Live Music Is Better - The Taper's Thread

Yer Ol' Uncle D said:
The 30th Annual Xmas Jam in 2018 (Vol. 20 by release standards) was a two-nighter...

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I have to share this story from that Jam.

My usual runnin' pardner and I attended both nights.

Night One was business as usual - great show, wrapped about 2AM, hopped in the car and got home about 3:30.

Night Two was met with an ominous forecast that morning - in an incredibly rare display of meteorological solidarity, all the weathermen who make a fine living being right about 34% of the time were insisting we were gonna get a whopper of a snow in Western NC. Predictions were it would start after midnight, and we could get 12" or so by morning. This is where all you northern hemisphere folks can have a good laugh. But the thing you have to understand is us folks down south have no equipment or systems in place to prepare for and keep functioning during even the mildest of inclement weather. Hell, I remember a couple times our kids were out of school just because they thought it might snow. They watched cartoons all day and not a single flake fell.

With the gloom and doom forecast, I basically had to guilt my buddy into going. "This thing is moving from the south to the northeast. We'll keep an eye on things. With this path, when it starts coming down in Asheville, we'll hit the road and beat it down the mountain. I'm going regardless of what you do, but you've already bought a ticket, and this is gonna be great. I'm peeling out at 4:30. Usual meeting spot. I'll look for you." He was there. I drove. Turned out to be a blessing.

One thing you have to understand about 99.9% of the snows we get in NC since climate change - they start out wet because of a milder atmospheric temp, many times as rain, make a transition through sleet to snow and usually take about an hour of snowfall before anything will stick. This particular night everything I just described was a heinous lie. The temp was well below freezing when things began to manifest so everything stuck from the get-go. Truly an anomaly in these parts.

We kept tabs on the weather throughout the night. About midnight, it was coming down pretty good. We weren't leaving before Grohl and 'Play'. Turns out this was the one and only live performance of that piece. The Jam is always special. Checked conditions after Grohl's set. Everything was white. Oh shit - we gotta go.

My theory of beating the storm down the mountain was, let's say, unintentionally but tragically flawed. We left Asheville and the roads were already white. There's about a 6-mile stretch coming down the mountain out of Asheville. This was the crux of my 'beat the storm' theorem. We'd hit the bottom and things would be markedly better. Whoops. My bad.

We made it to the bottom and my buddy said, "How the hell did you get us down the mountain without crashing?". "I used low gear all the way." His reply - "Damn, I never even would have thought of that." And that's where the blessing that I drove comes in.

We hit the bottom of the mountain, and it was a total whiteout. You couldn't tell where the road ended and the grass began. Hands-down the worst weather I've ever driven in. It was so cold the defrost couldn't keep up with the wipers icing up. What was normally a 1:15 trip took us over 4 hours to make. But we made it unscathed.

Two days later, the weather had moved out but the temps stayed unusually cold. I ended up with about 18" accumulation where I live. That's a big WNC snow. I have a gravel drive that's about 250' long and the best way to facilitate clearing is making a couple passes in the car and creating some tire ruts that'll melt much faster.

I made it home driving 75 miles in 4 hours in a total whiteout because live music is that important.

Two days later I got stuck in my yard trying to get down my driveway.

Sometimes the music gods are smiling.
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This reminded me of when I had a V8 Mustang in Colorado and even rain was an adventure in not dying. Now in the South and the mere chance of flurries means the grocery stores will be bare.
 
All the ads for the new Marley biopic sent me into ye olde hard drive to find this one I never got around to posting. Taped this back in 2018.

Of course you expect to hear a rastaman medley as the encore at a show by arguably the greatest bluegrass mandolin player ever.

Sam Bush does Billy Bob Marley proud...

 
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been digging around archive.org for old bonnaroo sets that i saw. found this one.



Superjam
Bonnaroo 2007
Manchester, TN

Ben Harper - Guitar
John Paul Jones - Bass
Questlove - Drums

Recorded/Edited by Duain Altepeter
Original Source: AKG Mic’s > Edirol R01> Dell PC > Adobe Audition 1
Remastered Source: 2Tb Storage > MacBook Pro > ProTools 12

01 Intro/Tuning 2:33
02 When The Levee Breaks 12:06
03 Good Times Bad Times 8:19
04 Ramble On Jam 8:13
05 Inner City Blues 9:13
06 Drum Jam 2:08
07 Dazed & Confused 28:30

Encore:
08 Superstition* 5:30
09 Them Changes* 7:29
10 It’s Your Thing* 8:18

*w/ Kirk Douglas

Total: 1hour 33minutes
 
Listened to Exile in the car to and from work today.

Reminded me on the first night of the two night Tabernacle run in 2010 when The Black Crowes pulled I Just Want To See His Face out of nowhere.

Had to scour ye olde hard drive to find this but it was tracked down.

I love seeing shows in The Tabernacle for the environment, but I always feel it should sound just a little bit better in there than it does.

tabernacle-atlanta.jpg

That said, a very listenable recording made with my modest rig taped from front of board. Enjoy and pass it on...

The Black Crowes - The Tabernacle, Atlanta, GA 9-19-10 - I Just Want To See His Face

 
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i went to the railroad earth show here last month after not seeing them since bonnaroo 2004 (when i thought i was going to see rare earth, lol), and really enjoyed it. the venue being half full didn't hurt - i liked having space - but i did wonder how/why they didn't get more folks in the door as they're too good to be selling only half the venue. the 16+ minute hunting song was the highlight for me, just a straight driving groove with everyone getting to explore some space around it until the door suddenly opens wide and everybody spreads out and fades away. give it a listen- there thankfully were a couple tapers there, and one of them uploaded three recordings, each from different equipment. can't say i've seen that before.

