Show Review: Van Morrison – Vienna, Austria (12/29/01)

Van Morrison
2001-12-29
Museumsquartier – Vienna, Austria

01 – Inarticulate Speech Of The Heart #1
02 – Celtic Swing
03 – Whatever Happened To PJ Proby
04 – Meet Me In The Indian Summer
05 – Naked In The Jungle
06 – Days Like This
07 – Have I Told You Lately
08 – Satisfied
09 – In The Afternoon > Ancient Highway > Joe Turner Sings > Louis Prima Sings > Raincheck > Hamlet
10 – Stop Drinking
11 – Jackie Wilson Said
12 – Jump Jive And Wail
13 – And The Healing Has Begun
14 – All Work And No Play
15 – It’s All in the Game>You Know What They’re Writing About>Rainbow 65>Make It Real One More Time
16 – Star Of The County Down
17 – Brown Eyed Girl
18 – Gloria

Comment: 1h35m

Lineup: Richard Dunn, Ned Edwards, Lee Goodall, Matt Holland, Pete Hurley, Bobby Irwin, Martin Winning

Guest: Candy Dulfer

Lineage: ? > CD trade > EAC > FLAC > SBE check > you

The Midnight Cafe Review

I’ve posted a Youtube clip of this show and more over at my Substack.

Several reviews ago, I noted that my reviews come slowly because I just don’t have that much time to listen. I do my best listening in my car to and from work. I do listen at home, but usually when I’m doing something else and thus not paying close attention. This means it usually takes me the better part of a week to listen to an entire show.

Well, I’m getting better at listening but worse at writing. I don’t know if I’m riding around more for work, or more likely I’m not letting myself pause the music for any reason. Often, when I have something on my mind, I’ll talk it out to myself (and yes, I really do talk to myself). Usually, when I do that, I’ll stop the music because I know I won’t be paying attention. But for the last couple of weeks, I’ve forced myself to listen and not talk.

I now have a couple of shows fully listened to with notes, but I haven’t taken the time to review. If I get good at this, I might get two or three reviews in a week, which would be cool.

In my last Neil Young review, I complained about crowd noise. For that recording, there were a few folks talking rather loudly through the entire show. And the mics picked them up. For this recording, there is still some crowd noise, and it has that typical audience reverberation where it sounds like the show is happening in the next room, but I can’t hear any specific people talking (except for the occasional shout). I don’t know why that is. I do know there are directional mics that are designed to only hear sounds coming from one direction, which should help cut out crowd noise from around the microphone (except from directly in front, I guess).

Is that what happened on the Neil show? Were the talkers directly in front of the mics? Or did the taper have bad mics? Or maybe this crowd at the Van show was less talkative? I don’t understand any of that. Maybe our good friend OldNeumanntapr can explain the details. His recordings always sound wonderful.

The show begins with two instrumentals. Van apparently doesn’t come out until after “Inarticulate Speech of the Heart #1” as he gets announced just before “Celtic Swing.” “Whatever Happened To PJ Proby” and “Meet Me In the Indian Summer” are well played. They are very mellow and laid-back.

“Naked in the Jungle” is killer. Big jams, high energy. The audience recording doesn’t do it justice. He’ll do this several times throughout the night – play a couple of laid-back, mellow, or soulful songs and then just absolutely let loose.

“Days Like This” is very good. “Have I Told You Lately” is very jazzy. “Satisfied” has a great little groove. The whole show is very well played. The band and Van are syncing really well. “Jackie Wilson Said” is big and jazzy.

“Jump Jive and Wail” is fine. It is one of those songs that was probably a lot of fun to listen to if you were in the audience, but on tape you lose some of that energy. But it’s perfectly fine.

“And the Healing Has Begun” is gorgeous. So soulful. In the middle, there is this section where the strings solo for a bit, then the guitar, then the piano all get solos, and it’s just wonderful. Sometimes when they trade solos like that, it gets a little tedious, but here it works. Then they come together to create a wonderful groove. You know Van is into it because he does his whole “Digga Digga Dig” thing.

“All Work and No Play” is light and jazzy. It makes for quite a contrast to the soulfulness of “And the Healing Has Begun.” “It’s All in the Game” is wonderful, then he slips into a medley of several songs. All of which are sung very soulfully, but they wind up taking away from the beauty of “It’s All in the Game.”

“Brown Eyed Girl” is spirited. Van’s voice is in such fine form here. “Gloria” has some great sax from Candy Dulfer and a fun little outro. I’m thinking Dulfer being present all night added to that jazzy feeling I keep mentioning on several songs.

This really is a great show. The sound is quite good, and the performance is wonderful.

Show Review: Jerry Garcia Band – Santa Cruz, CA (02/02/82)

Jerry Garcia Band
The Catalyst
Santa Cruz, CA
1982-02-02

Set 1

01 How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)
02 Catfish John
03 Let It Rock
04 Simple Twist Of Fate
05 I Second That Emotion

Total time: 54:51

Set 2

01 I’ll Take A Melody
02 (I’m A) Road Runner
03 Russian Lullaby
04 Valerie
05 Tangled Up In Blue

Jerry Garcia – electric guitar, vocals
Bill Kreutzmann – drums
Jimmy Warren – keyboards
John Kahn – electric bass
Julie Stafford – vocals
Liz Stires – vocals
Melvin Seals – keyboards

Originally posted on my Substack, where you’ll get even more info, posters, and music.

The Midnight Cafe Review.

After our last show in San Francisco on January 13, Jerry Garcia took a couple of weeks off from playing in front of a live audience, but did spend at least five days in the Grateful Dead’s studio working on what would ultimately be his last studio album as a solo artist, Run for the Roses. He’d spend the rest of February and March playing gigs with the Jerry Garcia band all over California (and one gig in Reno) before heading out on the Spring Tour with the Grateful Dead.

At this point, the band consisted of two keyboard players: Melvin Seals and Jimmy Warren. They were a duo with the band from early 1981 until Warren left in the summer of 1982. Melvin Seals, of course, was around until the end, and he continues to play in the JGB band as a tribute to Garcia.

