- Critic score
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- By date
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Los Angeles TimesWilliams sings tunes... with such openness and character that it's like hearing some of them for the first time. [22 May 2005]
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By the time we get to the end of disc two, the broad strokes have coalesced into something quite remarkable; as Williams searches through the nooks and crannies of her songs, you sense she's discovering things that she didn't expect to find, and it's a tremendous thing to hear.
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Live at the Fillmore showcases her raw wound of a voice and the rough edges of her band in all their unvarnished glory, as the music cuts across conventional categories of country, blues, folk, rock (and rap) to strike a distinctly personal chord.
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UncutThe intensity builds relentlessly. [Jun 2005, p.102]
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Q MagazineCaptures her in full, unrepentant swing. [Jun 2005, p.111]
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MojoIt really is good. [Jul 2005, p.99]
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Her vocals, even on talking-blues songs like "Sweet Side" and "Righteously", reveal a woman living through all the messy frustration and unalleviated desire she's singing about.
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Considering that Fillmore isn’t drawn from a single show, it’s baffling as to why the slower numbers are bunched together and the more exhilarating songs pushed nearly an hour into the listening experience. As a result, the album falls somewhere between Thin Lizzy and Zeppelin on the double live barometer.
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The twenty-two-song collection suffers from bloat, uneven pacing and an overabundance of tunes from 2003's World Without Tears. But it's still an effective summary of Williams' career as a prophet of, as she puts it, "all that's alarming, raw and exposed."
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BlenderThere isn't a bad song or performance on it. Unfortunately, there isn't a new song or performance on it either. [Jun 2005, p.117]
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Although the venue doesn’t spark an unqualified masterpiece for the grand dame of alt.country, a musky reverence seems to seep into the record, and the best moments here are among the best she’s committed to tape.
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The best live albums offer new insight into an artist and their music, but Fillmore does little of either.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 5 out of 7
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Mixed: 1 out of 7
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Negative: 1 out of 7
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JerryMJun 23, 2005
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DavidSJun 8, 2005
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JohnBMay 20, 2005