Tales From the Mothership by Jefferson Starship is a 4 disc set that was recording during a UFO festival at Roswell, New Mexico in 2009. I'm not a fan of the group, I know them, I know that they've been around for a number or years, but if I was to be asked to name one of their songs I wouldn't be able to. This album is more of a oh wow moment for me because I didn't even know the band was still together putting out a new recording, even if it is from a concert. Most of the songs on this collection were ones that I didn't know but there are a few that I do know and like, for example Space Oddity.
Going into this album I didn't know what I was going to be getting because most of the songs seem to be rehearsals and the same song played multiple times. The opening track on disc 1 is Space Oddity playing at 18 minutes and 52 seconds. It's one of the many tracks that is a rehearsal and though the songs at time are fun to listen to I quickly got tired of listening to the rehearsals. I had to sit through a full disc of rehearsals before I got to the second disc that started to contain actual songs. Out of this 4 disc set only half, that's 2, discs were the concert the rest is rehearsals and sound checks. Which I was bored with listening to before the fist song on disc 1 was even half played. With only 2 of the discs having the songs I would actually want to listen to, I won't be listening to the other 2 discs, making them useless to me in this set. Sure they were a little of a novelty on that first listen but even then it was a stretch and at times too much of it.
As for the 2 discs that feature the songs, I enjoyed them and thought they were played well. Considering that it felt like it was taking them forever to do all the different checks I would have laughed if when they decided to sing turned out sounding horrible. There's a lot of songs on these discs, at times it felt like a few too many, some are repeated, especially during the rehearsals, but there are some that are good songs. I enjoyed Me and My Uncle, but I'm already one to like the song from another band but there are a few songs that I didn't know that I enjoyed. Tales From the Mothership didn't turn into a Jefferson Starship fan but it did give me the chance to listen to them play and realize that they can play, and do a lot of rehearsals. This was an ok CD set to listen to, would have been more enjoyable if I were at the concert but not that bad as a CD.