This show is the first time I’ve really paid attention to the duelling keyboards. I’m guessing I’ve listened to some shows with them from 1981, and I certainly listened to the two shows from earlier in 1982. With those shows, I definitely noticed there were a couple of different keyboards being played, but I don’t think I could ever hear them played at the same time and just assumed it was Seals playing two different keyboards. Which is dumb, I know, especially since I listed the band members. No one ever said I was a very smart listener.

But here you can really distinguish the playing, and they are both awesome. You’ll hear that a lot in this review.

They get things rocking with a nice “How Sweet It Is.” There is some nice interplay between Jerry and the keyboards. For part of “Catfish John,” Jerry guitar tone sounds different, almost like a steel drum. There is lots of great jamming.

“Let It Rock” rumbles on for nine minutes, and it feels like just one long groove. Garcia gets in some great solos with the band interplaying underneath him. “Simple Twist of Fate” is fine, nothing spectacular, and it ends on a long, pointless bass solo.

“I Second That Emotion” is killer. I love that song, and it’s got some terrific energy here with the whole band on point. Great way to end the set.

“I’ll Take a Melody” begins pretty lifeless, but between the verses, Jerry revs things up, and the band kicks right in. It is a short burst, and things settle back down for the next verse, but once it is over, Jerry jumps right back in, and the band follows. It is interesting to see how very much Jerry is the leader of this band and the rest of them follow his example.

I’m not much of a fan of “Russian Lullaby”; it is too slow for me, and the lyrics don’t prick my ears. This version is quite good. Probably not good enough that I won’t skip it the next time I listen to this show, but it is better than a lot of the versions I’ve heard. Jerry’s throws in some nice licks, and John Kahn does a hot solo that gets the audience screaming and clapping.

“Valerie” is another song I don’t love, but this version is energetic. “Tangled Up In Blue” is a fantastic closing song with some really great playing by everyone.

Overall, this is a very good show. Completely enjoyed it.

Jerrybase lists six sources for this show. I listened to SHNID 110350, which is an excellent audience recording. There is a soundboard recording of the second set, but I found that one of the keyboards was way too high in the mix – drowning out Garcia’s guitar and making it unlistenable to my ears.

Listen to Van Morrison Perform “And The Healing Has Begun” from Vienna (12/29/01)

When I tell people I collect concert recordings, I often get blank stares. Sometimes I get questions like, “Why?” or “How many versions of the same songs do you need?” Sometimes I wonder the same thing. Do I really need hundreds of shows from a single artist?

And then I hear things like this. This is why I collect shows. This is why this insane hobby is so gratifying. Every once in a while, you find a version of a song that is transcendent. And that makes it all worthwhile.

Show Review: The Rolling Stones – Happy Birthday Nicky – Perth, Australia (02/24/73) & Sydney, Australia (02/26/73)

The Rolling Stones
Western Australia Cricket Ground
Perth, Australia
February 24, 1973

and

Royal Randwick Racecourse
Sydney, Australia
February 26, 1973

Disc 1 (Perth)

01. Brown Sugar
02. Bitch
03. Rocks Off
04. Gimmie Shelter
05. Happy
06. Tumbling Dice
07. Honky Tonk Women
08. All Down The Line
09. Midnight Rambler
10. Little Queenie

Disc 2 (Sydney)

01. Brown Sugar
02. Bitch
03. Rocks Off
04. Gimmie Shelter
05. Happy
06. Tumbling Dice
07. Love In Vain
08. Sweet Virginia
09. You Can’t Always Get What You Want
10. Honky Tonk Women
11. All Down The Line
12. Midnight Rambler
13. Little Queenie
14. Rip This Joint

Originally posted on my Substack

The Midnight Cafe Review:

The first Bob Dylan tapes I ever obtained were from his 2010 Japan tour. They were audience recordings, of course, and I thought they sounded terrible. The thing is, I came to recordings of independent origin through the Grateful Dead – a band that has a seemingly infinite supply of superb soundboard recordings. Slowly, I obtained tapes from Grateful Dead-related and adjacent bands like Bruce Hornsby and David Grisman, but they were still nice-quality soundboard recordings.

At some point, I connected to the old Phil Zone site and all of their various vines. This opened my world up to all sorts of bands I didn’t know had recordings of shows available. But again, most of these were soundboards. Now, I certainly was aware of audience tapes. I had numerous audience recordings for the Dead and others. But they were much rarer than the soundboards I had collected up to this point, and generally went unlistened to.

I was excited to get those Dylan tapes, at least until I listened to them. I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to listen to such poor-quality tapes.

Years have passed, and I’ve since listened to a great many audience recordings of all sorts of bands, including more than my fair share of Bob Dylan tapes. I’ve come to enjoy audience recordings in all their shapes and sizes. I can’t remember the exact date of those Japan shows, but I’ve listened to that whole tour and enjoyed them.

Of course, those recordings haven’t changed. It is the same sound as always. My sound equipment hasn’t gotten better either. It is me that has changed. I’ve learned how to enjoy an audience recording with all its flaws.

Now you may be asking yourself, why is he talking about a Bob Dylan show during a review of a Rolling Stones bootleg? The answer is that I’ve plugged this boot into my system on several occasions, only to turn it off after the first few songs. The sound has always seemed off to me.

It is clearly a soundboard, so there is none of the audience noise or distant sound you get on an audience tape. But it does sound slightly cold. In my notes, I tried to explain it by the stadiums they are playing in. The Western Australia Cricket Ground is a big stadium. Wikipedia says its capacity is 10,000, but that’s for when they are playing cricket – a sport that needs a big ground to play on. One presumes that for the Stones concert they had loads of seats on the grounds. Playing in a big stadium takes a different kind of performance and sound than playing in an intimate club.

The band is playing for a stadium crowd. This is big, loud rock and roll. The guitars thunder. Mick doesn’t exactly shout his lyrics, but his singing isn’t subtle. It is an assault on the ears. Or as a commenter noted on my old blog, “the band is feral.”

I have a hard time listening at first. On other listens, I turned it off and found something else to listen to. But this time I kept going. And like those Dylan audience recordings I found, I got used to it. Then I enjoyed it.

I don’t know what was going on with the band in Perth. The band had planned a 13-night tour of Japan and Australia. Japan got cancelled because they wouldn’t let Mick Jagger into the country due to his prior drug convictions. The Perth show was their seventh gig in Australia, so it wasn’t jet lag as I had thought it might have been. Maybe they partied too hard the night before. Or maybe they got some bad drugs just before this gig.

