Neil Young - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: In Concert, Phoenix Festival, Long Marston Airfield, Stratford-upon-Avon, Britain, 7-19-199

For a long time, I thought the only BBC concert Neil Young ever performed was a well-known one he did for BBC TV back in 1971. But I recently found this one and a later one. This was performed with his backing band Crazy Horse, so it's very much in rocking mode, except for a couple of acoustic songs, "Heart of Gold" and "Music Arcade."

The concert took place just a couple of weeks after the release of his album "Broken Arrow," the eighth studio album he'd recorded with Crazy Horse. The songs "Big Time" and "Music Arcade" are from that.

Unfortunately, this album is edited down from a concert that was over two hours long. I found an audience bootleg of the full show. I considered adding some songs from it, but I decided the drop in sound quality wasn't worth it. However, I did use it for the little bit of banter before "Cinnamon Girl." According to what I heard on that bootleg, that was pretty much the only banter from the whole concert.

I had some trouble putting this together. While this played on the BBC, apparently different songs were played on different shows. So I had to piece it together from two sources, and then reorder the songs to match the full set list. For most of the songs, there was next to no audience cheering at the ends of songs, because the music was quickly cut off in favor of DJ talking. In fact, "Like a Hurricane" has "[Edit]" in the title because a BBC DJ spoke briefly about a minute or two into the song! (To my surprise, it was none other than famed DJ John Peel, who normally new better than to do that.) So, really all the songs were significantly edited in order for me to add in a decent amount of cheering at the ends. I took what little cheering I could find and repeatedly patched that in.

On the plus side, the sound quality is excellent, despite this remaining officially unreleased.

By the way, that 1971 BBC concert mentioned above has been renamed to "BBC Sessions, Volume 1." If you want the updated version with new cover art and mp3 tags, here's the link:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2022/06/neil-young-bbc-in-concert-london.html

This album is 57 minutes long.

01 Hey Hey, My My [Into the Black] (Neil Young)
02 Big Time (Neil Young)
03 Heart of Gold (Neil Young)
04 talk (Neil Young)
05 Cinnamon Girl (Neil Young)
06 Music Arcade (Neil Young)
07 Like a Hurricane [Edit] (Neil Young)
08 talk (Neil Young)
09 Sedan Delivery (Neil Young)
10 Rockin' in the Free World (Neil Young)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/D7U2wVrQ

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/iELuThWh7hO2KG4/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert.

Cat Stevens - BBC Sessions, Volume 5: Cafe Session, Porchester Hall, London, Britain, 3-1-2007

A couple of days ago, I posted a Cat Stevens BBC concert that I'd missed, from 1979. Here's another one that I'd missed, from 2007. Funnily enough, it seems that 1979 concert was his very last concert until this one.

After a very long time away from pop music, Stevens released a new studio album in late 2006, "An Other Cup." (He put out some albums with heavily Islamic themes from 1995 to 2006.) This concert was meant to support that album. So naturally, he played some songs from that album. But they fit in nicely with his older classics, plus a cover of the 1960s hit "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood."

Note that by this time, he changed his name to "Yusuf Islam," and sometimes just "Yusuf." But I'm still calling him "Cat Stevens" not out of disrespect for his changed name, but so people can easily find all his albums together here with the labels feature and keyword searches and so forth. 

This album has been officially released as "Yusuf's Cafe Session," the same month it happened. But it seems to have been a limited release, and remains fairly obscure.

This concert is an hour and one minute long.

01 The Reed [Instrumental] (Cat Stevens)
02 Wind East and West (Cat Stevens)
03 The Wind (Cat Stevens)
04 Midday [Avoid City After Dark] (Cat Stevens)
05 talk (Cat Stevens)
06 Don't Be Shy (Cat Stevens)
07 talk (Cat Stevens)
08 Maybe There's a World (Cat Stevens)
09 In the End (Cat Stevens)
10 Where Do All the Children Play (Cat Stevens)
11 talk (Cat Stevens)
12 The Little Ones (Cat Stevens)
13 I Think I See the Light (Cat Stevens)
14 Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood (Cat Stevens)
15 talk (Cat Stevens)
16 Heaven - Where True Love Goes (Cat Stevens)
17 How Long - Peace Train Blues (Cat Stevens)
18 The Beloved (Cat Stevens)
19 talk (Cat Stevens)
20 Father and Son (Cat Stevens)
21 talk (Cat Stevens)
22 Wild World [Zulu Version] (Cat Stevens)
23 Peace Train (Cat Stevens)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/SNCvddjZ

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/2tW2Y0amkiw3kSM/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert.

Ringo Starr - PBS Soundstage, Genesee Theatre, Waukegan, IL, 6-24-2005... and More (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

Here's a Mike Solof guest post that puts the spotlight on Ringo Starr. This album got started when I was discussing Starr's solo concerts, and Mike expressed how much he enjoyed the two solo tours when Starr had the Roundheads as a backing band. Most of this is based on a 2005 Soundstage concert that got turned into an official video and album. But Mike added a bunch of unreleased songs from a 1998 tour that didn't get played on the 2005 tour. 

The result is kind of the ultimate Ringo Starr solo concert where he's the sole star, as opposed to his many "All Starr Tours" where he's shared the spotlight with other stars.

As usual with Mike Solof posts, see the included PDF file for more details, as well as photos.

This album is an hour and 17 minutes long.

01 With a Little Help from My Friends - It Don't Come Easy (Ringo Starr & the Roundheads)
02 talk (Ringo Starr & the Roundheads)
03 Octopus's Garden (Ringo Starr & the Roundheads)
04 talk (Ringo Starr & the Roundheads)
05 Choose Love (Ringo Starr & the Roundheads)
06 talk (Ringo Starr & the Roundheads)
07 I Wanna Be Your Man (Ringo Starr & the Roundheads)
08 talk (Ringo Starr & the Roundheads)
09 Don't Pass Me By (Ringo Starr & the Roundheads)
10 talk (Ringo Starr & the Roundheads)
11 I'm the Greatest (Ringo Starr & the Roundheads)
12 talk (Ringo Starr & the Roundheads)
13 Give Me Back the Beat (Ringo Starr & the Roundheads)
14 talk (Ringo Starr & the Roundheads)
15 Memphis in Your Mind (Ringo Starr & the Roundheads)
16 Photograph (Ringo Starr & the Roundheads)
17 Never without You (Ringo Starr & the Roundheads)
18 talk (Ringo Starr & the Roundheads)
19 Back Off Boogaloo (Ringo Starr & the Roundheads)
20 talk (Ringo Starr & the Roundheads)
21 Boys (Ringo Starr & the Roundheads)
22 talk (Ringo Starr & the Roundheads)
23 Yellow Submarine (Ringo Starr & the Roundheads)
24 talk (Ringo Starr & the Roundheads)
25 La De Da (Ringo Starr & the Roundheads)
26 I Was Walkin' (Ringo Starr & the Roundheads)
27 talk (Ringo Starr & the Roundheads)
28 Love Me Do (Ringo Starr & the Roundheads)
29 King of Broken Hearts (Ringo Starr & the Roundheads)
30 talk (Ringo Starr & the Roundheads)
31 What in the World (Ringo Starr & the Roundheads)
32 talk (Ringo Starr & the Roundheads)
33 Act Naturally (Ringo Starr & the Roundheads)
34 With a Little Help from My Friends (Ringo Starr & the Roundheads)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/yWZHZaat

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/lAnARpYEyHj5ec9/file

The cover photo is from an appearance on the "Good Morning America" TV show in 2005.

Cream - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: Farewell Concert, Royal Albert Hall, London, Britain, 11-26-1968

I'm glad to be finally posting this. In addition to being a BBC concert, it also is almost the last concert by Cream, except for a few reunion concerts decades later. I say almost because this was the early show out of the two on their last night. The late show was either not properly recorded or has never been made public.

