The Flying Burrito Bros & the Byrds - The Flying Byrds Brothers, Whisky-A-Go-Go, Los Angeles, CA, 9-19-1970

If you're a fan of country rock, this is a very special concert. The Byrds helped invent country rock in 1968. But a couple of key members left and started a new band, the Flying Burrito Bros, that kept developing the country rock sound. The various band members remained friends, however. So when they happened to be on the same bill together, they decided to merge their bands together for most of one concert. So that makes this concert very unique and special. But, even better, it was recorded with soundboard quality, despite still being unreleased.

By 1969, the main leader of the Byrds was Roger McGuinn. The Flying Burrito Bros were jointly led by ex-Byrds members Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman, but by the end of 1969, Parsons had left, making Hillman the temporary leader. (He in turn would leave in early 1972, passing the leadership to others.) McGuinn and Hillman went way back, both being founding members of the Byrds in 1964, and they remained on good terms. So when their bands were on the same bill one night at the Boston Tea Party club in Boston in February 1969, they merged bands together for about an hour and a half. Unfortunately, there are no known recordings of that show. 

But then, in September 1970, they shared the same bill at the Whisky-a-Go-Go club for three nights in a row, playing two shows a night. For the first two nights, and the first show of the third night, they just did their sets separately. I have included the Byrds set from the first show. (If there's a Flying Burrito Bros set, I don't have have it.) Then, for this performance, the late show on the third and final night, they had something special planned. The Flying Burrito Bros did their second set as usual. Then, when the headlining act, the Byrds, came on, the two bands merged. And they didn't just perform together for a couple of songs. No, they were together for a full hour! They mostly played Byrds songs, since Hillman was in the Byrds from 1964 until late 1968, so he no doubt remembered many of them well.

At one point between songs, McGuinn jokingly suggested the name "Flying Byrds Brothers" for the merging of the two bands. That sounded pretty good to me, so I added it to the title and the cover art. 

It could be there were more Flying Burrito Bros songs at the start that didn't make the recording. The version I found started with the last minute of "The Train Song." I cut that because there wasn't much left of that song at that point, just one line repeated over and over. So it's possible there were other songs prior to that one before someone started recording. I'm not aware of any complete set list so we could check.

Also, it's possible that the Byrds set from the early show is incomplete. There isn't a clear start to the first song, with an introduction of the band, so there could have been more there. And the last song, "This Wheel's on Fire," was cut off about 30 seconds before the song ended. I patched that up by adding in the end from a concert in Ames, Iowa, a month later. That's why that song has "[Edit]" in its title. But it also suggests there could have been more songs after that cut off.

This album is two hours and six minutes long.

UPDATE: On February 26, 2026, a few days after I first posted this, I was told about all the Byrds songs from the first set, so I added those in. This addition works out very nicely, because the Byrds clearly tried to play all different songs in the first set than in the second set. There's only one song played in both, "You Ain't Goin' There." It's telling that the leader of the Byrds, Roger McGuinn expressed surprise at the start of the song that the other band members wanted to play it again.

01 Lover of the Bayou (Byrds)
02 You Ain't Goin' Nowhere (Byrds)
03 talk (Byrds)
04 I Trust (Byrds)
05 My Back Pages (Byrds)
06 B.J. Blues - Baby What You Want Me to Do (Byrds)
07 Well Come Back Home (Byrds)
08 Truck Stop Girl (Byrds)
09 Take a Whiff [On Me] (Byrds)
10 It's All Right Ma [I'm Only Bleeding] (Byrds)
11 The Ballad of Easy Rider (Byrds)
12 Jesus Is Just Alright (Byrds)
13 This Wheel's on Fire [Edit] (Byrds)
14 Payday (Flying Burrito Bros)
15 talk (Flying Burrito Bros)
16 Wake Up Little Suzie (Flying Burrito Bros)
17 talk (Flying Burrito Bros)
18 Colorado (Flying Burrito Bros)
19 talk (Flying Burrito Bros)
20 Break My Mind (Flying Burrito Bros)
21 talk (Flying Burrito Bros)
22 Trying to Reach My Goal (Flying Burrito Bros)
23 talk (Flying Burrito Bros & the Byrds)
24 Roll Over Beethoven (Flying Burrito Bros & the Byrds)
25 You Don't Miss Your Water (Flying Burrito Bros & the Byrds)
26 I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better (Flying Burrito Bros & the Byrds)
27 Hickory Wind (Flying Burrito Bros & the Byrds)
28 So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star (Flying Burrito Bros & the Byrds)
29 The Bells of Rhymney (Flying Burrito Bros & the Byrds)
30 Close Up the Honky Tonks (Flying Burrito Bros & the Byrds)
31 Time Between (Flying Burrito Bros & the Byrds)
32 Mr. Spaceman (Flying Burrito Bros & the Byrds)
33 Turn, Turn, Turn [To Everything There Is a Season] (Flying Burrito Bros & the Byrds)
34 Mr. Tambourine Man (Flying Burrito Bros & the Byrds)
35 Eight Miles High (Flying Burrito Bros & the Byrds)
36 Wasn't Born to Follow (Flying Burrito Bros & the Byrds)
37 Chimes of Freedom (Flying Burrito Bros & the Byrds)
38 talk (Flying Burrito Bros & the Byrds)
39 You Ain't Goin' Nowhere (Flying Burrito Bros & the Byrds)
40 Hold It (Flying Burrito Bros & the Byrds)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/eoQ4idQm

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/AIqu9SRH7L4DmF5/file

There is a photo of the Flying Burrito Bros and the Byrds playing in concert together in 1969. But to call it "low quality" is putting it mildly. It's about as bad a photo as you can imagine, with the people looking little more than black blobs. So I didn't want to use that. Instead, I kind of created a fake picture. This is a real picture of McGuinn (left) and Hillman (right) on stage together when they were both members of the Byrds. It was taken at the Grand Old Opry in 1968. But at that time, McGuinn kept his hair very short, and he grew it out by 1970. So I found a photo of him in concert in early 1970 and pasted that over his head in the original photo. I hope this comes close to what they might have actually looked like at this concert.

Also, the original photo was quite low-res and in black and white. I colorized it with the use of the Kolorize program. And I used Krea AI to help with the detail.