Sacramento, California rockers TESLA visited iconic recording studio Abbey Road Studios in London, England in June 2019 for a one-night musical event capturing the band performing songs from their legendary arsenal, including "Love Song" and "What You Give", along with their classic covers of "Signs" and "We Can Work It Out". Additionally, the band performed live for the first time ever its new song "California Love Song", from its latest album "Shock", plus "Tied To The Tracks" and "Forever Loving You". The performance was recorded and filmed in 4K high definition, bringing forth the band's newest live album "Five Man London Jam" as an homage to their critically acclaimed live acoustic album "Five Man Acoustical Jam".
"Five Man London Jam" will be released on March 27 on Blu-ray, 2LP vinyl, CD and digital. The Blu-ray includes a bonus interview with TESLA relecting on the 30th anniversary of "Five Man Acoustical Jam" and performing for the first time at the legendary Abbey Road Studios.
Track listing:
01. Cumin' Atcha Live / Truckin'
02. Tied To The Tracks
03. We Can Work It Out
04. Signs
05. What You Give
06. California Summer Song
07. Forever Loving You
08. Miles Away
09. Paradise
10. Call It What You Want
11. Stir It Up
12. Into The Now
13. Love Song
An audio sample of "What You Give", taken from "Five Man London Jam", is available at this location.
Issued in July 1990, TESLA's stripped down "Five Man Acoustical Jam" was an instant success that coincided with the rise of MTV's unplugged format. The set has since gone platinum in the U.S.
Last year, TESLA singer Jeff Keith told Canada's The Metal Voice about "Five Man London Jam": "It was done at Abbey Road studios [in London, England]. How cool is that? It's been 30 years. We had fun doing it 30 years ago, and we had fun when we were over at Abbey Road studios, where THE BEATLES and a whole lot more other great bands have recorded. And it was awesome. We just did it live [with] a little audience there. Once again, [it was] a live performance. And that's my favorite thing to do — performing live… I like it when it's live, because you don't even realize it. We're just having fun performing songs and they're gonna make a live record of it, and have some extra footage to put in there. We had a great time; we had a fantastic time. It was a blast."
Asked about the setlist for TESLA's performance at Abbey Road, Keith said: "Well, it was requested that we do some stuff to celebrate the 30-year anniversary of 'Five Man Acoustical Jam', so we did five or six songs from that. And then we did some of our new songs, [from] the record that we made with Phil Collen from DEF LEPPARD [2019's 'Shock'], which was fantastic. So we've got some new recordings there — it's new recordings of the 30-years-ago celebration — and we had fun with it. Just like we did 30 years ago, we had fun with it again."
Regarding the original "Five Man Acoustical Jam" recording, Jeff said: "It was just like an accident waiting to happen, and it was a great accident. Not an accident, but… We had been on tour with MÖTLEY CRÜE, and we had to jam an acoustical set that we did for, I think, the Bammies, the Bay Area Music Awards. So we decided, 'Hey, instead of sitting on two nights off in a row, we'll just find a club that'll let us come in and play our songs acoustically and have fun with it,' and that's what we did. And it was feeling so good, the decision was made with Geffen Records, 'Let's just record the whole night.' And we went to a radio station — me, Frank [Hannon] and Tommy [Skeoch] — and we played 'Signs' and the phones were ringing off the hook. I think it's our biggest-selling record to date. But it was all just having fun."
TESLA is continuing to tour in support of "Shock", which was released in March 2019 via UMe. The follow-up to 2014's "Simplicity" was produced and co-written by Collen.