Cream was only in existence from 1966 to 1968, but they were very productive and popular during that time. However, their sudden superstardom led to the usual drug and ego issues. In particular, bassist Jack Bruce and drummer Ginger Baker already hated each other before the band even started, due to being in an earlier band together, and things between them slowly got worse. The third band member, guitarist Eric Clapton, eventually couldn't take it and decided to break up the band. But they went out with a final tour.

At the time, the BBC almost never broadcast concerts. Their popular "In Concert" program didn't start until 1970. However, the end of Cream was a big deal, so the BBC filmed this final concert. It was shown on TV in Britain in January 1969. Unfortunately, the film work was pretty poor and the audio quality was bad as well. A reviewer for a 2005 upgrade of the video commented, "The sound has been digitally remastered, but the audio is still a turgid sonic sludge. The visuals are even worse, with director Tony Palmer jerking the camera around as if this were an episode of NYPD Blue, layering the picture with dated and distracting psychedelic light effects, and providing far too many close-ups of Bruce's teeth (and almost no wide shots of the entire band)." On top of that, there was narration and interviews played over some of the music, making it hard to appreciate the songs.

In 2020, the concert was released on audio as part of a Cream box set called "Goodbye Tour - Live 1968" that contained four full concerts from the tour. But, as a Wikipedia article about it noted, "Sadly, the sound of this Royal Albert Hall concert is much worse than the sound of the other three shows of this box set."

Given all that, I'd known about this concert for a long time, but I decided against posting it to my blog due to the poor sound quality. However, nowadays, much can be done with audio editing, so I decided to see if it could be salvaged. I boosted the lead vocals a little bit relative to the instruments, using the UVR5 program. I lowered the crowd noise in the rare cases someone was talking between songs, so one might actually hear what they're saying. But most importantly, I gave the files to musical associate MZ. He's good at remixing. I suggested the bass was too loud, and he agreed. The version he sent back lowered some parts of the bass range and boosted some parts of the treble. It sounds much better now, like a layer of muck has been removed. Frankly, I don't know why the 2020 box set didn't do this. Audio editing technology has improved a lot since then, but simply lowering the bass in the mix was easy to do back then.

Does this sound great now? No. But it's much more listenable, on par with the other three soundboards from this final tour. Thanks to MZ for his valuable help.

By the way, in Clapton's autobiography, he discussed this final concert some. Here's what he said:

"Before the gig started, I just wanted to get it over with. But once I was up on stage, I became quite excited. I thought it was great that we could do this and keep our heads high, and walk away from the whole thing with a fair amount of good grace. ... It also meant a lot to me knowing that out there in the audience there were not just fans, but musician friends, and people on the scene who had all come to say their goodbyes. My overwhelming emotion, however, was that we had done the right thing. I think we all knew that. At the end of the second show, there was no party, no speeches. We just went our separate ways."

This album is an hour and four minutes long.

01 talk (Cream)
02 White Room (Cream)
03 Politician (Cream)
04 talk (Cream)
05 I'm So Glad (Cream)
06 talk (Cream)
07 Sitting on Top of the World (Cream)
08 talk (Cream)
09 Crossroads (Cream)
10 talk (Cream)
11 Toad [Instrumental] (Cream)
12 Spoonful (Cream)
13 talk (Cream)
14 Sunshine of Your Love (Cream)
15 talk (Cream)
16 Steppin' Out [Instrumental] (Cream)
17 talk (Cream)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/kYPH13rw

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/LY65LHVRqh7f5Z6/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert.

Cat Stevens - BBC Sessions, Volume 4: UNICEF Year of the Child Concert, Wembley Arena, London, Britain, 11-22-1979

I thought I was done with posting Cat Stevens BBC albums, but it turns out I'd missed two BBC concerts. So here's the first one, from 1979.

In the late 1970s, Cat Stevens' musical career was winding down. He later said that it a become "a chore, and not an inspiration anymore." Instead, he increasingly grew interested in religion. He converted to Islam in 1977 after years of spiritual searching. His last studio album (for the era) was "Back to Earth" in 1978. In 1978, he changed his name to "Yusuf Islam." In 1979, he auctioned off all his guitars, and soon stopped playing music altogether, even at home.

However, Stevens has also been heavily involved in charitable causes for most of his life. He was persuaded to perform one last concert in 1979, which is this one. It was a big benefit concert to benefit the UNICEF charity, with lots of stars on the bill, including David Essex, Gary Numan, and Wishbone Ash. It was broadcast on TV at the time. (You can find video footage on YouTube, but the image quality is extremely poor.) He appeared quite different than before, with a new beard and his hair closely cut, as well as wearing a religious shawl over his shoulders. This would be his last public musical performance until 2002. He eventually fully resumed his musical career around 2006.

This appears to be the full set. It was rather short, since he was on a bill with several other acts. A highlight was the last song, "Child for a Day," written especially for the occasion by David Gordon, Stevens' brother. David Essex and Richard Thompson came on stage to help with the song. I watched the video of this. Essex sang a little bit of the lead vocals, but Thompson just played guitar, which didn't include a solo.

This album is 36 minutes long.

01 talk by Paul Gambaccini (Cat Stevens)
02 The Wind (Cat Stevens)
03 On the Road to Find Out (Cat Stevens)
04 talk (Cat Stevens)
05 Just Another Night (Cat Stevens)
06 Daytime - Where Do the Children Play (Cat Stevens)
07 talk (Cat Stevens)
08 Father and Son (Cat Stevens)
09 Morning Has Broken (Cat Stevens)
10 Peace Train (Cat Stevens)
11 talk (Cat Stevens)
12 Child for a Day (Cat Stevens with David Essex & Richard Thompson)
13 talk (Cat Stevens)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/TKKm7A5u

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/1HxwsnleNnULpkq/file

The cover photo is of this concert. I had a hard time with this one. I looked high and low to find a good photo from the concert, since the YouTube footage was so poor. I eventually found one in black in white. Then I colorized it using the Kolorize program. I made sure to match the colors shown (barely) in the YouTube video. Finally, I used Krea AI to improve the image.

Dire Straits - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: BBC Arena, Rainbow Theatre, London, Britain, 12-21-1979

Back in 2022, I posted an album of the band Dire Straits performing for the BBC. At the time, I thought the only BBC performances they did was what I gathered onto that album from various sessions dating from 1978 to 1992, plus a 1978 concert. I decided not to post the concert because it's very widely available as the official album "Live at the BBC." But I recently found two more BBC concerts, so I'm going to post them. Here's the first one, a full concert from 1979 with Phil Lynott of Thin Lizzy as a special guest on the last four songs.

This concert also has been officially released, in 2023 as part of the box set "Live 1978-1992" and also a stand-alone release at the same time. So I wasn't going to post this either. But then I listened to the album, and realized the lead vocals were low in the mix. I brought them up thanks to the UVR5 audio editing program, and I think the whole thing sounds better now. So I decided to post it, since this is different.

This concert took place about six months after the release of the band's second album, "Communique," but still almost a year before the release of their next album, "Making Movies." Still, some songs for the next album had already been written, and the band played two of them, "Les Boys" and "Solid Rock." They also played "Twisting by the Pool," which wouldn't be released until it came out on an E.P. in 1983. But what really makes this concert special is the encore, where Phil Lynott of Thin Lizzy joined the band on stage and did most of the singing through cover versions of four rock and roll classics from the 1950s or earlier. Dire Straits almost never did that kind of thing.

By the way, now that I have more than one album of BBC material for this band, I renamed the earlier album "BBC Sessions, Volume 1." If you want the updated version with changed cover art and such, here's the link:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2022/12/dire-straits-bbc-sessions-1978-1992.html

This album is an hour and 39 minutes long.

