If they had had the foresight, maybe
Beeb Birtles,
Glenn Shorrock, and
Graham Goble would have followed the practice of one of their big musical influences when they formed the core of a group joined by three other Australian musicians in the mid-'70s. Several years earlier,
David Crosby,
Graham Nash, and
Stephen Stills had deliberately named their new ensemble
Crosby, Stills & Nash on the notion that, unlike their previous groups,
the Byrds,
the Hollies, and
Buffalo Springfield, this band couldn't be billed under the group name unless all of them were present. Instead,
Birtles,
Shorrock, and
Goble named their outfit
Little River Band, and it went on to the kinds of personnel changes common to many pop groups, continuing well into the 21st century without any of the original members. So, when the three principals decided to re-form, none of them had rights to the name and, as with the version of
Yes that toured and recorded as
Anderson-Bruford-Wakeman-Howe in 1989, they were finally forced to use their own names while performing their old songs in the old way. When they played the Forum in Melbourne in July 2003, the marquee read, "Original Voices of ?????? ????? ????," and everyone in the hall knew what the question marks stood for. The resulting live album,
Full Circle (also issued as a video on DVD), is pretty much what a
Little River Band fan would expect. All 11 of the Top 40 hits the group scored in the U.S. between 1976 and 1982, when these three members were present, are included, and although more than 20 years have gone by, they sound much the same. Of course, this means that the CD is the least compelling of the three media in which the show might be experienced, following the actual live show and the video. There are only a few brief stage remarks on this lengthy disc, so one might as well listen to the original recordings instead. And despite the billing on the cover, this should be filed in record collections under
Little River Band. ~ William Ruhlmann