Category: Natalie Merchant

Natalie Merchant – London, England (03/25/88)

Natalie Merchant
Donmar Warehouse
London, England
March 25, 1988
(opening for Tracy Chapman)

Source: aud > ? > CD received in trade > extracted via iTunes > FLAC

Sound quality: B / B+

Tracklist:

  1. A Campfire Song
  2. Gun Shy
  3. Everyone a Puzzle Lover
  4. Don’t Talk
  5. The Painted Desert
  6. Lilydale
  7. What’s the Matter Here?
  8. Maddox Table
  9. Verdi Cries
  10. Like the Weather
  11. After Talking To Myself (unreleased)
  12. Where the Soul Never Dies (with Tracy Chapman)

Notes:

This was Natalie’s second-ever solo performance (she also performed at this same location on the previous day), serving as the opening act for Tracy Chapman. Most songs are Natalie performing entirely alone, accompanying herself on piano, although there is cello on at least one song and possibly some limited acoustic guitar on another. Tracy Chapman performs with Natalie
on the final track.

This recording is interesting not only for the rare solo performances of older songs, such as “Everyone a Puzzle Lover”, “Lilydale”, and “Maddox Table”, but also for the unreleased song “After Talking to Myself”. There is at least one other recording of Natalie performing a partial version of that song, and it is available on the Chicago 4/14/88 recording (uploaded separately).

Natalie Merchant – Anchorage, AK (03/28/99)

Natalie Merchant
Egan Center
Anchorage, AK
March 28, 1999

** 16 BIT **

Source: Sonic Studios DSM-6P w/3-way lo-cut filter, position unknown (most likely @ 80hz, middle setting) > Sony WM-D6
Transfer: Master cassette (Maxell XL-IIS 100m) > Denon 790R > Kenwood A-522 amplifier > Kenwood GE-622 Equalizer > Audacity
(boosting/splicing) > WAV
Mastering: .WAV > Sound Forge Pro 11.0 (Build 299) [iZotope Mastering Suite (declick); minor edits, normalize, & fades] > CDWav
(tracking) > Trader’s Little Helper (level 5) > FLAC > TagScanner 5.1 (tagging)
Location: 10′ from stage left stack (right PA when looking at stage)
Recorded & transferred by: Steve “ballsdeep” Hagar
Mastered by: Dennis Orr

Setlist:
01 Announcer Intro
02 Intro Music >
03 Ophelia
04 San Andreas Fault
05 What’s The Matter Here?
06 Chat > Here’s For All The Hardy People
07 Break Your Heart
08 Seven Years
09 Beloved Wife
10 Stockton Gala Days
11 Whiskey, You’re The Devil
12 There’s No Hiding Place Down Here
13 Carnival
14 Space Oddity
15 Wonder
16 Chat/Crowd
17 Life Is Sweet
18 Chat
19 Kind And Generous
20 Encore Break (cut)

  • Encore –
    21 These Are Days
    22 Surrender
    23 John The Revelator
    24 Cowboy Romance
    25 Jealousy
    26 I Once Loved A Sailor
    27 In The Ghetto
    28 Chat
    29 Dust Bowl
    30 Gulf Of Araby

Natalie Merchant – vocals & piano
Gabriel Gordon – guitar & backing vocals
Erik Della Penna – guitars
Graham Maby – bass
Peter Yanowitz – drums
Elizabeth Steen – keyboards
Doug Stringer – percussion

Notes:
When you hear some ‘static’ during a portion of the show near the beginning, that was the PA fritzing-out vs. any taper error

Natalie Merchant – San Francisco, CA (03/08/16)

Natalie Merchant
March 8, 2016
San Francisco, CA – The Warfield

Source: MK 4s > CMRg > tinybox > M10
Transfer: WAV > Audacity (db boost, hard limiter, downsample) > CD Wave > FLAC

Disc 1:

  1. Maggie Said
  2. Vain and Careless
  3. Frozen Charlotte
  4. River
  5. Beloved Wife
  6. Giving Up Everything
  7. The Man in the Wilderness
  8. Carnival
  9. San Andreas Fault
  10. Build a Levee
  11. pandering hello
  12. Saint Judas
  13. band introductions
  14. The Worst Thing

