Derek & The Dominos
1970-08-xx unknown city, England
unknown venue
{live during 1st leg of 1st Dominos tour between 1-22 August}

“Mystery tape” from start of a master audience reel of Isle Of Wight August 28, 1970
(i.e. taper recorded this gig prior to Isle Of Wight)
NOT the same as 1970-08-11 London, 1970-08-14 Great Malvern or 1970-08-18 Bournemouth

01-[07:32]. Roll It Over (->*)
02-[07:17]. Blues Power ->
03-[05:09]. Have You Ever Loved A Woman
04-[10:21]. Bad Boy
05-[00:18]. Country Life (18 second fragment only)

Total Time ::: 30:36

::: VERY fine & up-close AUD. Check samples so as not to have any wool pulled over yr eyes or to blitz yrself with a few flashes of the light fantastic.
::: WARTS: Bit o’ de ole hiss thruout. 1st 80 seconds a bit muffled & hissy & quality varies – then it improves & is steady (more below). Surely missed some dropouts or dullspots but got most of ’em. (*) ~3 second splice between #1&#2 so the segue is incomplete. #5 is a fragment only.
::: CONTRAST CLAUSE: This is Version MkI Remaster without EQ. Version MkII was remastered WITH EQ.
::: CONTRAST CLAUSE: Different show than 1970-08-11 London Marquee http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=435334
::: CONTRAST CLAUSE: Different show than 1970-08-18 Bournemouth Pavilion http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=440317
::: COMPARISON CLAUSE:
::: Note: #5 fragment is same show, but quality clears up a bit (taper location? azimuth?). Only used right channel to mono for the 18 seconds as left channel was damaged. Song missing about 2 seconds at start based on others of the same vintage.
::: Ouch! Not only mega mastering hours here, but this landed WELL inside the crazy zone for verification & research in order to pass it along without creating friction.
::: If for some strange reason it helps someone with a date theory, about 15 minutes in an audience member says the time is 9:40(pm).

Recording Information ::: unknown recording equipment -> master mono reel -> 1st generation VHS hi-fi (circa 1990) -> digital (probably single CD-R gen circa 1998) -> wavs (2013).

Playback 2014-02-xx ::: 1st gen. wavs -> Audacity (normalisation to remove DC offset, channel/phase alignment, fades, manual one-at-a-time glitch / dropout / bump / pop / click / dullspot repairs, volume adjustments, averaged speed correction single pass +.4 after spectral analysis & pitchpipe verification, NO equalisation) -> CD Wave (track splits) -> flacs (Trader’s Little Helper) -> yr ears. First uploaded week of 2014-02-22.
MORE remastering notes: While the channels are quite different thru much of the recording, it would seem to have been mono played back on a rather tired stereo reel deck that had some issues, particularly in the left channel. Both channels were used for remastering & remain here except the last 45 seconds of “Bad Boy” & the “Country Life” fragment, both of which only use the right channel (after patching dropouts was completed) to deal with excessive defective left channel noises. First 63 seconds are somewhat muffled & hissy (especially left channel), then quality varies for 20 seconds, then it improves & remains fairly constant through the recording. VERY possible azimuth was adjusted during playback on the master as the issue is also on my cassette version from the same VHS. There’s also some weird distortion or light crackle in the right channel during some of that same 80 seconds – reminiscent of audio from video issues, so maybe there was a VHS tracking issue during recording. Thankfully the problems are brief. (*)The “Roll It Over” into “Blues Power” segue is spliced as the taper shut off the deck & must have turned it right back on when he heard the segue & approximately 3 seconds are missing.

Line-up ::: Eric Clapton – electric guitar, vocals // Bobby Whitlock – organ, vocals // Carl Radle – electric bass // Jim Gordon – drums.

Nothing here ever commercially released to my knowledge. If I’m wrong, please advise & I’ll take the offending trax offline.

DimeTravel 009 ::: Many thanks to the original taper, the honorable G.S. for acquisition & most of all, thanks to The Florida Kid for supplying me with this upgrade to work on. ::: Corrections welcome ::: I had this for many years, having gotten a 2nd gen. cassette off the 1st gen. VHS hi-fi transfer. However, my metal Maxell cassette didn’t age well & suffered from extensive volume fluctuations & other problems. Luckily the Florida Kid had also gotten a copy from the same trader & even better – his was a digital “clone”, so I was able to move up a generation to work on this remastering. A HUGE improvement here to what has been circulating, the tape is now thoroughly enjoyable in my opinion, at least after the intro settles down.

This is very sweet for many reasons. For one thing, we simply don’t have much of this vintage to listen to & this is clearly MUCH better quality than Malvern or Bournemouth & was recorded right up-close. For another thing, once many of the distractions were removed, we are left with an extremely fine audience tape for its vintage – amenable to loud volume listening (without earbleed!) in which we can hear all the instruments & vocals QUITE well. I think my favorite track is “Bad Boy”, in part for its most excellent, chunky, simple guitar intro but the band is burnin’ thru all the songs. In fact, certainly another reason I really enjoy the recording is that Whitlock is clearly havin’ a real fine time, musically.

After seeing what happened with my recent Cream upload I have decided to brave offering up two versions of this one also. So, search & you should find the “MkI Version Remastered without EQ” AND the “MkII Version Remastered WITH EQ”. In the past I have generally steered clear of putting my EQ’d versions up (keeping them for my personal consumption). However, it seems like there is interest. BUT – both versions are going up as I can more than understand MANY people prefer to do their own EQ & the EQ version really limits what can be done to it after the fact. So, pick your poison – but most importantly, listen & enjoy!

FURTHER DATE INFORMATION ::: This was at the beginning of an A-side of a master audience reel of various artists at the Isle of Wight Festival on 1970-08-28. The setlist is unique to the recordings we have from the 1st leg of the 1st Dominos tour (also all before Isle Of Wight). The 3 song segue was dropped after the tour & “Bad Boy” didn’t make it into the USA setlists to anyone’s current knowledge. As for the possibility anything was ever issued the setlist also proves it. No versions of this 3 song segue have been issued commercially & there are no officially released live versions of “Bad Boy”. To me, after some hours of comparisons, the performance & arrangements seem closest to Bournemouth (of the few early shows we have), but clearly it’s not that same evening. Therefore, all given the preceeding info & Derek & The Dominos tour history, it was certainly taped on the first leg (part) of the first Dominos UK Tour. The gigs that actually happened BEFORE the Isle of Wight Festival (ie weren’t canceled & re-scheduled), of which there are no circulating tapes, seem to be the following :::
1970-08-01 London – Roundhouse
1970-08-02 Hanley – The Place
1970-08-07 Newcastle-upon-Tyne – Fillmore North, Mayfair
1970-08-08 Dunstable – California Ballroom
1970-08-09 Birmingham – Mothers
1970-08-12 London – Speakeasy
1970-08-15 Folkestone – Tofts Club
1970-08-16 London – Black Prince
1970-08-21 Torquay – Marquay Club-Torquay Town Hall
1970-08-22 Plymouth – Van Dyke Club

Clearly, anyone with any additional information or theories should feel more than free to spout off. Since folks obviously traveled from all over the UK & Europe to go to the Isle of Wight Festival, a simple proximity theory is not helpful. I do not know where the taper resided in the UK (tho’ that’s where he was from). Since the setlist was repeated on more than one evening, setlist recollections might not be date helpful – tho’ they might make some folks who collect such information quite happy.

Source 1:

[M1-AUD – UPGRADE]
~*~ MkI Version Remastered without EQ ~*~

Source 2:

[M1-AUD – UPGRADE]
~*~ MkI Version Remastered with EQ ~*~