01 talk (Dire Straits)
02 Down to the Waterline (Dire Straits)
03 Six Blade Knife (Dire Straits)
04 Once Upon a Time in the West (Dire Straits)
05 Lady Writer (Dire Straits)
06 Lions (Dire Straits)
07 Sultans of Swing (Dire Straits)
08 talk (Dire Straits)
09 Les Boys (Dire Straits)
10 Portobello Belle (Dire Straits)
11 News (Dire Straits)
12 What’s the Matter Baby (Dire Straits)
13 talk (Dire Straits)
14 Setting Me Up (Dire Straits)
15 In the Gallery (Dire Straits)
16 Solid Rock (Dire Straits)
17 Southbound Again (Dire Straits)
18 Where Do You Think You’re Going (Dire Straits)
19 Wild West End (Dire Straits)
20 Twisting by the Pool (Dire Straits)
21 talk (Dire Straits)
22 Good Morning, Little Schoolgirl (Dire Straits with Phil Lynott)
23 That’s Alright Mama (Dire Straits with Phil Lynott)
24 Nadine [Is It You] (Dire Straits with Phil Lynott)
25 Keep A-Knockin' (Dire Straits with Phil Lynott)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/q1Pzx151

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/oCRVRzhnh7O5POo/file

The cover photo of Mark Knopfler is from a concert in Freiburg, Germany, on June 2, 1979.

Graham Gouldman, Fran Healy, & Ron Sexsmith - Songwriters' Circle, Bush Hall, London, Britain, 3-4-2011

I really like these BBC "Songwriters' Circle" concerts, so here's another one. This one stars Graham Gouldman of 10cc, Fran Healy of Travis, and Ron Sexsmith.

A while back, I collaborated with a person named Pete the Greek on a series of non-album tracks by Ron Sexsmith. (Now that I think about it, I still have a couple of those I haven't posted yet. I'll try to get to that soon.) In the process of doing that, we came across this concert. But unfortunately, all we could find were YouTube videos of individual songs (and luckily, most of the banter before each song). We found all the Healy and Sexsmith songs, but we couldn't find two songs Gouldman was known to perform here: "Look Through Any Window" and "I'm Not in Love." Eventually, I posted the concert, with substitutes for the two missing songs.

Then, in December 2025, a kind musical helper sent me the full concert with great quality. So I redid this concert from scratch, using that new source. Not only was I able to recover the two missing songs, I also recovered some other missing bits, such as banter between songs. 

By the way, Gouldman took part in another one of these "Songwriters' Circle" shows back in 1999. I plan to post that one eventually. In that one, he did do an acoustic version of "I'm Not in Love."

This album contains three bonus tracks. These are the legacy of the earlier version I'd posted. Since I'd posted a couple of extra Gouldman songs to make up for his missing ones, those no longer fit with the main album, since they come from another source. (Specifically, they come from a soundboard bootleg of a 10cc concert from Swansea in Wales, also from 2011, where Gouldman was essentially the opening act for his own 10cc band, playing a handful of songs he'd written before 10cc in an acoustic format.) I didn't want to disappear them completely though, so I've made them into bonus tracks. Their sound quality is just as good as the rest.  

This unreleased concert is an hour and six minutes long, not including the bonus tracks.

01 talk (Fran Healy)
02 Driftwood (Fran Healy)
03 talk (Ron Sexsmith)
04 Get in Line (Ron Sexsmith)
05 talk (Graham Gouldman)
06 Heart Full of Soul (Graham Gouldman)
07 talk (Graham Gouldman & Fran Healy)
08 talk (Fran Healy)
09 Writing to Reach You (Fran Healy)
10 talk (Ron Sexsmith)
11 Gold in Them Hills (Ron Sexsmith)
12 talk (Graham Gouldman)
13 Look through Any Window (Graham Gouldman)
14 talk (Fran Healy)
15 Why Does It Always Rain on Me (Fran Healy)
16 talk (Ron Sexsmith)
17 Whatever It Takes (Ron Sexsmith)
18 talk (Ron Sexsmith & Graham Gouldman)
19 The Things We Do for Love (Graham Gouldman)
20 talk (Fran Healy)
21 Rocking Chair (Fran Healy)
22 talk (Ron Sexsmith)
23 Believe It When I See It (Ron Sexsmith)
24 talk (Graham Gouldman)
25 I'm Not in Love (Graham Gouldman)
26 talk (Graham Gouldman & Fran Healy)
27 talk (Fran Healy)
28 Sing (Fran Healy)
29 talk (Ron Sexsmith)
30 Secret Heart (Ron Sexsmith)
31 talk (Graham Gouldman)
32 Bus Stop (Graham Gouldman)
33 talk (Graham Gouldman)
34 Wake Up, Little Susie (Graham Gouldman, Fran Healy & Ron Sexsmith)

No Milk Today talk (Graham Gouldman)
No Milk Today (Graham Gouldman)
Pamela, Pamela (Graham Gouldman)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/CgmhEXnq

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/91s3xBA4RXMdzXP/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. It's actually a composite of four screenshots I took from one of the videos from this concert. The video was so low-res, that I took a screenshot of the whole scene, then I found different points when there were close-ups of each head, and took screenshots of them. I resized the heads and pasted them in, so those parts would be more accurate. Finally, I ran the composite version through the Krea AI program to improve the sharpness some.

Stevie Wonder - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: In Concert, Glastonbury Festival, Worthy Farm, Pilton, Britain, 6-27-2010

Here's a third, and probably final, album of Stevie Wonder performing for the BBC. This is a full concert.

Some musical stars have aged better than others. I think few would disagree that Wonder's songwriting has taken a step down since the 1970s. But when it comes to performing, he seems to have defied Father Time. As I write this in February 2025, I just posted a benefit concert that took place mere days ago in which Wonder take part, and even at the age of 74, he sounded great. In this 2010, he was "merely" 59, and sounded even better.

At the time of this concert, he hadn't released a new studio album in five years. He didn't play any songs from it. This was strictly his classic hits, to appeal to the massive Glastonbury Festival crowd.

This concert is officially unreleased. I could only find a video file for it, so I converted it to audio and broke it into mp3s. The sound quality is great. The first song, "My Eyes Don't Cry," has "[Edit]" in the title because a BBC DJ spoke over the music. As I usually do, I got rid of the talking with the UVR5 editing program.

This album is an hour and 33 minutes long.

01 My Eyes Don't Cry [Edit] (Stevie Wonder)
02 Master Blaster [Jammin'] (Stevie Wonder)
03 We Can Work It Out (Stevie Wonder)
04 As If You Read My Mind (Stevie Wonder)
05 If You Really Love Me (Stevie Wonder)
06 talk (Stevie Wonder)
07 If You Really Love Me [Reprise] (Stevie Wonder)
08 All I Do (Stevie Wonder)
09 talk (Stevie Wonder)
10 Higher Ground (Stevie Wonder)
11 Don't You Worry 'bout a Thing (Stevie Wonder)
12 Living for the City (Stevie Wonder)
13 Human Nature (Stevie Wonder)
14 talk (Stevie Wonder)
15 Uptight [Everything's Alright] (Stevie Wonder)
16 For Once in My Life (Stevie Wonder)
17 talk (Stevie Wonder)
18 Fingertips, Part 2 (Stevie Wonder)
19 talk (Stevie Wonder)
20 Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I'm Yours (Stevie Wonder)
21 Sir Duke (Stevie Wonder)
22 I Just Called to Say I Love You (Stevie Wonder)
23 Superstition (Stevie Wonder)
24 Free (Stevie Wonder)
25 talk (Stevie Wonder)
26 Another Star (Stevie Wonder)
27 Happy Birthday (Stevie Wonder)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/b46X7AVW

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/BX7PeivK2wAaQRk/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert.

Joan Baez - 1999 BBC Sessions, Volume 4: In Concert, Lyric Hammersmith Theatre, London, Britain, 11-4-1999

Here's the fourth, and for now last, album of Joan Baez performing for the BBC. I say "for now," because I'm pretty sure there are one or two more BBC concerts I can't find. So don't be surprised if this gets renumbered eventually. This is another BBC concert.

