The Wonder Stuff at their best, but not the best job the BBC could do of harvesting the archives. 

Existing firmly in the niche category, "Live At The BBC" will not win The Wonder Stuff any new fans : a double CD set of live recordings (almost exclusively culled from the later years) that manages to capture the Stuffies in their element and at their commercial peak.

Stuffies shows were always celebrations and joyous occasions. And whilst the music within fails to capture what it was really like (and nothing ever will short of actually being stood, sweaty, in a leisure centre in a British suburban town in the late 80's and early 90's), "Live At The BBC" manages to present the majority of two concerts from the glory years (Reading 1992, and Leicester 1994), supplemented with a handful of other moments.

Starting with primitive 1987 recordings a full year before the debut album, this first session seriously undersells the power of the band : the songs have yet to mature, and are at best, basic templates of the material. As a result, they are fascinating in their embryonic, prototypical form, and for showing how much the songs had yet to change before they became staples of the "Eight Legged Groove Machine". None of the four songs on this session have appeared in any form on any official live CD, which makes them worthy of inclusion. Sadly, the 1988 Mark Goodier Session has been lost and rather than canvas the band's fanbase for a copy (as they did for a similar Wedding Present set earlier this year), the BBC have chosen not to bother at all.

Next is a brief 1991 acoustic radio session - predicting Miles solo acoustic work of several years later with the same musicians - and thus, showing an enormous stylistic leap from a ramshackle postpunk indie pop group to a set of sensitive artists within a mere handful of years. The rest of disc one is taken up with 11 songs from 1992's Reading Festival, which is sadly undermixed and Miles voice, battered by a days drinking, is showing signs of wear. The performance is competent, but is regarded by Miles as 'one of the worst shows in rock history' - on disc it merely sounds unexceptional.

Disc two opens with almost an hour from the band's final tour, recorded in Leicester in March 1994. On the night it was the best show I saw from that tour, and captures the band at their best. Sadly (like the rest of the collection), the between-song banter has been mercilessly stripped out which removes part of the charm of the night, but the musical performance is a finely-honed hour of highlights from a band at their tightest. Irrespective of the personal politics that lead the band to split weeks later, musically the Leicester performance sees the original lineup of the band at the apex of their ability and a fiercely cohesive unit. The final three songs are from their original farewell show at 1994's Phoenix Festival and present traditional set closer "Goodnight Though".

In many respects, disc two can be seen as the definitive live record of The Wonder Stuff during their heyday. As a collection though, "Live At The BBC" falls short of expectations : there's 44 minutes of unused space over the two discs, several songs have been cut from the discs (despite being broadcast and being heavily bootlegged) for no apparent reason, and the BBC have omitted three concerts as well as having failed to make an effort to locate the 1988 Goodier Session (which I have on a cassette at home). It's the sound of open goals being missed by a lack of attention to basic detail. It's by no means a bad package, but fails to satisfy either the casual observer or the keen fan and is rather underwhelming in terms of filling the available space.

Overall though it is a keenly priced value-for-money package that efficiently captures most of their hit singles and reflects The Wonder Stuff live experience as well as any live recording has yet been able to.  If you're a fan, make an effort to pick this up.

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