Who knows, but they play like mad men. Keith Richards and Mick Taylor light the place up with dual guitars. Mick Jagger sings like a man strung out.

The Sydney show does settle down a bit. They sound more relaxed. The songs have more nuance and detail.

They brought additional musicians with this tour. There is Nicky Hopkins (whose birthday was the 24th, prompting Mick to lead the audience in a sing-along and giving this boot its name) on piano, as well as Ian Stewart on keys and Bobby Keys on saxophone and Jim Price on trumpet and trombone. Those horns really add a lot to these shows. The keys are great when they aren’t being drowned out.

“Gimme Shelter” from Perth is awesome. It rages like the storm it is. Keith sings on “Happy”; his vocals are worse than Mick’s, but the song rocks. “Tumbling Dice” finds the band finally finding its stride. “Midnight Rambler” has a killer middle section where they slow everything down and it gets real bluesy. “Little Queenie” lets the pianos be heard, and it’s quite nice.

Though they play some of the same songs, the Sydney show is by far the better gig. I always wonder about boots like this: why they include both shows like this. I get that these are soundboard recordings from the Australian tour, but is anyone really wanting to hear the same songs again within the same boot?

I imagine when I listen to this again I’ll just skip to the Sydney performance.

The performances of the songs shared on both nights sound much better in Sydney to my ears. I do think the Perth show is worth listening to just for how energetic (and yes, feral) it is.

“Love in Vain” is pure blues. Mick’s vocals are soulful, full of hurt and loss. The guitars are beautiful. “Sweet Virginia” is one of my favorite Stones songs, and it’s really good here.

“You Can’t Always Get What You Want” is a showstopper. The entire band completely gels. This is the nuance I was talking about. “Honky Tonk Women” is tons of fun. The horns really kick off here. Ditto with “All Down the Line,” with big guitars and big horns.

“Midnight Rambler” slowly builds into a righteous fury, then slows back down into a soulful blues riff before ramping back up again.

My brain is an idiot. While listening to “Little Queenie,” I thought, ‘man, they are really ripping off Chuck Berry with this song.’ Friends, it is a Chuck Berry song. He wrote it; the Stones covered it. I knew that, but forgot, I guess.

“Rip This Joint” ends the tape on a high note.

This is a great bootleg. Terrific sound and fantastic performance. I was listening to this on my phone in my car. When the show ended, it naturally started back at the beginning. It’s weird, but I suddenly didn’t have the same problems I did on my first listen. It didn’t sound as distant as I first thought. Mick’s vocals didn’t bother me. I guess I really did get used to it. The music didn’t change, but it changed me.

Show Review: Bob Dylan – Anaheim, CA (03/10/00)

Bob Dylan
Sun Theater
Anaheim, CA
March 10, 2000

Early Show

01. Roving Gambler
02. Tomorrow Is A Long Time
03. It’s Alright Ma, I’m Only Bleeding
04. Tangled Up In Blue
05. This World Can’t Stand
06. Dignity
07. Tell Me That It Isn’t True
08. Things Have Changed
09. Not Dark Yet
10. Highway 61 Revisited
11. Love Sick
12. Not Fade Away
13. Blowin’ In The Wind

Late Show

01 I Am The Man, Thomas
02 My Back Pages
03 Desolation Row
04 Mama, You Been On My Mind
05 This World Can’t Stand Long
06 Dignity
07 Country Pie
08 We Better Talk This Over
09 Things Have Changed
10 Not Dark Yet
11 Highway 61 Revisited
12 Ballad Of A Thin Man
13 Not Fade Away
14 It Ain’t Me, Babe
15 Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat

Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar)
Charlie Sexton (guitar)
Larry Campbell (guitar, mandolin, pedal steel guitar & electric slide guitar)
Tony Garnier (bass)
David Kemper (drums & percussion)

Originally posted on my Substack

The Midnight Cafe’s Review:

I can’t remember when I first started listening to Bob Dylan shows from 2000. I’m guessing I posted some shows on the old blog, and some people highly praised them. That caused me to give one or two a listen, and I found I liked them, so I uploaded more. Those got praised. I listened to more; I collected and shared some more.

It has become one of my favorite years. I know some folks prefer 1999, and I have nothing bad to say about that, but I’m all about 2000. That may be because I listened to it first, or I’ve listened to it more. It doesn’t matter; both years are terrific.

I love that they almost always start with an old traditional song. Bob is steeped in the folk tradition; he got his start there, and starting his shows like this seems to call back to his early days. I love that there is so much acoustic guitar in these shows. I love that they often do a little jamming.

Really, I just love this band. This lineup is something special. Larry Campbell and Charlie Sexton on dual guitars is my jam. When I listen to these shows, I wish he’d kept this band forever. But that wouldn’t be Bob Dylan. He’s a changeling. Constantly on the move and constantly doing the unexpected. Besides, to have kept this band would have let us miss so many other great lineups.

So, I thought it would be fun to go on tour with Bob Dylan and his band in 2000. I’m not sure if I’ll cover the entire year or just the Spring Tour. I might get bored of this after a while and want something different. But for now, I’m excited to see where Bob will take us. And on to the show.

I always find it strange when an artist does two shows in one day. I generally assume it’s because tickets are selling fast, but the rest of the tour is booked, so they can’t add a second night at the same venue, so they just double-book the day. But I have no idea if that’s really true.

I also feel like the early shows are a little shorter and not as good. Like the band always seems to be saving their energy a little bit for the second show. But again, I might just be talking out of my arse.

The early show on this day begins with “Roving Gambler,” a traditional song that dates back to the earliest part of the 20th Century. It is wonderful, with some terrific harmonies. Next comes “Tomorrow is a Long Time,” which sounds like an old traditional but is actually a Dylan original.

This is where I admit I have no idea how to tell Charlie Sexton’s guitar parts from Larry Campbell’s. I like them both. “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding” has some great guitar work, whoever it is.

For “Tangled Up In Blue,” it seems like Bob is taking a deep breath before each line, or something. He’s always just slightly late coming in. That’s probably intentional, and Dylan has always had a very interesting delivery. He also screws up one of his lines, which seems unusual to me.