 
@Lee Newman pulled up Elvis Costello in the 1001 Album Generator thread and it sent me deep into the bowels of ye olde hard drive to retrieve this EC show I taped back in 2011.

Had to run on the down low with the economy stealth rig halfway back in the balcony but Thomas Wolfe Auditorium is quite forgiving.

Hands down the best show I saw that year.

All the more miraculous after an usher I was talking with after the show told me Elvis was so sick that afternoon, they actually sent for a doctor to check him out and make sure he didn't need hospitalization.

He played 2 hours and 45 minutes.

Punk rock ethos, baby.

 
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the best bonnaroo superjam of all times

"so, uh... i've been waitin' 12 years to say this... ladies and gentlemen, d'angelo."



Lineup:
Questlove – drums
Captain Kirk Douglas – guitar
James Poyser – keys
Frank "Knuckles" Walker – percussion
Pino Palladino – bass
Eric Leeds – saxophone
Jesse Johnson – guitar
Kendra Foster – vocals
D’Angelo – vocals, guitar, keys

Lineage USB > Amadeus Pro (16/44.1) > WAV > xACT > Flac
Source Berliner CM-33's > Naiant Littlebox > Sony PCM-M10 (24/48)
Taped by NSL
 
AndySlash said:
the best bonnaroo superjam of all times

"so, uh... i've been waitin' 12 years to say this... ladies and gentlemen, d'angelo."



Lineup:
Questlove – drums
Captain Kirk Douglas – guitar
James Poyser – keys
Frank "Knuckles" Walker – percussion
Pino Palladino – bass
Eric Leeds – saxophone
Jesse Johnson – guitar
Kendra Foster – vocals
D’Angelo – vocals, guitar, keys

Lineage USB > Amadeus Pro (16/44.1) > WAV > xACT > Flac
Source Berliner CM-33's > Naiant Littlebox > Sony PCM-M10 (24/48)
Taped by NSL
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I know the guy who taped this one. At the time he was based in Charlotte but has since relocated. NSL is a good dude. We taped many shows together.

We were side by side at this show.

A pretty incredible two-song encore.

About as good an audience recording as you're gonna get. D was quite pleased with this pull.

Enjoy...

The Black Crowes - House Of Blues, Myrtle Beach, SC 5-19-13 - Feathers > Oh! Sweet Nuthin'

 
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@bdm105 and his $245 Black Keys ticket talk sent my memory back to the first time I saw them when they were young and hungry and much more satisfying than they've been since they discovered 'the formula'.

Taped this in 2003 on a Sunday night with about 300 other folks in a 1000 capacity room. Cost $12. Great show. Caught them at the same venue 2 years later and the crowd had doubled. Another two years in the same room and the gig was sold out. That was my last time seeing The Black Keys.

I kinda lost interest after Magic Potion, the last record I bought. But I digress.

Here's a song from my audio recording in 2003. A band with something to prove playing their ass off for a room at 1/3 capacity...



And here's a semi-bonus. I also filmed that show and traded it to a few folks back in the day. Looks like someone uploaded a low-res copy of my video with my hi-fi audio somehow reduced to mono in the left channel only. One thing you learn as a taper - once you let the genie out of the bottle it can be made into heinous things you could never understand or imagine. Oh well...

 
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Yer Ol' Uncle D said:
@bdm105 and his $245 Black Keys ticket talk sent my memory back to the first time I saw them when they were young and hungry and much more satisfying than they've been since they discovered 'the formula'.

Taped this in 2003 on a Sunday night with about 300 other folks in a 1000 capacity room. Cost $12. Great show. Caught them at the same venue 2 years later and the crowd had doubled. Another two years in the same room and the gig was sold out. That was my last time seeing The Black Keys.

I kinda lost interest after Magic Potion, the last record I bought. But I digress.

Here's a song from my audio recording in 2003. A band with something to prove playing their ass off for a room at 1/3 capacity...



And here's a semi-bonus. I also filmed that show and traded it to a few folks back in the day. Looks like someone uploaded a low-res copy of my video with my hi-fi audio somehow reduced to mono in the left channel only. One thing you learn as a taper - once you let the genie out of the bottle it can be made into heinous things you could never understand or imagine. Oh well...

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That's what I want to see. Unfortunately those days are gone. Instead I won't ever see them live because $250 for the floor is just atrocious.
 
my buddy Joe gets some great recordings. Here's a recent one



Laetitia Sadier - (live) Johnny Brenda's Philadelphia,Pa 3.22.24

Dry Fruit
Une Autre Attente
Protéïformunité
Don’t Forget You’re Mine
Reflectors
Ode to a Keyring Monade song)
Cloud Six
Panser L’Inacceptable
New Moon
La Nageuse Nue
Swim (Monade song)
 
Here's a good one that I've never shared anywhere.

Had the rare opportunity to see Primal Scream a few years ago. Even rarer, it was in a 250 capacity club.

I found this one poking around ye olde hard drive tonight. Never circulated this one. When I saw it on the list, my initial thought was "I've been sitting on this a couple years. I need to get it out there." Then I saw I taped this 9 years ago. How can time pass so slowly and so quickly at the same time?

Guessing this may be @jamieanderson1968's bag...

Primal Scream - The Visulite Theatre, Charlotte, NC 5-13-2015 - Kill All Hippies

 
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