For Volume 3, I posted a 1993 concert. As I said in my write-up for that, I mostly knew her for her 1960s and 1970s music. I was pleasantly surprised with her mostly different later material. That's the case here, with a set list that's largely different from the 1993 show, and only a couple of well-known songs from much earlier in her career.

This concert is officially unreleased.

This album is 54 minutes long.

01 No Mermaid (Joan Baez)
02 The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down (Joan Baez)
03 Crack in the Mirror (Joan Baez)
04 talk (Joan Baez)
05 Long Bed from Kenya (Joan Baez)
06 talk (Joan Baez)
07 Joe Hill (Joan Baez)
08 Jesse (Joan Baez)
09 talk (Joan Baez)
10 Lily (Joan Baez)
11 talk (Joan Baez)
12 Money for Floods (Joan Baez)
13 talk (Joan Baez)
14 Lily of the West [Edit] (Joan Baez)
15 talk (Joan Baez)
16 Welcome Me (Joan Baez)
17 talk (Joan Baez)
18 Gracias a La Vida (Joan Baez)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/CJsS86BN

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/Hl5u5W6T2HZlUYD/file

The cover photo is from a concert in Portsmouth, Britain, in October 1999.

Chris Farlowe - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: In Concert, London, Britain, 1-17-1976

Here's the third and I believe final album of British singer Chris Farlowe performing for the BBC. This one is a short concert.

Let's review Farlowe's music career to make sense of this concert. He had his biggest success with a series of singles in the 1960s, especially "Out of Time," which hit Number One in the British singles chart in 1966. But in the late 1960s, musical styles changed, and his soul-influenced style lost popularity. He switched gears, becoming the lead singer to the jazz rock band Colosseum in 1970, and then when they broke it, he began the lead singer for the rock band Atomic Rooster in 1972 and 1973. But the band lost their record contract and slowly unraveled, finally breaking up in 1975. (They would reform a couple of years later, but without Farlowe.)

So at the time of this concert, Farlowe was back to having a solo career, one that generally returned to a soulful style. He put out a live album in 1975, "Chris Farlowe Band Live." However, his career went through some tough times after that. He wouldn't put out another album until 1985. From 1994 onwards, he would mainly stay busy with Colosseum reunions.

The contents of this album would eventually get officially released in the 1990s, as the album "BBC in Concert."

This album is 40 minutes long.

01 We're Gonna Make It (Chris Farlowe)
02 Only Woman Bleed (Chris Farlowe)
03 Peace of Mind (Chris Farlowe)
04 Baby What's Wrong [With You] (Chris Farlowe)
05 talk (Chris Farlowe)
06 Handbags and Gladrags (Chris Farlowe)
07 You Haven't Done Nothin' (Chris Farlowe)
08 It Ain't No Use (Chris Farlowe)
09 After Midnight (Chris Farlowe)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/8dNJJa9H

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/rkn4T6eud9lvDWD/file

I don't know much about the cover photo except that it's "circa 1975."

Pete Townshend - Who Demos, Volume 10: 1982-1995: It's Hard & Solo Albums

I recently posted the ninth volume in this series. Here's the tenth and final one, before I forget. Generally, the series is about the demos Pete Townshend made that later turned into songs for albums by the Who, as opposed to a separate series I've made of Townshend's non-album tracks, which are mostly demos. But for this final volume, it's dominated by songs that went to Townshend's 1980s solo albums.

The only album by the Who represented here is "It's Hard," from 1982. But for whatever reason, there aren't many demos from that one, just "Popular" (an early version of "It's Hard") and "Cry If You Want." Plus, there's a version of "Eminence Front," but it's stuck at the end because it's all the way from 1995. Apparently, Townshend made a new demo of the song before going on tour, and liked it enough to include it on his archival album "Scoop 3."

Track two through five are all demos of songs from Townshend's 1982 solo album "All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes." Those four songs are all unreleased, as is "Cry If You Want" mentioned above. I really like Townshend's 1985 album "White City," but there are only two demos of songs from that album, "Crashing by Design" and "I Am Secure." All the remaining songs relate to his 1989 album "Iron Man." Those are all officially released, mostly from his "Scoop 3" album, except for "I Eat Heavy Metal."

This album is an hour and five minutes long.

01 Popular [Early Version of It's Hard] (Pete Townshend)
02 Stop Hurting People (Pete Townshend)
03 Face Dances, Pt. 2 (Pete Townshend)
04 Uniforms [Corp d'Esprit] (Pete Townshend)
05 The Sea Refuses No River (Pete Townshend)
06 Cry If You Want (Pete Townshend)
07 Crashing by Design (Pete Townshend)
08 I Am Secure (Pete Townshend)
09 Man and Machines [Man Machines] (Pete Townshend)
10 Dig (Pete Townshend)
11 I Eat Heavy Metal (Pete Townshend)
12 I Am Afraid (Pete Townshend)
13 Outlive the Dinosaur (Pete Townshend)
14 Iron Man Recitative (Pete Townshend)
15 Eminence Front (Pete Townshend)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/AWvjgje9

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/R5nBhcu5RAHyazo/file

The cover photo is from a 1985 photo shoot.

Paul Carrack - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: In Concert, Shepherd's Bush Empire, London, Britain, 11-18-1997

I've posted a couple of early 1980s BBC concerts that co-starred Nick Lowe and Paul Carrack. I'm planning on posting a couple of Nick Lowe solo career BBC concerts also. I'm more of a Lowe fan, but I've discovered a couple of Carrack solo career BBC concerts, so I'm posting them as well. Here's the first one, from 1997.

Paul Carrack has had a very strange music career. He sings lead vocals on many famous hits, but he's only had one sizable hit in the U.S., "Don't Shed a Tear" in 1987, and none in Britain. Yet he's the lead vocalist on "How Long" by Ace, "Tempted" and "Loving You Tonight" by Squeeze, and a bunch of Mike and the Mechanics hits, including "Silent Running," "Over My Shoulder," and "The Living Years." I think he'd be much more famous if his name had prominently featured on all those hits. 

Carrack has often been recruited as a band member or session player mostly because of his excellent, soulful voice, not to mention his keyboard playing and songwriting skills. One gets to see all that one display here. It's a relatively short (and unreleased) concert, at less than an hour. But it features some of the hits mentioned above by Ace, Squeeze, and Mike and the Mechanics, although oddly, not his big solo hit, "Don't Shed a Tear." Perhaps that's because this concert took place in Britain, and while that was a Top Ten hit in the U.S., it only reached Number Sixty in the British singles chart.

This album is 54 minutes long.

01 Another Cup of Coffee (Paul Carrack)
02 You Give Me Something (Paul Carrack)
03 Eyes of Blue (Paul Carrack)
04 Time to Let Go (Paul Carrack)
05 The Way I'm Feeling Tonight (Paul Carrack)
06 Perfect Love (Paul Carrack)
07 Satisfied (Paul Carrack)
08 Tempted (Paul Carrack)
09 talk (Paul Carrack)
10 Over My Shoulder (Paul Carrack)
11 The Living Years (Paul Carrack)
12 How Long (Paul Carrack)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/t6BxoVmo

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/UKB637Sd7B2cGdU/file

The cover photo shows Carrack in a Mike and the Mechanics concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London on April 18, 1996.

Stevie Ray Vaughan - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: In Concert, Austin City Limits Studio, Austin, TX, 10-10-1989

Here is the third and last album of guitar wizard Stevie Ray Vaughan performing for the BBC. Sadly, he died a year later. So it's unlikely for there to be more BBC material unless I missed something from earlier. This is a concert.

