Gees caught them on their "A" game putting together a concert of innovative, powerful and inspiring music.

The Bee Gees open the concert with a segue between the old and new. They start off with their most dynamic song of their career - "You Should Be Dancing". Without a bunch of remixing, you will come to appreciate this classic in a whole new light being performed live. Listen especially to the percussions on this song. You'll also hear crowd noise which the CD does a great job at not making too overbearing. Following "You Should Be Dancing", there is a nice segue into one of their newest songs called "Alone". The segue is perfect and is one example of bridging old and new nicely.

After the "You Should Be Dancing/Alone" segue, Barry Gibb says "...shoot back thirty years....and bring you up to date slowly but surely". Thus a series of older Bee Gees songs "Massachusetts", "To Love Somebody", "Words", and "Closer than Close" go back to the older years of the Bee Gees. The Bee Gees won't perform songs in chronological order, but by going back to the Bee Gees early stuff at the beginning of the performance, it sets the table real nicely. I wasn't as familiar with this material by the Bee Gees, but after hearing it, I did come to appreciate things better.

The Bee Gees make use of modern technology in a couple of areas. One is to perform a live "duet" with their late brother Andy Gibb. The title of the song is called "Our Love (Don't Throw It Away)". In this song, the Bee Gees make use of some tracks that Andy recorded when he was alive and put some of their own live tracks around it (very similar to what the Beatles did with John Lennon on the "Anthology" album with "Real Love" but in this case the Bee Gees do it live). I happened to watch the video of this concert and you can see the emotion on Barry Gibb's face thinking about his late brother as he sings "this losing you is real, though I still feel you inside". On the CD, you will also feel Barry's heartache and true emotion as he sings those words. It's really powerful stuff. The other area is a "duet" with Frankie Valli to sing "Grease" which is a song that the Brothers Gibb wrote. The Bee Gees perform a live version of "Grease" and in the middle of the song they put a recorded track by Frankie Valli. (who sang the version of that song for the movie back in 1978) Although Valli didn't perform live with them, they do an amazing job at integrating him into the live performance and it is another example of bridging the old and the new nicely.

The Bee Gees do a nice job at including many of the songs that they wrote for other artists. Besides "Grease", there are versions of "Islands in the Stream", "I Can't See Nobody", "Heartbreaker", and "Guilty". The bad news is on the latter three songs, they are only small segments from those songs and they don't include the full version of the song. It would have been nice if Barbra Streisand was folded into "Guilty" much like Frankie Valli for "Grease", but these are minor flaws - the stuff that is included is still top notch.

The Bee Gees bring out a special guest - Celine Dion to sing "Immortality". I'm not a big Dion fan by any means, but she does an very nice job with the Brothers Gibb. It is worth noting that this song was included in the Broadway Musical "Saturday Night Fever" (which ironically was my other choice for 1998 co-Album of the Year).

On Tracks 9 through 16 the Bee Gees do sort of 'Unplugged' segment with "Lonely Days", "New York Mining Disaster", "I Can't See Nobody", "And the Sun Will Shine", "Nights on Broadway", "How Could You Mend a Broken Heart", "Heartbreaker", and "Guilty". Although again there are some segments of songs used here - the Brothers Gibb show that they just aren't Disco Kings by performing some excellent acoustics.

As for the Saturday Night Fever stuff, the main Bee Gees stuff from the movie is all there. There is a nice segue between "Night Fever" and "More Than a Woman" early in the concert. Most of the SNF material comes later in the concert "Jive Talkin" (technically not an SNF song, but was on the Soundtrack), "How Deep is Your Love", and "Stayin Alive". The Bee Gees end their performance with a reprise of the electric start they used to this CD with "You Should Be Dancing". It is also worth noting that the classic songs "Tragedy" and "I Started a Joke" are also performed.

The liner notes are a little thin, however the band credits are given. Despite the thin liner notes, I think the performance speaks for itself. Due to the death of Maurice Gibb in 2003, this would really be the last great live performance by the Bee Gees. The innovations used in this performance combined with a high energy performance truly make this the Best Album for 1998. It's a great way to discover or re-discover the Brothers Gibb. Must Have CD.

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