Their cover of Roy Acuff’s “This World Can’t Stand Long” is just lovely. “Things Have Changed” is one of my favorite late-period Dylan tunes, and the band just nails it here. Ditto for “Not Dark Yet,” a song I find myself listening to a lot these days, and it usually makes me tear up.

Some dude near the taper gets super excited when they play “Highway 61 Revisited,” as he hoots and hollers when it begins. He sings the first verse really loudly, and you can hear someone clapping along on this tape.

So many of these shows sound very light and warm to my ears. A lot of that comes from the choice of songs, especially the fun cover songs, but it’s also the use of acoustic guitars and vocal harmonies. It sometimes feels like some fellas sitting on their front porch just having fun.

And yet, they handle the darkness of “Love Sick” really well. You can really feel the heartache and pain of the lyrics.

Then we get “Not Fade Away,” the Buddy Holly song that’s played with utter joy. The early show closes out with a nice version of “Blowin’ in the Wind.”

The late show opens with another cover, “I Am the Man, Thomas,” which I believe is an old Ralph Stanley song, but it sounds like it could have come from a thousand years ago. It is a wonderful performance. Dylan played it something like 60 times from 1999 to 2002, and then I think he dropped it completely.

I’m usually not a big fan of “My Back Pages,” but this version is just lovely and tender. “Mama You Been On My Mind” gives us that back porch feel. It is so casual-sounding. They make it sound so easy.

“Dignity” is great; it reminds me of his performance on that MTV Unplugged thing.

My thoughts on most of the rest of this show are a little hazy. I typically listen to shows I’m going to review on my way to and from work, or maybe to the post office or whatever. These are relatively short trips. Ten to fifteen minutes, maybe twenty at the maximum. That gives me time to listen to two or three songs before I stop. While I’m listening, I make little mental notes, and then when I stop, I jot them down on a notepad.

I have a terrible memory, so if I don’t jot my thoughts down, they disappear. I listened to the back end of the late show on my way to a movie in downtown Tulsa. That’s more like a thirty-five-minute ride. When I got there, I thought I was late, so I rushed in without jotting anything down. When I got home, it was late, and I was tired, so again I didn’t jot anything down.

Guess what? My thoughts on those songs are gone. I very much liked them, but I have nothing specific to say. The only other notes I have are that “Not Fade Away” is spirited and that “It Ain’t Me, Babe” is tender and goes down easy.

In general, I’d say this is a very good show, but not as good as I remember this tour being. The start of the tour is often a little rough, and I feel confident we’re gonna get blown away soon.

For the early show, I listened to LB-440, which Lossless Bob rates an “A.”For the late show, my notes just say it is from a CDR and is probably not the source for an LB. I should note that this is the first review I’ve done on this Substack that is taken from an audience source. Previously, I’ve only done audience recordings. I’ve certainly listened to plenty of AUDs, so that’s no big deal, but I should make a note of it.

These two recordings are quite nice. The late show has a bit of crowd noise, but it isn’t too distracting.

Show Review: Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Inglewood, CA (10/23/78)

Originally posted on my Substack where you can find images, videos and more goodies.

Neil Young & Crazy Horse
The Forum
Inglewood, CA
1978-10-23

Sugar Mountain
I Am A Child
Comes A Time
Already One
After The Gold Rush
My My, Hey Hey (Out Of The Blue)
When You Dance I Can Really Love
The Loner
Welfare Mothers
Come On Baby Let’s Go Downtown?
The Needle And The Damage Done
Lotta Love
Sedan Delivery
Powderfinger
Cortez The Killer
Cinnamon Girl
Like A Hurricane
Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black)
Tonight’s The Night

From the ‘Rust Never Sleeps’ Tour, one day after the Movie and official release was filmed and recorded in San Francisco, Ca.

Neil Young – guitar, piano, vocals
Frank Sampedro – guitar, keyboards, vocals
Billy Talbot – bass, vocals
Ralph Molina – drums, vocals

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Source:

SBD > ? > CDR > EAC > WAV > TLH > Flac

The Midnight Cafe’s Notes:

I feel like I’m a broken record when I repeat that I have trouble reviewing Neil’s acoustic sets. The thing is, I like them. I like these songs, and Neil plays them well. But they rarely sound all that different to me. Is one version of “I Am A Child” better than another? Probably. If you lined them all up, you could probably pick out some really good versions, but a random listen usually turns up a good one that sounds pretty much like most of the rest of them.

The sound is good, but there is a lot of crowd noise. It isn’t like an audience recording where you can hear some dumbo behind the taper just chatting away, but there is a lot of random clapping and cheering during the acoustic set. It makes me wonder if something was going on onstage or elsewhere. Was Neil or someone else doing something worth cheering for? Or maybe they just really love certain lines in the songs. It is a bit distracting, but not a big deal, really.

I do love when Neil plays piano during the solo sets. He does a very nice version of “After the Gold Rush” here.

“My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)” is good. Neil gets really into this song with some nice guitar work, and then he keeps repeating “Hey, hey, my my…” several times at the end.

The electric set starts with “When You Dance You Can Really Love,” and it is a good one. It has this wonderful little solo. “Welfare Mothers” finds the whole band getting into a rowdy little groove

I love the Crazy Horse sound. When they are good (and they are often very good), they are so loud, raucous, rowdy, and wild. They sound like they could go off the rails at any moment, but they manage to keep the train just on the tracks.

“Needle and the Damage Done” is just Neil again on acoustic guitar, which seems weird. Before the song, you can hear someone – an announcer, maybe; I can’t tell – saying something about getting off the towers. I’m guessing some audience members were climbing on something, causing safety issues. I’m guessing again that this caused Neil to just play by himself for a minute until whatever was going on got cleared up.

“Cortez the Killer” is one of my favorite Neil songs. He’s got a few songs like this where his band will find this groove and then just play it and play it while Neil is laying down big guitar riffs until they transcend space and time. They absolutely nail it here, with the riffs growing bigger and bigger until they just explode. Neil uses a strange kind of clipped vocal that sounds slightly Jamaican for some reason.

“Cinnamon Girl” is loud and ragged and surprisingly short. We get the completed couplet with “Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black” which always rocks. Before the encore of “Tonight’s the Night,” someone- I’m guessing a local DJ comes out and sputters some nonsense about Rust Never Sleeping and how “Tonight is the night,” while also seemingly berating them for not buying that album enough. The song is played pretty darn good, though.

