Release date: April 4, 2006
12 tracks, 41:50

On April 4, 2006, Capitol Records decided to release "Live at the Palace" - a concert CD by Blind Melon that was recorded on Oct. 11, 1995, weeks before singer Shannon Hoon's drug overdose.

A fitting tribute album, right? Wrong. While the CD is unbelievable, the track listing is completely off.

The CD says the first song is "Toes Across the Floor." The actual first song when you listen to the CD is "Galaxie." All of the tracks are mislabled.

How can a label make such a mistake? Who knows.

Over at amazon.com, former Blind Melon guitarist Rogers Stevens posted this:

Dear friends of the Melon,
We are very disappointed with the new "Live at the Palace" release. I have not seen a hard copy of the disc yet, but I was aware several months ago that the track list was scrambled when they made an aborted attempt to put it on Itunes, but did not know that this was off on the disc as well. We've been around the bend with Capitol about this, and they pretty much did what they wanted to anyway. The band does not have a manager now, so we didn't have anyone to run interferece with the label, and were dealing with it ourselves. We hated the cover, nobody who worked on it was credited, and it was put together without any consideration for our wishes. Last year, we worked closely with Capitol to release the "best of" and "live at the metro" releases, but some new people took over and just didn't care for our input. If you go to itunes Australia or England, you'll see the cover that we picked, which fits the theme of the other releases. Brad and Christopher spent a week mixing this thing and got no credit. Lyle Eaves (our live sound engineer) facilitated the recording...and again no credit. We wanted to honor our crew members who stuck with us through some unbelievably difficult touring...again no credit. We stand by the quality of the show and recording, but cannot remain silent about what they did with it. It's a shame, too, because Capitol treated us very well to this point. As always, we appreciate your support......
Rogers Stevens
Blind Melon guitarist

I thought it was worth sharing.

As far as the album is concerned, the sound quality is fantastic.

I'm one of those people who think Blind Melon was extremely underrated as a band. Most people only know the song "No Rain," but their catalog was much more complex than that.

The CD, while offering a glimpse at the band in their final days, is as enjoyable as it is sad.

The real track listing is as follows:
Galaxie
Toes Across the Floor
Tones of Home
Soup
Soak The Sin
Change
No Rain
Wilt
Vernie
Walk
Skinned
Time

My brother saw the band's last show in Houston, Texas, the night before Shannon Hoon died.

I was able to see them live once as well.

One of my most memorable experiences was interviewing Stevens after the "Nico" album was released. It was an honor to talk with him, and I am still grateful that he was willing to do an interview with tragic memories so fresh in his mind.

Stevens was most recently in a band called The Tender Trio with Royston Langden - former singer for Spacehog and husband of Liv Tyler. That band recently announced their breakup.

Christopher Thorn and Brad Smith most recently worked with Anna Nalick on her debut album, "Wreck of the Day."

I can only hope that these talented musicians continue to make amazing music.

And if they release more live shows of Blind Melon, well, I'm ok with that, too.

Rest in peace, Shannon. Your fans miss your music.

Posted by jeffhahnedisabled at May 2, 2006 1:28 PM