This one is rather strange for a "BBC concert," because it clearly originally was an episode of the U.S. TV show "Austin City Limits." However, it was also broadcast on BBC radio. You can even find it listed on the BBC website as part of their "In Concert" series. This kind of thing seemed to have happened more than I'd first realized when starting out with my big BBC project. I'm guessing there were times when a musical act was really popular and the BBC wanted to feature them, but they couldn't arrange to record them. For instance, perhaps they weren't going to Britain that year. So instead the BBC would simply buy the rights to someone else's radio or TV broadcasts. 

That's one reason I'm really enjoying gathering this BBC material, because they so often managed to feature musical acts at their commercial and/or creative peaks, because the BBC had the power and money to do that kind of thing. The one glaring exception is when a musical act got so popular that they decided not to do any radio or TV broadcasts at all. That certainly happened sometimes. A classic example was the Beatles stopping all BBC broadcasts in mid-1965, even though they kept touring for another year.

Anyway, I digress. Getting back to this recording, although you can easily find video of this show on YouTube and elsewhere, it hasn't been released in audio format. In fact, I was surprised that I couldn't even find any audio bootlegs of this, only a few songs here and there. So I put it together myself, based on a high quality video source. The sound quality is excellent. But one problem was that there often wasn't enough audience applause at the ends of songs. Probably, there were cutaways to commercials or an emcee talking. So in many cases I patched in applause from the ends of other songs to give adequate space after every song. 

Of course it's a tragedy that he died as young as he did. But it's especially tragic because, in my opinion, he was getting better and better as a songwriter and guitar player, probably helped by the fact that he'd stopped abusing drugs and alcohol. So of the three BBC albums I've posted by him, I think this one is the best.

This album is an hour and six minutes long.

01 The House Is Rockin' (Stevie Ray Vaughan)
02 Tightrope (Stevie Ray Vaughan)
03 talk (Stevie Ray Vaughan)
04 May I Have a Talk with You (Stevie Ray Vaughan)
05 Mary Had a Little Lamb (Stevie Ray Vaughan)
06 Leave My Girl Alone (Stevie Ray Vaughan)
07 Crossfire (Stevie Ray Vaughan)
08 Look at Little Sister (Stevie Ray Vaughan)
09 Superstition (Stevie Ray Vaughan)
10 talk (Stevie Ray Vaughan)
11 Cold Shot (Stevie Ray Vaughan)
12 Couldn't Stand the Weather (Stevie Ray Vaughan)
13 Voodoo Child [Slight Return] (Stevie Ray Vaughan)
13 Riviera Paradise [Instrumental] (Stevie Ray Vaughan)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/1K9ZaGFE

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/S9ykouDU5WbkFrP/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert.

Van Morrison - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: 1984-1995

When I posted Van Morrison's "BBC Sessions, Volume 1," I commented that it was a shame Morrison hardly ever performed for the BBC in 1980s. Musical associate MZ saw that comment, and sent me some stuff. Based mostly on that, I was able to put together this album of BBC sessions.

"Sense of Wonder" is from an appearance on the BBC TV show "The Old Grey Whistle Test" in 1984. "In the Garden" is from another BBC TV show in 1986. 

The next four songs come from a BBC TV special about Morrison called "One Irish Rover." It collected a bunch of different performances. One of them featured Van Morrison and Bob Dylan in 1989 singing just as a duo in Athens, Greece, on a hill overlooking the Acropolis. It's great to have these two musical giants collaborate, but to be honest it generally seemed like Dylan was winging it and didn't know Morrison's songs that well. But he did play some nice harmonica, and he sang more assertively on "One Irish Rover." The last of those four songs, "And It Stoned Me," was from the same session, but wasn't actually included in the "One Irish Rover" show. (You can find YouTube videos of all four songs, if you're interested in seeing and not just hearing them.)

"Whenever God Shines His Light" is from the BBC TV show "Top of the Pops," in 1989. Most appearances on that show are lipsynced, but not this one. It's a duet of Morrison and Cliff Richard, the same as on Morrison's 1989 studio album "Avalon Sunset." The next two songs, "Avalon of the Heart" and "So Quiet in Here" are from an appearance on the "Late Show," another BBC TV show, in 1990. Finally, the last two songs are from the show "Later... with Jools Holland" in 1995.

Everything here is unreleased on audio format, though the "One Irish Rover" show has been released on video. For the songs with cheering studio audiences, I used the MVSEP program to get rid of the cheering. "Whenever God Shines His Light" has "[Edit]" in the title because the first few seconds were missing. I fixed that by patching in some music from later in the song.

This album is 43 minutes long.

01 Sense of Wonder (Van Morrison)
02 In the Garden (Van Morrison)
03 Crazy Love (Van Morrison with Bob Dylan)
04 Foreign Window (Van Morrison with Bob Dylan)
05 One Irish Rover (Van Morrison with Bob Dylan)
06 And It Stoned Me (Van Morrison with Bob Dylan)
07 Whenever God Shines His Light [Edit] (Van Morrison & Cliff Richard)
08 Avalon of the Heart (Van Morrison)
09 So Quiet in Here (Van Morrison)
10 Don't Worry about a Thing (Van Morrison)
11 That's Life (Van Morrison)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/gfJA3oVS

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/NQkCrr4NOO0M1l5/file

The cover photo is from a photo shoot in Bath, Britain, in May, 1989.

Nick Lowe - Theatre of the Living Arts, Philadelphia, PA, 1-28-1995

Here's a great sounding Nick Lowe concert from 1995.

As part of my big BBC project, I'm still trying to finish off album series a started long ago before posting BBC albums from other musical acts. I already posted a couple of 1980s BBC concerts starring Nick Lowe and Paul Carrack, so I want to finish their BBC stuff off as well. I have a couple of Lowe BBC concerts from the 2000s, but nothing at all from the 1990s. According to setlist.fm, he just wasn't touring much that decade, so maybe that's why the BBC missed him. But to cover the gap, here's a soundboard bootleg of a full concert.

In the 1970s and 80s, Lowe was a rock and roller. But with his 1994 album "The Impossible Bird," his musical style changed, and he's stuck with the new style ever since. Rock critic Jim Farber later commented that this style change "moved him out of the realms of ironic pop and animated rock and into the role of a worldly balladeer, specializing in grave vocals and graceful tunes." So this concert, supporting "The Impossible Bird," finds him at a crossroads, moving into that new style while still playing some more rocking songs from earlier in his career.

This unreleased bootleg only had two problems. One is that the beginning of the first song, "12-Step Program (To Quit You Babe)," was cut off. The other is that there was about a five second section in "Without Love" that sounded muddy and bad. Lowe later released a live album called "Untouched Takeaway." Most of the songs on that were from 2001, but six were from this tour. Luckily, those included versions of those two songs. So I patched in bits from that live album to fix them. That's why those two songs have "[Edit]" in their titles.

Lowe sang most of the songs, but in a couple of songs he let members of his backing band, the Impossible Birds, sing lead.

This album is an hour and 26 minutes long.

01 12-Step Program [To Quit You Babe] [Edit] (Nick Lowe)
02 True Love Travels on a Gravel Road (Nick Lowe)
03 talk (Nick Lowe)
04 Without Love [Edit] (Nick Lowe)
05 Lover Don't Go (Nick Lowe)
06 The Rose of England (Nick Lowe)
07 Trail of Tears (Nick Lowe)
08 Dream Girl (Nick Lowe)
09 talk (Nick Lowe)
10 Cruel to Be Kind (Nick Lowe)
11 Where's My Everything (Nick Lowe)
12 I'm Coming Home (Nick Lowe)
13 Lonely Just like Me (Nick Lowe)
14 talk (Nick Lowe)
15 A Tombstone Every Mile (Nick Lowe)
16 Half a Boy and Half a Man (Nick Lowe)
17 Crying in My Sleep (Nick Lowe)
18 talk (Nick Lowe)
19 Soulful Wind (Nick Lowe)
20 I Knew the Bride [When She Used to Rock and Roll] (Nick Lowe)
21 Bo Bo Ska Diddle Daddle (Nick Lowe)
22 talk (Nick Lowe)
23 Raging Eyes (Nick Lowe)
24 talk (Nick Lowe) (Nick Lowe)
25 Shelley My Love (Nick Lowe)
26 talk (Nick Lowe)
27 Allons Rock and Roll (Nick Lowe)
28 [You're My] Wildest Dream (Nick Lowe)
29 talk (Nick Lowe) (Nick Lowe)
30 If You Ever Want Me by Your Side (Nick Lowe)
31 [What's So Funny 'Bout] Peace, Love and Understanding (Nick Lowe)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/irL4SdhH

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/tYf2p4PmUOpQw62/file

The cover photo is from a concert in Brussels, Belgium, on April 7, 1995.