Overall, this is a darn good concert. Turn it up and play it loud.

The Grateful Dead – Dick’s Picks, Vol. 4 – New York, NY (02/13-14/70)

I’ve been doing quite a bit of writing over on my Substack. Big reviews like this I’ll crosspost, but I’m doing lots of other stuff that I won’t be posting here. So I’d love for you to check it out and subscribe.

My uncle Landy died this past weekend. He was 81 years old and in ill health, so this wasn’t unexpected, but it is still tough. He was a good guy. He never married and never had kids, so us nieces and nephews became his children. As a kid, he used to call me up and ask if I wanted to go to the zoo or a Tulsa Drillers game, or sometimes he’d invite me to drive two hours up to Coffeyville, Kansas, just to see where the Dalton Gang took their last stand. Those are good memories, and I cherish them.

I don’t want this to turn into an In Memoriam to a man none of you all knew. I mention it to also say that this loss will undoubtedly affect my thoughts on this disc. Normally, when I listen to a show, various thoughts come to my head when something cool or interesting is played. While listening to this, I could still enjoy the music, but it felt distant. Like it was playing somewhere else, far away. I did make some notes which I will share now, but they maybe aren’t up to my usual standards.

Dick’s Picks Volume 4 is a three-disc set culled from two nights of the Dead’s legendary run at the Fillmore East from February 11-14, 1970 (they did not play on the 12th). The Allman Brothers and Love were both on the bill as well. I believe the bands played two shows each day. The Dead did three sets each. They opened with a short electric set followed by an acoustic set and then did their usual big, long electric set.

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I’m always fascinated by what songs Dick chose to include and what he decided to leave out. Here, his focus is on the third set of these two nights. He completely ignores the acoustic sets and mostly skips the first sets. It is also curious to me that, as far as I can tell, the Dead have never released anything officially from the February 12 show. But bits of these two nights have made it onto at least three other official releases. The Allman Brothers released a live compilation of all three nights entitled Fillmore East, February 1970.

These shows are legendary. Some call this the best run of music the Grateful Dead ever performed. I think that’s partially because the music is that good, but also because these were some of the earliest soundboard recordings to make it into tape-trading circles. Much like how the Cornell show from 1977 is so beloved because that was one of the few soundboard recordings that circulated for a long while.

These shows are so legendary, I feel a little bit nervous talking about them. I don’t know that I’ll have anything to say that hasn’t already been said. The Grateful Dead Taping Compendium has a couple of really good articles on these shows. Unfortunately, the books are long out of print (fortunately, I have them, and I’ve scanned the relevant pages, which I’ll share below for subscribers.

Let’s get to it.

New York DJ John Zacherle gives us an introduction to the “Grateful Goddamn Dead.” Apparently, he was supposed to have been pulled out in some kind of coffin, but it broke. There is a picture of the thing in that Taping Compendium.

They begin by launching into an incredible “Casey Jones.” The energy on this is fierce. That’s one of the things you notice about this entire thing – The Grateful Dead were on fire these nights. Absolutely firing on all cylinders like they had something to prove.

They say that around this time the boys spent some time with Crosby, Stills, and Nash trying to improve their vocals. 1970 would see the release of two classic Dead albums, Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty, both of which demonstrated the band’s country roots and their improved songwriting. The Primal Dead days were starting to slip away, and something different was taking its place. Something that put at least a little more focus on the vocals.

That training pays off in “Dancing in the Street,” which features some Martha and the Vandellas’ style backup vocals. It isn’t so good they’d ever be mistaken for Motown, but for the Grateful Dead it’s pretty darn great. After a few minutes of that, they drop the doo-wop and launch into a nice jam. Screw Martha, they seem to say; we’re the Grateful goddamn Dead.

“China Cat Sunflower>I Know You Rider” keeps up the ecstatic energy. I’m a huge nerd for the transitions between songs. I love it when you have to listen closely to figure out exactly when one song transforms into another. This one’s pretty easy. They actually slow “China Cat” down, then rev back up for “Rider.” But it doesn’t matter; both songs are played fantastically.

“High Time” and “Dire Wolf” follow, and they are perfectly fine, if not all that memorable.

Then we come to “Dark Star.” It is a beast. Clocking in at around 30 minutes, it just goes and goes and goes. This is where I remind you, dear readers, that I listened to this while mourning. It is also where I state yet again that I’m not the biggest fan of those times when the Grateful Dead dive into the deepest, darkest outer space. I don’t love the big noodle jams. “Dark Star” was often a launching pad for grand exploration.

This one doesn’t actually get that far out. In their big jams, the Dead often seem to be searching for a sound, looking for a song. Sometimes they lose track of it and wander off into the ether. Here, they mostly seem to have jams in mind and are just enjoying them. At one point, they slip into the “Feeling Groovy” jam – so named due to its similarity to the “59th Bridge Street Song” by Paul Simon. Apparently, that was something Bob Weir came up with in some recording session. My guess is that a lot of the jams in this “Dark Star” had been at least partially developed before this night, and they were just mucking about with them.

That’s just a guess. Maybe they did invent most of it in the moment. The Dead were capable of such things. But I don’t hear the kind of erratic noise in this version that I so often do during these things.

But really, I was in no mental state to really enjoy it. My mind tends to wander during big jams, and I kept thinking about Landy, or work, or the fact that my daughter just got her driver’s permit (!). They could have done all sorts of things in this jam, and I might not have noticed. What I did notice is a wonderfully rowdy groove they land on about halfway through. Really dug that part.

“Dark Star” slips into “That’s It For The Other One” nicely. So nice, in fact, that on this disc the first lines of “Cryptical Envelopment” begin at the end of the “Dark Star” track. It slips into drums, ho hum, and I’m ready for a bathroom break, but then they freakig fly into “The Other One” section, and holy moly, the band is on fire. That high energy I was talking about earlier is blowing into high octane.

Then they slip back into a very mellow “Cryptical Envelopment.” Jerry does this thing where he repeats “He had to die” over and over. Has he done that before? I don’t ever recall such a version. Then they got through another rave-up before the song finally ended.

