#45 BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN - Main Point, Bryn Mawr 1975 (Flac)

Bruce Springsteen & the E. Street Band
The Main Point,
Bryn Mawr, PA.
Wednesday 5th February 1975

There are many classic live performances by Bruce and the E Street Band circulating, this is one of the greatest, recorded over five months before the beginning of the ‘Born To Run’ tour. The liner notes by Crystal Cat succinctly describe a writer’s reaction to it as “Fuckin’ great!”

The show was held as a benefit for the 270-seat coffeehouse, Main Point. It was presented by DJ Ed Sciaky and broadcast complete with a two hour time delay by WMMR-FM on the night of February 5th, 1975

The 18-song set list is comprised of the complete ‘The Wild, The Innocent’ album live, bar Wild Billy’s Circus, four tracks apiece from the debut ‘Greetings’ and the forthcoming ‘Born To Run’ album. A Love So Fine is an unreleased Springsteen song and the other three tracks are covers; Dylan’s I Want You is superb with exquisite violin by Suki Lahav, Mountain Love was a hit single in 1960 by Harold Dorman and the set closer is Chuck Berry’s Back in the USA.

Many boots appeared originally incomplete but in 1990 the Italian bootleg label Great Dane released ‘The Saint, The Incident & The Main Point Shuffle’ on CD. This was quickly superseded by a pre-FM upgrade of the first ninety-minutes and issued with the same title but for the addition of ‘Masters Plus'. Since then there have been numerous releases.

The first part of this post, the pre-FM source is taken from the Crystal Cat release Main Point Night (CC 729-30). For some considerable time, the last hour of the show, part way through Kitty’s Back onwards, was only available from an FM broadcast in vastly inferior quality. In the summer of 2011 an upgrade emerged via a recording of the concert on reel at 3-3/4 IPS by a Philadelphian fan. The quality while not matching the pre-FM is still a significant upgrade and it was released online by the highly regarded JEMS team, responsible for some of the finest unreleased Springsteen recordings in circulation.

Queuing at the Main Point

Disc 1
01. Intro  
02. Incident On 57th Street  
03. Mountain Of Love  
04. Born To Run  
05. The E Street Shuffle  
06. Wings For Wheels  
07. I Want You  
08. Spirit In The Night  
09. She's The One  
10. Growin' Up  
11. It´s Hard To Be A Saint In The City  
12. Jungleland  

Disc 2
01. Kitty's Back*  
02. New York City Serenade  
03. Rosalita  
04. 4th Of July, Asbury Park  
05. A Love So Fine  
06. For You  
07. Back In The U.S.A.

sources
Disc One Main Point Night (CC 729-30) Crystal Cat bootleg silver
Disc Two FM recording to reel at 3-3/4 IPS (via JEMS)
* see notes above

#44 THE CLASH - Jaap Edenhal, Amsterdam, 1981 (Flac)

The Clash  - Jaap Edenhal, Amsterdam, Holland
Sunday, 10th May 1981
FM re-broadcast

The ‘Sandinista’ album released on 12 December 1980, had met with little critical acclaim apart from the weekly UK based music paper ‘Sounds’ and the influential US publication ‘Rolling Stone.’ A tour to promote the album was scrapped because the record label CBS refused to provide the essential financial support. At this time the band were a half million pounds in debt to their record company. Eventually after the return of Bernie Rhodes (their original manager) a tour of the major European cities was finally set up. The Impossible Mission tour began on Monday 27th April 1981 in Barcelona. It was their first gig in ten months, the longest gap in their history. As the tour progressed the ‘Sandinista’ songs took on a different form, and longer more improvisational sets followed. This show mid-way through the tour was recorded and broadcast on Dutch radio. This is the rebroadcast (2008) that has been cleaned (remastered?) by ‘Sonny Burnit’. The following 9 tracks are still unavailable from a soundboard source: Safe European Home, Complete Control, Corner Soul, Wrong Em Boyo, Brand New Cadillac, The Street Parade, Washington Bullets, Armagideon Time and London’s Burning.
This is a show that deserves an official release, the complete set in best ever quality would be a fitting live legacy. The Clash are firing on all cylinders here, it's an explosive performance and justifies their legendary live reputation.
For those too young to have seen the Clash, their live volume was like a nuclear blast, pummelling the ears. The closest a modern band has got to it, is perhaps Mogwai, different musically but they employ a similar wall of sound.
A review by ‘Rat Patrol’ on the 'black market clash' site declared that this show has the best One More Time, Lightning Strikes and This Is Radio Clash performances. It also has the following tracks in their best available quality, Somebody Got Murdered, Career Opportunities, Charlie Don’t Surf and The Leader. He also declared that London Calling was the weakest track because Joe sounded half asleep. I can’t say I agree with that last comment.
I tried to compile the whole show using the circulating audience recording but because of the varying sound quality it didn’t work out, except for the intro which included Sixty Seconds with the opening track London Calling, it sounds much better hearing the beginning of the show in it’s true context. I have added a link for this track for those who wish to burn it to cdr, in place of the original London Calling.

