Steve Earle
The Birchmere
Alexandria, Virginia
25 July 1993

01 I Ain’t Ever Satisfied
02 Angry Young Man
03 My Old Friend The Blues
04 Someday
05 Angel Is The Devil
06 Hometown Blues
07 The Devil’s Right Hand
08 Fearless Heart
09 The Unrepentant
10 Hurtin’ Me, Hurtin’ You
11 “House lights, please”
12 When Will We Be Married? (Trad.)
13 Guitar Town
14 “Lightnin’ Hopkins and Mance Lipscomb”
15 So Different Blues (Lipscomb)
16 Limousine Blues (Hopkins)
17 Regular Guy
18 Copperhead Road

19 Close Your Eyes

Source: Realistic ECM > Sony WM-D3 > Soundforge > CD Wave > FLAC

Recent upgrade (made available by the original taper in May 2005) of what was previously described here as, “A very rough bootleg, both in terms of sound quality and performance”. This recording is significantly better; for a start, it’s complete and lacks the drop-outs that afflicted the other source.

Despite the declaration “It’s time to make another record. Vacation in the ghetto’s over.” Steve’s next album and tour weren’t to materialise until 1995, and listening to this it becomes clear why. You’ve got to admire the fact that he’s even able to take the stage. Raw and powerful stuff, but his voice is shot to hell and every song sounds like a colossal effort. A fight breaks out in the audience after Hurtin’ Me, Hurtin’ You and Steve has to halt proceedings temporarily to try and restore some sort of order. According to another attendee, the interruption was caused by Steve’s heading out into the crowd to “deal with” somebody who had shouted a comment about him using.

Some comments from a guy who was at the gig:
“It’s pretty amazing Steve, in his condition, was even standing upright. And yet, I’ll tell you, I had never heard the guy before, didn’t care, got dragged by a friend, and waited while he was about two hours late showing up and YET, it was a real powerful concert. I was very impressed with him.Whatever else was going on with him (that’s pretty much the world’s biggest euphemism? Right?), I had a great time and my friend proved herself right that he was a superb talent. Even on THAT night, if you were there, and had never seen him before, whatever it was STILL came shining through all that damage, and the lateness and the fight in the audience.He took no prisoners that show, I’m telling you. See someone at their absolute WORST and become a devoted fan? It doesn’t happen that often. He absolutely won me over with his talent.
…
I remember the fight [“House lights please”] now. It was toward the back of the club but I now recall it was bad enough that I remember I said to my friend “Should we LEAVE?” and she said, “Nah, just a bunch of cowboys.” But this was not a shoving-match type thing, I seem to recall like, a chair being thrown quite aways, it wasn’t a little dust-up. I’ve worked in nightclubs and seen a few and honestly thought when this one started, maybe head for the door? Which is not my usual response to that crap, this one was fairly dramatic. Don’t remember ANYTHING about what Steve was up to at that point, I’m sure Steve doesn’t remember ANYTHING either… I’d be surprised if Steve remembers he even played that gig.”