Albums That Should Exist: The B-52's - Great Woods Center for the Performing Arts, Mansfield, MA, 6-20-1998

Sunday, April 30, 2023

The B-52's - Great Woods Center for the Performing Arts, Mansfield, MA, 6-20-1998

I already posted one B-52's concert bootleg, but that was from early in their music career. I had looked for one that at least included songs from their best selling album, 1989's "Cosmic Thing." But I didn't see any that stood out. However, just a few days ago (as I write this in April 2023), I came across this at a bootleg sharing site. It's a pristine soundboard, and the set list is ideal.

The B-52's kind of petered out in the 1990s. The only released one album for the entire decade, "Good Thing," in 1992. Even then, Cindy Wilson, one of their three lead vocalists, left the band from 1990 to 1994, due to burn out and wanting to raise a child. So one nice thing about this album is that it was from the first tour the band did after Wilson returned.

Also, in 1998, the band released a greatest hits album called "Time Capsule: Songs for a Future Generation." It contained two new songs, "Debbie" and "Hallucinating Pluto," which are really solid songs, in my book. But they would also be kind of a last hurrah, as the band wouldn't release any more new music for another ten years, "Funplex" in 2008, and that last album would be a disappointment. So this concert is the ideal time to hear them do all their later songs from albums like "Cosmic Thing" and "Good Stuff" with all of their lead vocalists.

The only downside to the concert is that it didn't include one of their signature songs, "Rock Lobster." I found a review of this concert in Rolling Stone magazine, and it mentioned that song was played. It was the band's final encore at this time. So I found a version from a different 1998 concert and added it to the end. It's from a VH-1 TV special. The sound quality is a little bit below the rest, but still pretty good.

Speaking of sound quality, this generally sounds excellent, but I fixed two flaws. For the first song, the volume fluctuated wildly in the first minute or so, probably as adjustments were being made in real time. I leveled that out. And on the song "Communicate," there was a jarring, weird noise midway through the song. Luckily, it was during a vocal line that immediately got repeated in the same way. So I was able to patch that up. But that's why two of the songs have "[Edit]" in their titles.

This album is an hour and 19 minutes long.

01 Planet Claire [Edit] (B-52's)
02 talk (B-52's)
03 Private Idaho (B-52's)
04 Dance This Mess Around (B-52's)
05 talk (B-52's)
06 Good Stuff (B-52's)
07 talk (B-52's)
08 Hallucinating Pluto (B-52's)
09 talk (B-52's)
10 Roam (B-52's)
11 talk (B-52's)
12 Summer of Love (B-52's)
13 talk (B-52's)
14 Is That You, Mo-Dean (B-52's)
15 talk (B-52's)
16 Strobe Light (B-52's)
17 talk (B-52's)
18 Debbie (B-52's)
19 talk (B-52's)
20 Communicate [Edit] (B-52's)
21 talk (B-52's)
22 Channel Z (B-52's)
23 talk (B-52's)
24 Cosmic Thing (B-52's)
25 talk (B-52's)
26 Love Shack (B-52's)
27 Rock Lobster (B-52's)