Note that the FM source has gaps between the tracks. Thanks to those who have provided the links for the FM and Audience sources. I have not included the details of their origins, so as to deflect any unwelcome attention from their site by the copyright police!

In a 'Rolling Stone' magazine interview from 2013, shortly after the release of 'Sound System', Mick Jones was asked. So there’s no plan to release any concerts now?  He replied,

“I'm not even thinking about any more Clash releases.
This is it for me, and I say that with an exclamation mark."

Hopefully he will have second thoughts and change his mind. The upcoming release of a new Jam box set containing no less than six concerts may concentrate further thoughts on the subject:

Disc 1:  Live at the 100 Club – 11th September 1977,
Disc 2:  Live at the Music Machine - 2nd March 1978
Disc 3:  Live at Reading University – 16th February 1979
Disc 4:  Live at Newcastle City Hall – 28th October 1980
Disc 5:  Live at Hammersmith Palais – 14th December 1981
Disc 6:  Live at Wembley Arena – 2nd December 1982

It would be a shame if the last officially sanctioned live release by the Clash was as a support band. Surely the best live band of my generation deserves a better legacy. So c'mon Mick, none of us are getting any younger!

Tracklist (FM)
1.  London Calling        
2. The Leader
3. Somebody Got Murdered
4. White Man In Hammersmith Palais
5. Guns of Brixton
6. Lightning Strikes        
7. Ivan Meets GI Joe
8. This is Radio Clash
9. Charlie Don’t Surf
10. Magnificent Seven
11. Bankrobber        
12. Train in Vain
13. Career Opportunities
14. Clampdown
15. One More Time       
16. I Fought the Law

FM LINK

AUDIENCE LINK

Impossible Mission 1981 tour dates:
Apr 27  Barcelona, Spain
Apr 28  Madrid, Real Madrid basketball stadium
Apr 30  Cascais, Portugal
 May 1  Lisbon?
May 2  Velodromo de Anoeta, San Sebastian, Spain
May 4  Bordeaux, France
May 5  Palais des Sports, Lyon, France
May 6  Palais de Beaulieu, Lausanne, Switzerland
May 7  Zurich (venue?)
May 8  Hippodrome de Pantin, Paris, France Aud
May 9  Palais St. Sauveur, Lille, France SBD *
May 10  Jaap Edenhal, Amsterdam, Holland  FM *
May 11  Forest National, Brussels.
May 12   Musikhalle, Hamburg, West Germany
May 14 Idrottshuset, Copenhagen, Denmark Aud
May 15 The Scandinavium, Gothenburgh, Sweden Aud
May 16  Isstadion, Stockholm, Sweden Aud
May 18  Eissporthalle, (West) Berlin Aud
May 19   Circus Krone, Munich, West Germany
May 21  Velodromo Vigorelli, Milan, Italy  Aud *
May 22  San Remo
May 23  Stadio Comunale, Florence, Italy Aud

A recording exists for all the shows not in grey, those with an asterisk have the best sound quality

#43 BOB MARLEY & THE WAILERS - Boarding House, San Francisco 1975 (Flac)

Bob Marley and the Wailers
Boarding House,
San Francisco, CA.
July 7, 1975

KSAN reel #354 1/2 track @ 7.5 ips
 
After a warm up show in Miami, the Natty Dread tour began with a trip over the border to Toronto in Canada on June 8th; these early dates in June then covered the North Eastern states of the USA. After a seven day consecutive run at Paul's Mall in Boston, the tour broke for a few days with some much neeeded rest and the inevitable travelling time for the remaining dates on the West coast. Ten dates in California followed, beginning on July 4th with a four night stand at the Boarding House in San Francisco. One night at the Paramount Theatre in Oakland followed before finishing this North American leg with a five night run at the Roxy Theatre in Los Angeles. Four days later the group were in London for two dates at the Lyceum Ballroom, a show in Birmingham followed, before this short visit to England concluded in Manchester on July 20th.

