Tuesday, June 6, 2023

Jefferson Airplane - O'Keefe Center, Toronto, Canada, 8-5-1967

I haven't posted any Jefferson Airplane concerts until now, because those have been pretty well represented with over a dozen official live releases. But this is a particularly good bootleg and it doesn't look like it's gotten around much. So hopefully this will give it more deserved exposure.

In February 1967, Jefferson Airplane released their classic album "Surrealistic Pillow." At the same time, they released "Somebody to Love" as a single. It soon became a big hit, along with "White Rabbit." So by the time this concert took place, the band was breaking out all over. They were booked for over a week at the O'Keefe Center, in a double bill with the Grateful Dead, to help spread the San Francisco psychedelic sound into Toronto, which was probably the most receptive city in Canada. 

This concert consists of two sets, with "Come Back Baby" being the end of the first set. So there are a few repeated songs, but luckily not too many, just "Somebody to Love," "She Has Funny Cars," and "Two Heads." In addition to largely promoting the songs from "Surrealistic Pillow," the band was already playing some songs that would go on their next album, "After Bathing at Baxter's."

This is an excellent sounding soundboard recording. There were a couple of problems though. One was that the last minute or so of "Come Back Baby" was missing. So I found a different soundboard version from March 1967 and patched that in to finish it off. That's why that song has "[Edit]" in its title. Also, the banter between songs was quiet, as is commonly the case, so I drastically boosted the volume of that.

The last song, "Comin' Back to Me," isn't from this concert at all. Consider it a kind of bonus track. This actually was released on the "Jefferson Airplane Loves You" box set. It was recorded at the Fillmore in San Francisco in May 1967. I put it here because it's a really nice song that was only played in concert by the band a handful of times. I didn't have anywhere else in my music collection to put it, so I stuck it here.

01 Somebody to Love (Jefferson Airplane)
02 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
03 She Has Funny Cars (Jefferson Airplane)
04 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
05 Two Heads (Jefferson Airplane)
06 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
07 Young Girl Sunday Blues (Jefferson Airplane)
08 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
09 Fat Angel (Jefferson Airplane)
10 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
11 Come Back Baby [Edit] (Jefferson Airplane)
12 The Other Side of This Life (Jefferson Airplane)
13 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
14 Let's Get Together (Jefferson Airplane)
15 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
16 It's No Secret (Jefferson Airplane)
17 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
18 Two Heads (Jefferson Airplane)
19 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
20 She Has Funny Cars (Jefferson Airplane)
21 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
22 Martha (Jefferson Airplane)
23 Jorma's Blues (Jefferson Airplane)
24 Rock Me Baby (Jefferson Airplane)
25 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
26 Today (Jefferson Airplane)
27 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
28 Somebody to Love (Jefferson Airplane)
29 talk (Jefferson Airplane)
30 Outro [Instrumental] (Jefferson Airplane)
31 Comin' Back to Me (Jefferson Airplane)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15309861/JeffersonA_1967b_OKeefCentrTrontoCanada__8-5-1967_atse.zip.html

When the band played this series of shows in Toronto, they actually had a kind of promotional program printed to help drum up interest. This photo is from that program. So it's not actually from this concert, but from some other unknown one earlier in 1967.

3 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. You're welcome. By the way, I recently added a song to the Jefferson Airplane stray tracks album "The Other Side of This Life." Surprisingly for this band, it's a cover of the soul classic "In the Midnight Hour."

      Delete
    2. I will definitely check that out.

      Delete