ZZ Top - Hec Edmundson Pavilion, Seattle, WA, 12-5-1973

Yeay! I've mentioned previously on this blog that I've looked high and look for good sounding ZZ Top bootlegs prior to 1980, and come up empty. But I've finally found one worthy of posting. Mind you, the sound quality is not great. It's below my usual standards. The source is an audience bootleg, and there are issues. But I made a lot of improvements, and in my opinion, it's a worthy listen. But you may feel differently, depending on how tolerant you are about sound quality.

This recording has been circulating since 2021, but somehow I missed it. Or, more likely, I overlooked it back in 2021, because what one could do with audio editing was much more limited back then. But I recently came across it and decided it had potential. I ran all the songs through the MVSEP program multiple times, to get rid of muck and reduce or eliminate the crowd noise (except where appropriate). Then I ran the songs through MVSEP again, and split the vocals from everything else. I took just the vocals and used the Adobe vocal enhancer program on them. Also, for some songs where there was a lot of yelling and talking from the audience, I listened carefully and deleted just the "woo hoos" and such that I didn't like.

I feel the end result is a very noticeable improvement. However, one can only do so much the source material, so you still need to lower your standards somewhat. Some songs sound better than others. I was particularly pleased with how "I Just Got Back from Baby's" came out. That's a slow blues with a quieter dynamic than most of the band's songs. As a result, many people near the taper found it a good time to hold conversations. But I went through that one with a fine toothed comb, and got rid of nearly all of that. Now, in my opinion, that song could be taken for a soundboard recording. But, admittedly, I can't say that about most of the others.

I've left in a text file that explains how this recording came to be available on the Internet in 2021. It turns out the original taper mislabeled it as the band Black Oak Arkansas and forgot about it. Clearly, that person wasn't a ZZ Top fan. But, decades later, someone else went through that person's tapes and discovered this hidden gem.  

This album is 52 minutes long. 

01 Thunderbird (ZZ Top)
02 [Somebody Else Been] Shaking Your Tree (ZZ Top)
03 talk (ZZ Top)
04 Chevrolet (ZZ Top)
05 Waitin' for the Bus (ZZ Top)
06 Jesus Just Left Chicago (ZZ Top)
07 Feel So Bad (ZZ Top)
08 Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers (ZZ Top)
09 I Just Got Back from Baby's (ZZ Top)
10 Rattlesnake Shake (ZZ Top)
11 La Grange (ZZ Top)
12 Let's Go Get Stoned - Backdoor Love Affair (ZZ Top)
13 Mellow Down Easy - Boogie Chillen (ZZ Top)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/5HXpm69B

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/JVbNxXfG0KQSvMf/file

Who the heck are those guys on the album cover? Believe it or not, that's Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill of ZZ Top! The two of them became known for their extremely long beards. But in 1973, Hill, on bass, had a relatively short beard, while Gibbons, on guitar, was clean shaven. The pictures of them in 1974 show Gibbons grew a beard about as long as the one Hill had at the time. They didn't grow their beards long until the late 1970s.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that the photo was taken at Memorial Auditorium in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on October 23, 1973. Also, if you look carefully at the drum set, you can see drummer Frank Beard in there.