This tour is notable for the significant change in group members, only Bob Marley (guitar and vocals), Aston 'Familyman' Barrett (bass) and Carlton Barrett (drums) appeared on the 1973 tour. Drafted in to take the places of Peter Tosh, Bunny Wailer (Joe Higgs) and Earl Lindo were the I Threes consisting of Bob's wife Rita and Judy Mowatt formerly of the Gaylets (renowned Studio One singer Marcia Griffiths missed this tour because of pregnancy. Al Anderson took over on lead guitar, Alvin 'Seeco' Pattterson added percussion with Tyrone Downie on keyboard duties.

The only official release to date from this tour is the 'Live' album recorded at the Lyceum in London, this being it's 40th anniversary, yet another opportunity is being squandered by the record company in not releasing a deluxe edition of such a classic album.
Fortunately there are a further ten unreleased live recordings circulating from the tour. One of these is in quite desperate sound quality; the Roxy in LA, but the other nine recordings split between five audience and four sbd/fm sources are all worth collecting if you are a keen Marley fan.

This is the best sounding of those unreleased shows, from the last night of the four dates performed at the Boarding House in San Francisco. This is the latest upgrade, it has the best PreFM lineage and is the most complete. - thebasement67

----------------------
the original notes - edited: (with thanks to musigny23 for his work and upload)

In September 1989 I had the opportunity to copy a bunch of KSAN reels over a weekend. I had just bought my first DAT portable so I was able to do it digitally. In the 90s I traded a few DAT clones, circa 2000 CDr versions were mastered (the 48k resampled to 44.1k), and eventually, others circulated flac files via bit torrent. Over the years, as one would expect and I intended, this spread far and wide.
While digital formats make essentially perfect copies, as items pass through various hands, alterations of various sorts accumulate. Some can improve but most degrade the original data. Now that HD and dvd archiving have supplanted CD as have music servers and flac players for listening I can circulate the most direct possible version of this recording in its original sample rate.
In 2009 Sidewindersf circulated a pitch corrected version derived from a CDr source. If you have that version you could feel set and pass on this. However I noticed that version had each track normalized to 100%. It plays with maximum gain but it also reduces the dynamic range the analog master had. No Woman No Cry and Get Up Stand Up are the same volume that way, but NWNC is actually a much lower volume song live. This version preserves the original dynamic differences. It also wasn't normalized up to 100& because I think doing so can add an element of harshness to the sound. So, it won't play as loud as other versions, which some perceive as lesser quality. Also I reduced a slight hum at two frequencies, eliminating that particular coloration.

Revox A77 > Panasonic SV-250 DAT 48/16 (Maxell R120DM) September 1989
Panasonic 3800 > Weiss firewire I/O > OSX Peak 7 (editing, pitch, hum) > xACT

01. Trenchtown Rock
02. Burnin' and Lootin'
03. Midnight Ravers
04. Them Belly Full (But We Hungry)
05. Rebel Music
06. No Woman, No Cry
07. Kinky Reggae
08. Stir It Up
09. Lively Up Yourself
10. Get Up, Stand Up

Notes:
This is direct from the DAT made off the KSAN reel
Original 48k 16 bit
Pitch adjusted -28 cents
Hum reduced @ 60, 180 HZ
15.63 second patch track 1 start
Audible flaw (not diginoise) @ 01:30 of track 2
Slight flaw (tape dropout?) @ 01:25 of track 6

Patch info:
FM Recording & Editing by Jay Abrams (jra-sm)
Teac 4300 Reel to Reel 7" - 3 3/4 IPS > MacBook Pro - Audacity > CDWav > xACT

It isn't !00% certain this was a master reel although it's more likely than not. It is possible this is mixed from a multitrack master which did happen with some KSAN broadcasts, however most were live mixes straight to two track. It appeared that a new leader had been spliced on to the station reel. Possibly at some point some damage occurred and it was repaired in that way. The tape box noted a rebroadcast on 6/10/79.

LINK

Bob Marley & the I-Two's at Massey Hall in Toronto