Cleopatra's
Bootlegs, Live & Rarities collects two discs' worth of the kind of songs mentioned in the title, devoting the first half of the collection to studio work and the second half to live recordings. The bootleg quality of the studio recordings is apparent on these versions of
Upstarts classics like "Upstart," "Teenage Warning," "(Who Killed) Liddle Towers," and "Last Night Another Soldier." The live disc fares slightly better, featuring fiery versions of these songs as well as "Kids on the Street," "Never Had Nothin'," "Machine Gun Kelly," and "Police Oppression." Not quite as well-assembled as a straightforward best-of collection like Castle's
Greatest Hits and lacking as many rarities as one might expect from the title,
Bootlegs, Live & Rarities is a frustrating but not altogether worthless compilation.
–
Heather Phares, Rovi