Various Artists - FireAid, Intuit Dome, Inglewood, CA, and Kia Forum, Inglewood, CA, 1-30-2025

Here's something surprisingly timely from me. I mostly post music from decades ago, but as I write this in early 2025, this concert took place only three days ago! It's a big concert - five hours long - with lots of big name artists.

I like posting big rock festivals and benefit concerts, because I've noticed they tend to get overlooked. But I tend not to post many from the 2000s because I don't like many of the musical acts on the bills. However, I looked at the list of performers here and I liked most of them, and could at least tolerate the rest. If you frequently come to this blog, your musical tastes are probably pretty similar to mine. You might want to give this a listen even if you don't like some of the acts. I think it's better than the vast majority of these kinds of concerts.

The concert was a surprisingly fast response to a series of fires that burned parts of the Los Angeles region earlier that same month. Millions were raised that would go to a charity to help the victims of the fires. There are lots of natural disasters that don't result in big benefit concerts. But this disaster hit very close to home for many famous musicians and or the people they know. For instance, Billy Crystal, one of the presenters here, lost his house to one of the fires, and Stevie Nicks came very close to losing hers. So it's not surprising that so many artists wanted to take part in a benefit concert.

Before I say anything else, note that the crisis caused by the fires is very much still ongoing, and donations are still being accepted. If you want to donate, here's the link:

Homepage - FireAid

I'm posting this because the entire concert has been put out there for free all over the place, including on literally at least ten TV streaming services, Tik Tok, YouTube, and more. So I'm just helping to spread it. If you want to watch it instead of just listen, YouTube is an easy way to find it. (That said, I wouldn't at all be surprised if this gets taken down due to some copyright issue or another, so grab it fast!)

The Wall Street Journal put out an interesting article before the concert took place that explained how it came to be. It's a worthwhile read:

Archive Buttons | Free Paywall Remover

I'll spare the details, since you can read about everything there. But I want to note that famous musical acts were falling over each other to take part, so many were turned down. The ones that were included generally were ones who lived in Los Angeles or otherwise had close ties to the area. 

Also note that the concert was rather strange in that it actually two place in two different venues on the same night. This is similar to what happened with Live Aid in 1985, except that consisted of concerts in North America and Europe, whereas this was two concerts both in the two of Inglewood. The thinking was that one of the concerts was mainly for pop music and the other for rock music. While there was down time between acts in one concert, they would show a set from the other concert, keeping both audiences entertained almost all the time. I thought about splitting this into two album, one for each venue. But I ultimately decided on making one big one, with all the songs in the order they occurred.

Now, let's get to the music. I found high quality videos of each set at a bootleg sharing site, then I converted them to audio and broke them into mp3s. The videos were already almost entirely free of the frequent begging for money typical of these types of concerts. I kept nearly everything. However, there were some sequences highlighting the fires and the resulting homelessness that I cut out, mostly because those were videos meant to be seen, not just heard. But I did keep speeches by Billy Crystal and Jimmy Kimmel talking about the fires.

As I mentioned above, I liked most of the musical acts. The vast majority of them have been featured in albums I've posted at this blog already. The ones who haven't are: Anderson Paak, Dawes, Gracie Abrams, Tate McRae, Jelly Roll, Nirvana, Katy Perry, Olivia Rodrigo, Peso Pluma, Billie Eilish, and Lady Gaga. Some of those were merely okay, but a lot of them only played a song or two, and often did a cover of a famous song, so it didn't matter much. There was only one musical act I couldn't stand, and that was Lil Baby. Gawwwd, the Autotune on that is sooo awful! So that was the only act I didn't include.

I mentioned Nirvana above. It's hard to imagine Nirvana without Kurt Cobain, who died long ago. The set here featured the three surviving members, Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic, and Pat Smear. To fill Cobain's shoes as lead vocalist, different female singers sang each of the four songs performed: St. Vincent, Kim Gordon, Joan Jett, and Violet Grohl (the last being the daughter of Dave Grohl). 

Generally speaking, the sound quality was excellent. But I noticed the lead vocals seems quite low during the Nirvana set, as well as the subsequent Red Hot Chili Peppers set. An analysis of those songs in an audio editing program confirmed that. So I boosted the vocals relative to the instruments for just those two sets, using the UVR5 audio editing program.

One other problem was that there often were abrupt sonic transitions between each set. So I would carefully look at the last song of one set and the first song of the next one. If it didn't sound smooth, I made some edits until it did. Typically, I'd merge audience applause together so it just sounds like lots of cheering until the next act got started.

This album is five hours long exactly. The actual concert was more like six hours long, but there was some dead air between sets, plus the video presentations about the fires that I cut out, as well as the Lil Baby set I couldn't stand.