Disc 2:

  1. Nursery Rhyme of Innocence and Experience
  2. Spring and Fall: To a Young Child
  3. Ladybird
  4. Life Is Sweet
  5. encore applause
  6. anti-archiving
  7. all hail Edward Joseph
  8. Lulu
  9. applause vote: Break Your Heart vs. Seven Years
  10. Seven Years
  11. Wonder
  12. goodbye
  13. Kind and Generous

Natalie Merchant – Live at the BBC

Natalie Merchant – Live at the BBC
A collection of BBC Radio promo sessions Natalie Merchant did for “Leave Your Sleep”, “Natalie Merchant s/t” and including a special BBC master tapes episode for “Tigerlily” captured from the web.

1. The Man in the Wilderness
2. The Sleepy Giant
3. Maggie and Milly and Molly and Mae
4. Nursery Rhyme of Innocence and Experience
5. Motherland
6. Texas
7. Fever
8. It’s A-Coming
9. Texas
10. Kind & Generous
11. Cowboy Romance
12. I May Know the World
13. River
14. Wonder
15. Lulu
16. Ladybird
17. Giving Up Everything

1-5: BBC Celtic Connections Glasgow Concert Hall, (01/28/10)
6-7: BBC Radio 2 Live in Session with Terry Wogan (05/11/14)
8-10: BBC Radio 2 Bob Harris Sunday (05/25/14)
11-14: BBC 4 Mastertapes with John Wilson (11/25/13)
15-17: NPR World Cafe Session (05/23/14)

Webstreams -> Audacity -> mp3/320

From the original uploader:
Track #13 and #14 are very intense – gives me goosebumps all the way through 🙂
Especially “River”, what a haunting song !

And yes, of course tracks #15-#17 have nothing to do with the BBc.
These are from the NPR World CafÈ Radio Sessions – just see them as bonus tracks…

Natalie Merchant – Hamburg, Germany (05/14/10)

Natalie Merchant
05/14/10
Uebel & Gefahrlich
Hamburg, Germany

DL > Audacity > MP3/320 > split into two cds

Vain And Careless
If No One Ever Marries Me
The Sleepy Giant
The Man In The Wilderness
The Janitor’s Boy
Calico Pie
The Peppery Man
Nursery Rhyme Of Innocence And Experience
Maggie And Milly And Molly And May
Indian Names
Crying, My Little One
Spring And Fall: To A Young Child
The Equestrienne
Tell Yourself
Motherland
Break Your Heart
Carnival
These Are Days
Build A Levee
San Andreas Fault
Kind & Generous

Natalie Merchant – Brussels, Belgium (05/10/10)

Natalie Merchant
May 10, 2010
Ancienne Belgique, Belgium
First show of a short euro tour

Musicians: Mary Wooten, cello
Gabriel Gordon, guitar
Erik Della Penna, guitar

Tracks:
(talk) intro + Robert Graves
Vain and Careless
(talk) Laurence Alma Tadema
If No One Ever Marries Me
(talk) Charles Edward Carryl
The Sleepy Giant
(talk) Mother Goose
The Man in the Wilderness
(talk) Nathalia Crane
The Janitor’s Boy
(talk) Edward Lear
Calico Pie
(talk) Arthur Macy
The Peppery Man
(talk) about the album Leave Your Sleep
Nursery Rhyme of Innocence and Experience
E.E. Cummings
Maggie and Milly and Molly and May
(talk)
Indian Names
(talk) Christina Rossetti
Crying, my Little One
(talk) Gerard Manley Hopkins
Spring and Fall: to a young child
(talk)
Equestrienne
(encore) (talk) Robert Louis Stevenson
The Land of Nod
Cowboy Romance
Motherland
Carnival
Break Your Heart
Tell Yourself
Kind & Generous
From the Time You Say Goodbye

Notes from the taper:
Issues: had the -15db pad on, big mistake as the show was quite quiet.
Have had to add some gain back in using WaveEditor, have reduced applause to try to match, but it’s still a little high.
Good news: very respectful audience, so not too much talking during tracks

Notes: For the first set and the first track of the encore, Natalie introduced each poem-song
from with information on the poet. I have separated each intro into a track.