“Turn On Your Lovelight” is quite good, though Pigpen doesn’t get too crazy with it. There are no major raps. He and Bob Weir do this fun little vocal exchange at the end, with Bob going high and Pig just growling.

“Alligator” goes into a proper “Drums” which turns into “Me and My Uncle.” “Alligator” is one of those songs I more or less enjoy, but it isn’t a favorite. “Me and My Uncle” is said to be the song the Dead played more than any other. It is a good song, but not really worth that title.

That transitions into a fiery “Not Fade Away.” Here is the big energy again. If the Grateful Dead often turned songs into a search for something new, these jams are more like riding the wave. It ebbs and flows. Rises and falls. But the tune is always there. They are just toying with it. Eventually, they do their regular ending jam, and just as you think the song is about over, they launch into another jam. Then they do it again. They just don’t seem to be done with the song for a while.

I don’t really listen to this period of The Grateful Dead all that often. I like a good Primal Dead show from 1969, when I’m in the mood for it. And I love me some 1972 Dead. But 1970 always feels a bit ragged to me. It was a transitional year, one where they were moving from those epic, primal jams into more songs, better songs. But they aren’t quite there yet. They are still figuring it out.

“Mason’s Children” wasn’t played that often, and they’d only play it a couple more times after this date. Which is to say that it is one of those songs I don’t know all that well, and I can’t say it has ever made me want to listen to it more.

The disc ends with just over eight minutes of “Feedback,” which I listened to once just for this review and I’ll never listen to again, and a lovely rendition of “We Bid You Goodnight.” I love it when they end a show like that.

This is a great package. I do need to listen to it all again when I’m in a better headspace. I need to listen to this entire run again. It will be interesting to suss out what Dick picked and what he should have.

Four volumes in and I’m loving this series. I’d listened to lots of these before, but it’s so much more interesting to listen in order.

Show Review: Neil Young – Raleigh, NC (09/13/14)

Neil Young
Farm Aid
Walnut Creek Amphitheatre
Raleigh, NC
September 13, 2014

Setlist:

Intro by John Mellencamp
Heart Of Gold
Comes A Time
talk 1
Pocahontas
Standing In The Light Of Love
talk 2
Mother Earth (Natural Anthem) – with Mickey Raphael
Who’s Gonna Stand Up And Save The Earth?
Rockin’ In The Free World – with Lukas and Micah Nelson

Source:

Lineage: YouTube webcast audio (192 kbps AAC) > Audacity > WAV > TLH > FLAC 6 > foobar2000 > FLAC tags

Review:

In July of 1985, while performing with Keith Richards and Ron Wood at the Live Aid concert designed to help those suffering from famine in Ethiopia, Bob Dylan said something about how he hoped that maybe someone could help out American farmers. Small farms were getting eaten up by large corporations. They were losing their farms to banks.

Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp, and Neil Young took that message to heart, and they organized the first Farm Aid benefit. On September 22, 1985, those three and a host of others performed before a crowd of 80,000 people in Champaign, IL, and raised over $9 million for family-owned farms.

They originally thought it was going to be a one-off. They’d do this concert, help the farmers, and move on. But quickly they realized it was a much bigger problem. They’ve held a concert nearly every year since, raising hundreds of millions of dollars.

I’ve got a lot of copies of various performers performing at various Farm Aids over the years. I more or less randomly pulled this particular show out of a hat.

Since Farm Aid is a big show with a lot of performers, each act doesn’t usually get that long of a time slot to play. This year there were the usual performances by Young, Mellencamp, and Nelson, plus the Preservation Jazz Hall Band, Dave Matthews, Todd Snider, Gary Clark Jr and others. Neil only plays for about half an hour. I don’t have recordings of any of the other performers from this night. I don’t think I’ve ever watched an entire Farm Aid concert. I presume there is some kind of all-star jam at the end, but I may be wrong. Anyway, this is what I’ve got.

Neil mostly plays acoustic and solo. He is in fine form. I mentioned in my last Neil Young review that I don’t really know how to review him when he plays acoustic and solo. He’s fiery and chatty here. He goes on a couple of long rants about politics, voting, how commercial interests are ruining farming, and even names a specific politician from North Carolina. It’s one of those things that works well for this crowd, but after listening to it once, I imagine I’ll be skipping them from here on out.

After a nice intro by John Mellencamp, Neil does some lovely renditions of “Heart of Gold” and “Comes a Time.” Then he has a little chat and moves into what I’d call his Mother Earth section of the show. This begins with a very nice version of “Pocahontas.” Next comes “Standing in the Light of Love,” which is off of Toast, an album I’ve never listened to, was apparently shelved after it was recorded in 2000-2001 for being too sad, and finally came out in 2022 as part of Neil’s Archive series. Listening to it now on YouTube, it seems like a pretty good rocker – not amazing, but definitely enjoyable. But here it just kind of drones on and on.

After that, it’s another rant, and then “Mother Earth (Natural Anthem)” with Mickey Raphael from Willie Nelson’s band helping out on harmonica, and Neil on organ. It isn’t a bad version, but it seems like a strange choice for this crowd. Obviously, it falls neatly into the whole conservation movement theme of Farm Aid, but it is hard to imagine this crowd of thousands who, standing in the weather for hours, and may not be superfans being super pumped to hear a soft ballad with Neil Young playing the organ. But hey, we can hear it in the comfort of our own home, and it sounds pretty good.

“Who’s Gonna Stand Up?” is another odd choice. On his 2014 album Storytone, the song is played with a full orchestra; naturally, here it is completely stripped down. It is another Earthy song with Neil in full rant mode. Coming from a recent album, it does make sense that he’d play it live, but again it seems so strange to me that he’d do it at Farm Aid, when most folks would be pining for his hits. But Neil has always played by his own rules. The crowd does get into it at the end, doing a bit of a sing-a-long with Neil singing “Who’s Gonna Stand Up,” with the crowd finishing the lyric, singing “And Save the Earth.”

The Nelson brothers come out for the last song, “Rockin’ in the Free World,” and it rocks. Neil is a very good guitar player, obviously, but solo acoustic, there is only so much he can do. With more guitars on stage, one person can play rhythm while others solo. A very nice way to end the performance, indeed.

