If you find the first Cream album to be a little thin, this album helps rectify some of the shortcomings. The live Cream shows were famous (and not a little notorious) for transforming simple songs into extended workouts. All of the songs here, recorded around 1967 and 1968, are from the first album except for the non-live "Lawdy Mama" which is just "Strange Brew" with different lyrics and guitar solos. Quite on the opposite end of the spectrum are the 10-minute "N.S.U." and the 16-minute "Sweet Wine" which utterly dwarf their studio versions. Those who prefer neat, exact renditions of the studio versions should keep away from this!
I tend to fall on the "favor" side when it comes to live Cream. I mean, if I wanted to hear the exact same song note for note at a rock concert, these days I'd rather just stay home and turn up the stereo instead to get nearly the same effect and save $50 and the smell of barf. Nowadays it seems like you have to be a Deadhead or a-Phish-ianado (I just made that up) to get the totally different concert experience. Even the bands inspired to the long form by Cream have largely fallen in line with the "neat clean" reproduction. I even saw a Fleetwood Mac show where exact reproduction was so essential that there was an entire hidden backing band backstage supplementing the sound.
Of course these days the closest I can get to this kind of experience is to find a rare filmed show from the era to capture the effect. There are some good Deep Purple DVD's that capture this quite well. Not sure if Cream was too early for that, except for the Farewell Concert from the end of 1968. I know the reunion shows were a little disappointing as Jack Bruce's voice was pretty wretched and the music has to be retuned to account for that.
Added 10/27: R.I.P. Jack Bruce!! The overall average note of rock just went up an octave....
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