Tuesday, May 26, 2020

Fleetwood Mac - The Warehouse, New Orleans, LA, 1-31-1970

I just posted the Fleetwood Mac concert played at the Warehouse in New Orleans on January 30, 1970. While I'm at it, here's their concert from the next night at the same venue.

I had a long explanation to go with the January 30th concert. Most of what I said there also applies here, minus the colorful story from drummer Mick Fleetwood about driving a car from the backseat with his feet and so forth. I'll just focus on what's different with this one.

Both the January 30th and 31st concert recordings are soundboards done by the Grateful Dead's talented sound engineer Owsley Stanley. But for whatever reason, the 30th recording had an extreme stereo mix that required a lot of tweaking, while the 31th recording had a more normal, narrow stereo mix. Also, the vocals and instruments had a better balance. So while I had to do a lot of tinkering for the 30th show, I had to do very little here. One note is that the song "Tiger" is the only one in mono, because it comes from a different source. But in my opinion, it sounds just as good as the rest.

In terms of musical content, this show is a little bit longer, at an hour and two minutes, compared to 54 minutes for January 30th. And that's after I removed four songs: "Only You," "World in Harmony," "Stranger Blues,"  and "Twist and Shout." I removed those for several reasons. One, the first three are the only songs repeated from the 30th. I like listening to these two shows back to back, and I almost posted them as one big album instead of two shorter ones. I don't like repeats. "Twist and Shout" wasn't repeated, but there was something wrong with the vocals that bugged me and wasn't fixable. I can't explain it well, but it sounds as if his vocals were going "into the red," overwhelming the microphone, much of the time. So I removed it to keep the overall sound quality of the concert very high.

But also, three out of four of those are Jeremy Spencer-sung songs, and I have limited tolerance for his material anyway. With those songs removed, this concert becomes much more of a Peter Green showcase, whereas the 30th show is more dominated by Spencer's songs. Personally, I prefer this concert because of that Green emphasis. He really stretches out on the longer songs.

Speaking of Green stretching out, maybe the highlight of this show is the slow blues song "All Over Again." I've included this exact version on one of my stray tracks compilations, "The Green Manalishi," because it's the best recorded version available. So don't mind the minor duplication with that one.

Fleetwood Mac went on to record one more concert at the Warehouse the next day, February 1st. An excellent recording of that one exists as well. I've elected not to post that one here because the set list is almost exactly the same as this one, but I felt the performance here was better. Two different songs were played, but both of them were the typical Jeremy Spencer imitating Elmore James songs, which are my least favorite aspect of the band's music in the Peter Green era, by far. So I didn't even include those as bonus tracks. But if you want that concert, it's available at Wolfgang's Vault, and at various other Internet locations.

01 Sandy Mary (Fleetwood Mac)
02 talk (Fleetwood Mac)
03 All Over Again [I've Got a Mind to Give Up Living] (Fleetwood Mac)
04 I Can't Hold Out (Fleetwood Mac)
05 Oh Well, Part 1 (Fleetwood Mac)
06 talk (Fleetwood Mac)
07 Rattlesnake Shake - Searching for Madge (Fleetwood Mac)
08 Coming Your Way (Fleetwood Mac)
09 talk (Fleetwood Mac)
10 Tiger (Fleetwood Mac)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15211918/FleetwodMc_1970b_ThWrehouseNwOrleansLA__LA__1-31-1970_atse.zip.html

I had a rather detailed explanation on how I made the cover art for the January 30th show. I used the exact same art here, except I selected a different photo of Peter Green for the middle of it. And, of course, I changed the text slightly to show the different date. By the way, both photos of Green are from a TV appearance in late 1969, but I don't know what TV show it was. These concerts were about six weeks after that, so I think it's likely he still had that same bearded appearance.

8 comments:

  1. Hi!
    For me, Fleetwood Mac 1970 in complete decadence. Poor Peter Green...

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    1. decadence of what..?? just liste the solo in All Over Again [I've Got a Mind to Give Up Living ...!

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    2. I'm not sure what that prior comment meant. But yeah, given that solo a listen. It's great! :)

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  2. Thanks for both Warehouse shows. Growing up in N.O., I saw FM there, but not these two shows. You did a great job on the sound. Now all I need is some Owsley. I got some back then, but took it at home. Too young to trip in public.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks for sharing the memories. I forgot to mention that the 30th show was the opening night for the Warehouse.

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  3. Hello, the new upload-Link for this leads to an Aretha Franklin concert. Would you be so nice and paste the correct link?
    Thanks a lot in advance and thanks a lot for all the efforts that go into the creation of your albums!

    ReplyDelete