The more I listen to and review these Neil Young shows, the more I realize how much I don’t know about the man or his music. I’ve listened to quite a lot of Neil Young in my day, but the man is so prolific that there is still tons of stuff I’ve never heard. This is a perfectly fine performance. It is mostly Neil and his acoustic guitars, sometimes playing relatively obscure songs. Sometimes he is accompanied by his friends. You gotta dig it.

Show Review: Norah Jones – Zurich, Switzerland (06/12/04)

Norah Jones
2004-06-12
Kongresshaus
Zurich, Switzerland

SETLIST:

Disc 1

Turn Me On
Nightingale
Those Sweet Words
What Am I To You
Something Is Calling You
Stay With Me [Keith Richards]
In The Morning
Carnival Town
Don’t Miss You At All
Painter Song
The Long Way Home
Don’t Know Why
Creepin’ In
Above Ground
Sunrise
I’ve Got To See You Again
Come Away With Me
What Would I Do [Ray Charles]

Encore

Seven Years
Life Is A Carnival

The Midnight Cafe’s Notes

Norah Jones’s debut album Come Away With Me was a surprise smash hit. It was a beautiful mix of jazz, soul, folk, and the blues all entwined in Norah’s stunningly beautiful vocals. Her next two albums followed suit with lush productions and a gorgeous sound. For my money, Not Too Late is one of the prettiest albums ever made.

In 2009, she released her fourth album, The Fall, and with it she changed her signature sound. She strapped on a guitar for some songs, played an electric piano for others. The beat was more danceable, the songs more pop-oriented. She’s continued this trend, more or less, for the rest of her career (so far)

I’m not against an artist chasing their muse and going in different directions, and I do like a lot of those songs, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss that early sound. Truth be told, I’ve kind of lost sight of what she’s done lately. I didn’t even know she released Visions in 2024. She does have a podcast I like, where she plays along with various artists she likes and has lovely chats.

I’ve seen her in concert a couple of times. Both shows were wonderful, but definitely well into her more “pop” phase. This show was recorded just a few months after the release of her second album, Feels Like Home.

This is with the Handsome Band, and they sound really good. I can already feel some strains of her longing to branch out from the gorgeous piano jazz she’s locked herself into for the time being. On several songs, the band stretches out just a little bit, doing little jams before returning to the song. There are some nice guitar solos and big drums, but it still maintains that beautiful sound.

It begins with a lovely “Turn Me On.” It isn’t quite as gorgeous as the studio cut, but it’s still spellbinding. From the first notes, you can tell this is a band really gelling. They are locked in, totally in sync.

“Nightingale” and “Those Sweet Words” continue the magic. That later gives us a lovely little jam.

Norah tries a little German but mucks it up. She’s quite chatty throughout the proceedings but doesn’t seem to get much response from the crowd. I may be wrong in that, as this is an FM source and maybe the mics just didn’t pick up much crowd noise. But her responses to them do seem to indicate they aren’t very responsive. Admittedly, her chatter is pretty awkward, something she admits at one point, noting she’s a musician, not a conversationalist. Which is charming in itself. She does seem to be having a good time.

“What Am I To You” is a rollicking little number. She’s brought out that electric piano, and the guitar is really good. It has an incredible groove and the whole band is really into it. This is pure joy to my ears.

“Carnival Town” and “Don’t Miss You At All” come back to sounding like the albums. Norah calls this the piano bar section of the show. “Painter Song” has this wonderful Spanish-sounding guitar.

They then move into what Norah jokingly calls her “cowboy songs.” “Creepin’ In ” is one of my favorite Norah songs, and she plays it with gusto, and it is so much fun. “Sunrise” is terrific. “Come Away With” is so sultry it makes my knees weak.

She does a lot of cover songs throughout, from Ray Charles to The Band to Tom Waits’ “The Long Way Home.” They are lovingly played. I especially like the Waits cover, and how she replaces his gruff vocals with her beautiful ones, yet still maintains the song’s integrity. She’ll close the show out with The Band’s “Life is a Carnival,” which she calls “About as rock and roll as we get.”

This show has been bootlegged a few times. This is the source that I have.

Source: Swiss analog FM broadcast (SR DRS 3)
Equipment: Technics Tuner ST Z55L
Transfer: Creative Sound Blaster Extigy > Exact Audio Copy > Trader’s Little Helper
Generation: WAV (16bit/44.1kHz) > FLAC (Level 8)

Some notes:

– Live broadcast, complete
– Normalized

Show Review: Jerry Garcia Band – San Francisco, CA (01/11/82)

Jerry Garcia Band
01-11-1982
Old Waldorf
San Francisco, CA

Set 1

How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)
Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door
That’s What Love Will Make You Do
Simple Twist Of Fate
I Second That Emotion >
Deal

Set 2
The Way You Do The Things You Do
I’ll Take A Melody
Valerie
Harder They Come
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down >
Dear Prudence >
Tangled Up In Blue

Jerry Garcia – electric guitar, vocals
Bill Kreutzmann – drums
Jimmy Warren – keyboards
John Kahn – electric bass
Julie Stafford – vocals
Liz Stires – vocals
Melvin Seals – keyboards

The Midnight Cafe’s Review

A few weeks back, a friend of mine asked me if I had a copy of a Jerry Garcia Band show from 1982. I can’t remember the exact date, but I didn’t have it. I looked it up on bt.etree and found a copy. As that site often does for Jerry and Grateful Dead shows, they had bundled this particular show with several others. Being of the opinion that you can never have too much Jerry, I went ahead and downloaded all of them. Then I figured, in for a penny in for a pound, and I downloaded all of the sets of shows from 1982. I randomly listened to a few shows (or more like snippets from a few shows) and found that I really liked them. So, I thought it would be fun to listen to and review them all.

Starting in late 1981 and running through the Spring of 1982, Jerry was in and out of the studio recording what would become his last studio record as a solo artist, Run for the Roses. Some of those sessions exist on tape, but I’ll be skipping them for now, as well as all the shows he played with the Grateful Dead during this time.

He’d play quite a few of the songs that make it onto the record throughout the year. The album contains about half original songs and half covers.

Jerry gigged a lot in 1982. By my count, he played some 86 gigs as a solo artist, mostly with the Jerry Garcia Band, but some 23 times with only John Kahn on bass (and once with Bob Weir for the David Letterman show). In contrast, the Grateful Dead only played 63 times this year.

