You can find plenty of other live recordings on the band’s streaming catalogue, but among the most potent was one cut, Live At Winterland 1973, which captures a special night. Cipollina left the band back in 1970 but he reunited with them for this show (as well as some later incarnations). It’s a very different sound for Quicksilver by this point, a fatter, harder style, which the two star guitarists made the most of. Some of their toughest, and tightest, work can be found on this live recording.
Quicksilver’s distinctive guitar player, John Cipollina, had left three years earlier to form Copperhead. But since that band was to open for Quicksilver on this bill, Cipollina agreed to play with the mother group as well. Quicksilver’s original bassist and singer, David Freiberg, also came back for the ride.
The lineup re-created the band’s best, and initial, configuration, with the addition of Dino Valenti. He was supposed to be the band’s singer from the start, but a drug bust put that off for four years. The Winterland show went so well, it led to a formal studio reunion for the band on the 1975 album “Solid Silver.”
The opening track Losing Hand gives both axe men plenty of room to blow. With an added Latin percussionist and a surging organ, Quicksilver inches closer to the style of another great psych-San Francisco band, Santana. Their near nine-minute run at the classic Bo Diddley “Who Do You Love” featured more dense and frantic solos from the two guitarists than the ’69 take, reproving, along the way, the equal power of the players.
The show highlights a band that never got its due, performing in a configuration that allowed it to sound better than it did on any other recording. It’s an air-guitar player’s dream come true, as well as a reminder of what a live band can sound like when everyone’s in ideal sync.
The Fat Angel Sings 