The new live disc features four cuts whose originals appeared on Homework, their stellar debut, and stretches them out over an intense, 45-minute set recorded during Daft Punk's first European tour. In a continuous live mix, the pair tweaks and tortures the originals to a nearly indistinguishable degree in extended workouts.
To this end, the bass-fueled house gem "Da Funk" merits more than 16 minutes, including a staggered stop-start section that has the crowd squealing and peaking along with the synthesizers. Which brings up one unfortunate point: Without the real-world adrenaline provided by woofers imploding your chest as one churns amid the sweaty masses, the ten-plus minutes afforded several tracks may outlive many, if not all, attention spans. Still, "Rollin' & Scratchin'," "WDPK (Part II)," and "Alive" feature extended sections of sheer mixing brilliance; beats get a bpm bump, and pitches are oscillated to shrill climaxes for maximum drama, making Alive 1997 an indispensable document of the live Daft Punk experience.