001 Last Night on Earth (Green Day & Billie Eilish)
002 talk (Green Day)
003 Still Breathing (Green Day)
004 When I Come Around (Green Day)
005 talk (Billy Crystal)
006 Hand in My Pocket (Alanis Morissette)
007 talk (Alanis Morissette)
008 Thank U (Alanis Morissette)
009 talk (Anderson Paak)
010 Put Me Thru (Anderson Paak with Sheila E.)
011 talk (Anderson Paak)
012 Come Down (Anderson Paak with Sheila E.)
013 Still D.R.E. (Dr. Dre & Anderson Paak with Sheila E.)
014 talk (Anderson Paak)
015 California Love (Dr. Dre & Anderson Paak with Sheila E.)
016 talk by Alanis Morissette (Joni Mitchell)
017 Both Sides Now (Joni Mitchell)
018 talk (Dawes)
019 Time Spent in Los Angeles (Dawes)
020 talk (Stephen Stills with Dawes)
021 For What It's Worth (Stephen Stills with Mike Campbell & Dawes)
022 talk (Graham Nash with Stephen Stills & Dawes)
023 Teach Your Children (Graham Nash with Stephen Stills & Dawes)
024 talk (Pink)
025 What about Us (Pink)
026 talk (Pink)
027 Me and Bobby McGee (Pink)
028 talk (Pink)
029 Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You (Pink)
030 talk by Samuel L. Jackson (Rod Stewart)
031 Forever Young (Rod Stewart)
032 talk (Rod Stewart)
033 Maggie May (Rod Stewart)
034 talk (Rod Stewart)
035 People Get Ready (Rod Stewart)
036 talk by Pink (John Mayer)
037 Neon (John Mayer)
038 Gravity (John Mayer)
039 Free Fallin' (John Mayer)
040 That's the Way of the World (Earth, Wind & Fire)
041 Shining Star (Earth, Wind & Fire)
042 September (Earth, Wind & Fire)
043 talk by Graham Nash (Black Crowes)
044 Remedy (Black Crowes)
045 talk (Black Crowes)
046 Have You Ever Seen the Rain (John Fogerty with the Black Crowes)
047 talk (Black Crowes)
048 Going to California (Black Crowes with Slash)
049 talk by Philip Bailey (Gracie Abrams)
050 I Love You, I'm Sorry (Gracie Abrams)
051 talk (Gracie Abrams)
052 A Long December (Gracie Abrams)
053 talk by John Meyer (No Doubt)
054 Just a Girl (No Doubt)
055 Don't Speak (No Doubt)
056 Spiderwebs (No Doubt)
057 talk (Tate McRae)
058 You Broke Me First (Tate McRae)
059 talk (Tate McRae)
060 Don't Dream It's Over (Tate McRae)
061 I Am Not Okay (Jelly Roll)
062 talk (Jelly Roll)
063 Hollywood Nights (Jelly Roll with Travis Barker)
064 talk by Gwen Stefani (Stevie Nicks)
065 Stand Back (Stevie Nicks)
066 talk (Stevie Nicks)
067 Landslide (Stevie Nicks)
068 talk (Stevie Nicks)
069 Edge of Seventeen (Stevie Nicks)
070 talk (Stevie Nicks)
071 talk by Jelly Roll (Katy Perry)
072 Rise (Katy Perry)
073 Roar (Katy Perry)
074 talk (Katy Perry)
075 California Gurls (Katy Perry)
076 Breed (Nirvana & St. Vincent)
077 School (Nirvana & Kim Gordon)
078 talk (Nirvana)
079 Territorial Pissings (Nirvana & Joan Jett)
080 talk (Nirvana)
081 All Apologies (Nirvana & Violet Grohl)
082 talk by Stevie Nicks (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
083 Dani California (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
084 Californication (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
085 talk (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
086 Black Summer (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
087 Under the Bridge (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
088 talk (Olivia Rodrigo)
089 Drivers License (Olivia Rodrigo)
090 talk (Olivia Rodrigo)
091 Deja Vu (Olivia Rodrigo)
092 talk by Olivia Rodrigo (Sting)
093 Message in a Bottle (Sting)
094 Driven to Tears (Sting)
095 Fragile (Sting)
096 talk by Lil Baby (Peso Pluma)
097 La Bebe (Peso Pluma)
098 talk by Sting (Billie Eilish with Finneas)
099 talk (Billie Eilish with Finneas)
100 Wildflower (Billie Eilish with Finneas)
101 The Greatest (Billie Eilish with Finneas)
102 talk (Billie Eilish with Finneas)
103 Birds of a Feather (Billie Eilish with Finneas)
104 talk (Billie Eilish with Finneas)
105 talk (Stevie Wonder)
106 Love's in Need of Love Today (Stevie Wonder)
107 Superstition (Stevie Wonder with Sting)
108 Higher Ground (Stevie Wonder & Sting)
109 talk (Jimmy Kimmel)
110 Shallow (Lady Gaga)
111 talk (Lady Gaga)
112 Always Remember Us This Way (Lady Gaga)
113 talk (Lady Gaga)
114 Time Is a Healer (Lady Gaga)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ZQXR1WV7

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/1MTEuDFXIW31ySS/file

I had hundreds of photos to choose from for the cover art. Unfortunately, there was no big encore with lots of famous people on stage together. So I decided to go with a photo of the stage and a bit of the audience, with John Mayer playing guitar and looking quite small on the huge stage. Then I added a huge version of the FireAid logo to the top half of the image.

Tom Paxton - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: In Concert, Paris Theatre, London, Britain, 11-4-1972

Here's another BBC album by folk singer Tom Paxton. It's another concert.

This music here has been officially released as part of the 1998 album "Live in Concert." But that was taken from more than one concert. I was able to figure out the part that's from this concert. 

It appears there was more to this concert that I still can't find. According a set list I found, he also played the songs "Mr. Blue," The Last Thing on My Mind," "Peace Will Come," and "What a Friend You Are." I am pretty certain though that all of the banter between songs was taken out, because Paxton typically talks a fair amount and this album has none of that. If anyone has more of this, please share so I can add it in.

I'm still frustrated that I can't find more of Paxton's BBC concerts. I found this concert recording list:

The Tom Paxton Setlist Archive

It shows there are recordings of BBC concerts from 1978 and 1985, amongst others. But that person didn't respond when I asked to share. If anyone else has them, please let me know. I did find one from 1995, which I plan on posting soon.

This album is 39 minutes long.

01 Wasn't That a Party (Tom Paxton)
02 Out Behind the Gypsy's (Tom Paxton)
03 Whose Garden Was This (Tom Paxton)
04 Outward Bound (Tom Paxton)
05 I Lost My Heart on a 747 (Tom Paxton)
06 Cindy's Cryin' (Tom Paxton)
07 Annie's Going to Sing Her Song (Tom Paxton)
08 Retrospective (Tom Paxton)
09 Dance in the Shadows (Tom Paxton)
10 Jesus Christ S.R.O. (Tom Paxton)
11 Talking Pot in Vietnam (Tom Paxton)
12 Jimmy Newman (Tom Paxton)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/MmRQXTgo

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/6uDeJ4I0emt7S89/file

I don't know much about the source for the cover photo, except it was taken in Britain in 1972.

Supertramp - BBC Sessions, Volume 5: In Concert, Sheffield Arena, Sheffield, Britain, 9-26-1997

I posted four Supertramp BBC albums a while back, all from the 1970s. I thought that's all there was, but I recently discovered material for a fifth one. This is a concert from 1997.

I was a bit reluctant to post this, because it doesn't include Roger Hodgson. Hodgson left Supertramp for good in 1983. The band was led by Rick Davies from that point on. Both Hodgson and Davies wrote and sang songs for the band. For instance, Davies wrote the hits "Bloody Well Right," "Rudy," and "Goodbye Stranger." But Hodgson wrote more hits, including "Dreamer," "Give a Little Bit," "Take the Long Way Home," "Breakfast in America," and "The Logical Song." So while both were very talented, I'd say Hodgson was the bigger reason for the band's success. Thus, it's pretty rough not having him in the band.

Still, Supertramp carried on without him (while he had a solo career). They released albums in 1985 and 1987, then took a long break before releasing "Some Things Never Change" in 1997. That's what they were promoting for this concert and tour. I think it sounds pretty good overall, and very Supertramp-y, since everyone but Hodgson remained. Still, it's a bit weird hearing band member Mark Hart sing "Take the Long Way Home" and "The Logical Song" instead of Hodgson. I'm rather surprised the concert didn't feature "Cannonball," which was the one big hit the band hand (in 1985) after Hodgson left. But no doubt this was edited down from a longer concert, and the BBC must have cut that one out.

This concert is unreleased. However, note that an official album from this concert tour was released, called "It Was the Best of Times."

This album is an hour and 14 minutes long.

UPDATE: On February 21, 2025, I updated the mp3 download file. Someone sent me another version of this concert that had a somewhat different song list. It had three songs I didn't have already: "Breakfast in America," "Bloody Well Right," and "Goodbye Stranger." It also had two songs that I didn't have to edit, since there wasn't a BBC DJ talking over them.

01 It's a Hard World (Supertramp)
02 You Win, I Lose (Supertramp)
03 talk (Supertramp)
04 Listen to Me Please (Supertramp)
05 Sooner or Later (Supertramp)
06 Rudy (Supertramp)
07 Another Man's Woman (Supertramp)
08 Breakfast in America (Supertramp)
09 Bloody Well Right (Supertramp)
10 Take the Long Way Home (Supertramp)
11 The Logical Song (Supertramp)
12 Crime of the Century (Supertramp)
13 Goodbye Stranger (Supertramp)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/txyAAgEU

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/n943IHMeNGE4UML/file

The cover photo was taken in Paris, France, in 1997. That's Rick Davies on keywords and John Helliwell on the saxophone in the background.

Squeeze - BBC Sessions, Volume 8: 1993-1998

It's time for another Squeeze BBC album. This one, "Volume 8," is meant to be a collection of studio sessions.

In 1993 and 1994, Squeeze had at least three BBC studio sessions to promote their 1993 studio album "Some Fantastic Place." Most of their performances were later included in their archival album "The Complete BBC Sessions." However, unfortunately, they played some of the same songs multiple times, with barely any difference between the versions. So I've only included one version of each. I believe the songs they played multiple times were "Third Rail," "Some Fantastic Place," and "Tempted."