It is interesting to look at the Grateful Dead dates right next to Jerry’s solo gigs. He began the year in the studio, then played this gig at the Old Waldorf and again at the same venue two days later. Then he’s back in the studio for a bit and then spends the first half of February gigging around California. Then the Dead play some California shows then the Jerry Band does. There is a lot of that throughout the year where the Dead will do some gigs, and Jerry will fill in the holes.

The Dead do a proper tour in April and then a big one in July-August. And then they close out the year, as they usually did, with a New Year’s run in Oakland. The Jerry Garcia Band does a short East Coast tour in June, and then just him and John Kahn do several gigs in the Northwest to finish the month out. The Jerry Band is back at it for a big tour in October and November.

This is the kind of thing I normally don’t pay attention to. I didn’t follow Jerry while he was alive and have just listened to shows throughout my adulthood without much thought to where he was playing. This year might not be abnormal; I don’t know. But I do find it fascinating.

This show is a good one, but nothing spectacular. Etree lists two sources for this show – 84012 and 20687, both presumably coming from the same soundboard tape. 20687 was cleaned up a little bit by the misSHN in the rain people.

The opener, “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)” has the front half cut off; only 1:32 of it survives. “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door is very mellow. Jerry plays and sings with sincerity, but softly. The keys lightly tinkle.

“That’s What Love Will Make You Do” from this period has become one of my favorite songs. The rhythm section creates this wonderful, danceable beat; Jerry usually sings with passion, and his guitar typically soars. This version is good, but not quite amazing. The keys do this thing where they switch from a typical piano sound to something more synth-like, then to a more organ sound.

“Simple Twist of Fate” at first puts us back into mellow ballad territory. Then Kahn takes a long, noodling bass solo then Jerry goes at it with his guitar, wailing with a very high-pitched, screeching tone. Then it settles back down, and there are some really nice keyboard moments.

I can’t remember when I first heard Smokey Robinson’s “I Second That Emotion.” Since my mother was a big Motown fan, I assume I heard the original long before I even knew who Jerry Garcia was. What I do remember is that in the mid-1990s I discovered the newsgroup rec.music.gdead; with it I found my people. At the time, it was common for deadheads within that newsgroup to respond to a post that they agreed with by saying, “I Second That Emotion.” I loved that, and the saying entered my vocabulary for many years.

Somewhere around this time, I heard a live version of the song by the Jerry Band, and it quickly became a favorite. They do a great job with it here. Jerry’s voice sounds a little weak, maybe even a little hoarse, but he absolutely nails the first solo. The band follows right behind. At some point, Jerry seems to just say “screw it” to the vocals, and they just jam on the thing for a while. Eventually, he’ll return to the song and sing it with gusto.

When I first started listening to the Jerry Garcia Band, I loved it when they would play Grateful Dead songs. I think that was because I didn’t really know his solo stuff or the cover songs he tended to play. There was always some Motown song that I knew or a Dylan cover, but a lot of those songs were unfamiliar to me. I was also still new to the Dead, and these were the days when you couldn’t stream every show they ever played, so I liked hearing their songs in any version I could get.

But these days I find it a little annoying when the Jerry Band plays a Dead tune. If I wanted to hear those songs, I can listen to a Dead show. When Jerry is with his other band, I want to hear different songs. Which is to say, they play “Deal” in this set, and it is perfectly fine.

“I’ll Take a Melody” is not one of my favorite covers, but this is a very fine version. Garcia and keyboardist Melvin Seals do some wonderful interplay on it. Seals had just joined the band about a year before (and would wind up staying right up until Jerry died), but he was already perfectly integrated into the band.

“Valerie” is another song from Run for the Roses, and it is also a song I’ve never particularly liked.

“The Harder They Come” is a lot of fun. Somewhere in the middle, Seals starts playing really fast, and then Jerry just follows along. It is like speed rock for a moment. Then it slows down to a more standard tempo. I don’t know what keyboards Seals was playing, but it switches from a standard piano sound to something electric and out of a science fiction movie, to more of an organ sound. I dig it.

“The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” is perfectly fine. As is “Dear Prudence” and “Tangled Up In Blue.” Prudence has a lovely gentle jam in the middle.

And that’s the gig. As I said, it is a good show. Not mind-blowing, but good. I know we’ll hear some even better shows in the days to come. I can’t wait.

—

Long ago, I created a playlist called “Great Bootleg Songs.” That’s a pretty boring name for a playlist, but it is also pretty self-explanatory. When I listen to a show and discover an incredible performance on a song, I throw it into this playlist. Whenever I don’t know what to play, I can put that playlist on and dig some great live music. I thought I’d start doing a thing at the end of these things, telling you which songs, if any, from this review deserve to go into that playlist.

Show Highlights:

I Second that Emotion
I’ll Take a Melody

Source info:

Source 1: SHNID 84012

MSC > DAT > Panasonic SV-3700 playback > M-Audio Audiophile 2496 to Wavelab 5.0 mastering with iZotope Ozone 3 > CDWAV1.9 > FLAC (level 8).

Comments: Very clean SBD with several pauses between tunes crossfades were applied to cover.
Flaws:
d1t01 – most of beginning of track is missing
d1t04 – beginning clipped.
d1t06 – Deal is cut.
d2t04 – First two verses are missing.
d2t06 – Tangled Up In Blue is painfully cut.

Source 2: SHNID 20867

MSC>DAT >CDR>WAV>SHNv3. Multiple track cuts – see info file for details.

Comments: Very clean SBD with several minor cuts.
Flaws:
d1t01 – most of beginning of track is missing
d1t04 – beginning clipped.
d1t05 – pop @ 01:32, 01:34 removed using pencil tool, SF6,
d1t06 – Deal is cut.
d2t05 – First two verses are missing.
d2t07 – Tangled Up In Blue is painfully cut.

Thanks to J.Powell for CDR source. DAE(EAC0.9b4, offset corrected, secure mode, QPS QUE 2410)>removal of pop/silent gaps(SF6)>tracking(cdwav)>sector boundaries confirmed(shntool)>SHN(shorten3.4) via C.Ladner.

Another installment of the misSHN in the rain division of TMNSP, 11/03.

Links, Etc.

Jerry Base entry for this show.

Jerry Garcia’s Middle Finger has some nice info about it as well.