They went on to release the albums "Ridiculous" in 1995 and "Domino" in 1998. Then they broke up for an extended time. Their next studio album of original material wouldn't come out until 2015. So I wanted material from those albums, but it seems they didn't do any more BBC studio sessions in that time, at least none that I could find. However, they did perform a BBC concert in Cambridge, Britain, in 1998. I thought about posting the whole concert, but these concerts mostly consist of them playing their biggest hits, and I've posted a bunch of concerts like that already. So instead I just took the relatively new songs they played in that concert ("Domino," "Donkey Talk," "Memory Motel," and "To Be a Dad"), plus one older hit that wasn't played in concert that much, "Goodbye Girl," and added it to this album. Since there's a mix of studio and live material, I removed the cheering noises from the live cuts with the use of the UVR5 audio editing program.

So that's why I said up above that this volume is "meant to be a collection of studio sessions," since about half of it actually comes from a concert. But now it plays like all studio sessions.

Tracks 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, and 7 have been officially released on the "Complete BBC Sessions" album. "It's Over" is from one of the exact same BBC sessions as some songs on that album, but it remained unreleased. The last five songs are from that 1998 BBC concert I mentioned above and are unreleased. 

This album is 53 minutes long.

01 Third Rail (Squeeze)
02 Cold Shoulder (Squeeze)
03 Loving You Tonight (Squeeze)
04 Some Fantastic Place (Squeeze)
05 It's Over (Squeeze)
06 Hourglass (Squeeze)
07 Tempted (Squeeze)
08 Domino (Squeeze)
09 Donkey Talk (Squeeze)
10 Melody Motel (Squeeze)
11 To Be a Dad (Squeeze)
12 Goodbye Girl (Squeeze)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/HDu9YBCn

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/T1ElqTZVc7AqDT3/file

The cover photo only features Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook, who basically became Squeeze by this time, since they co-wrote all the songs and were the only two consistent members. It's from a photo shoot in New York City in 1996.

David Bowie - BBC Sessions, Volume 15: In Concert, John Labatt Centre, London, Canada, 5-14-2004

Finally! I posted David Bowie's "BBC Sessions, Volume 1" back in 2019. Now, it's the start of 2025, and I'm posting "Volume 15," the last one. This is another BBC concert.

Bowie lived for another dozen years before dying of cancer in 2016. But he retired from touring in 2004 and basically went into seclusion until coming out with new studio albums in 2013 and 2016. At the time of this concert, he was touring to support his album "Reality," released in late 2003. I previously commented that I'm not a big fan of Bowie's songwriting from the late 1980s onward. I still think he went into a prolonged slump. But "Reality" was a pretty good album, and it got a lot of critical praise. I think he was finding his musical groove again around this time. He would finish strongly with his last two albums in 2013 and 2016, so it's a shame we don't have any concerts from that time period.

Only "New Killer Star" and "The Loneliest Guy" come from "Reality." There are some unusual choices with some of the other songs. For instance, "Sister Midnight" is a song Bowie wrote, but he gave it to Iggy Pop for a 1977 album. Similarly, he wrote "All the Young Dudes," but gave it to Mott the Hoople, who had a big hit with it in 1972. "Cactus" is a Pixies song that he recorded for his 2002 album "Heathen."

Everything here is officially unreleased, as far as I know. The sound quality is excellent.

This album is 59 minutes long.

01 New Killer Star (David Bowie)
02 Cactus (David Bowie)
03 Sister Midnight (David Bowie)
04 talk (David Bowie)
05 All the Young Dudes (David Bowie)
06 The Loneliest Guy (David Bowie)
07 Under Pressure (David Bowie)
08 Station to Station (David Bowie)
09 Ashes to Ashes (David Bowie)
10 talk (David Bowie)
11 Quicksand (David Bowie)
12 Modern Love (David Bowie)
13 I'm Afraid of Americans (David Bowie)
14 'Heroes' (David Bowie)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/P9QohvUM

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/1BWE3bvGL7DPRGT/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert.

Stevie Ray Vaughan - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: In Concert, Apollo Theatre, Manchester, Britain, 6-22-1988

Here's the second of three BBC concert albums by Stevie Ray Vaughan that I plan on posting. 

I have to admit this concert isn't particularly amazing. I wouldn't be posting it if it wasn't a BBC concert. The biggest bummer is that it's only half an hour long. But it does have excellent sound quality, just what you'd expect from the BBC. And pretty much any live Stevie Ray Vaughan is impressive.

I thought about adding some extra songs to fill this out a bit, but I couldn't think of anything that fit. For instance, I couldn't find anything from his trip to Britain in 1988. So I'm keeping it short and on point.

This concert is officially unreleased. There were no problems with the recording that needed fixing.

This album is 30 minutes long.

01 You'll Be Mine (Stevie Ray Vaughan)
02 Tell Me (Stevie Ray Vaughan)
03 I'm Leaving You (Stevie Ray Vaughan)
04 Pride and Joy (Stevie Ray Vaughan)
05 Texas Flood (Stevie Ray Vaughan)
06 Love Struck Baby (Stevie Ray Vaughan)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/EhB6STTR

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/wANtIGTEgHs5Cc6/file

The cover photo is from a concert in the Meadowlands Arena on May 20, 1988, in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

U2 - BBC Sessions, Volume 12: U2 at the BBC, Abbey Road Studios, London, Britain, 11-16-2017

Here is the twelfth, and last, album of U2 performing for the BBC. At least the last so far, since they may well give more such performances in the future. This is a short but full concert. And it's one with a twist, since they are backed by a BBC orchestra.

This contains all the music from this concert, but it isn't entirely complete. You see, there was a BBC DJ who led lengthy question and answer sessions with the band members between some songs. In my opinion, those interview sections are good for one or two listens, but not the hopefully many repeat listens one could have of the music. So I cut most of that out. I only kept some of the answers if they fit as lead ins to the next song that was being played.

Also, the BBC has broadcast this multiple times, and included different songs, and different song orders, on different occasions. I consulted a U2 fan website and discovered a list of the true order the songs were played in, which was different from any of the BBC broadcasts. So I rearranged the songs to match the true order. This probably isn't the complete concert. For instance, one of the songs was played twice due to a filming problem. And some of the banter probably got edited out. But it has at least one version of every song that got performed.

As U2 likes to do, there are little snippets of other songs included in some of the songs. I didn't mention the snippets in the set list, because they're pretty short. But they included references to "Starman" by David Bowie, "Love Will Tear Us Apart" by Joy Division, "Invisible," "Father and Son" by Cat Stevens, "All You Need Is Love" by the Beatles, and "Walk to the Water."

The concert happened shortly after the release of the band's 2017 studio album "Songs of Experience." Five of the eleven songs played are from that album. I think that album is a lesser work compared to most of their earlier albums, but they chose the best ones and they sound pretty good here mixed with some older classics.

As far as I know, everything here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent.

This album is 56 minutes long. 

UPDATE: On February 15, 2026, I updated the mp3 download file. The music is exactly the same, but I renumbered the album after finding two earlier albums in this series that I'd missed.

01 talk (U2)
02 Beautiful Day (U2)
03 talk (U2)
04 Lights of Home (U2)
05 talk (U2)
06 You're the Best Thing about Me (U2)
07 talk (U2)
08 Every Breaking Wave (U2)
09 With or Without You (U2)
10 talk (U2)
11 Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of (U2)
12 talk (U2)
13 Get Out of Your Own Way (U2)
14 One (U2)
15 Love Is Bigger than Anything in Its Way (U2)
16 13 [There Is a Light] (U2)
17 All I Want Is You (U2)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/48u1ZzC1

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/ajllx0FVPwutqcP/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. Sorry to bassist Larry Mullen, since I couldn't find a way to crop the picture without cutting him out, due to him being way off to the side.

The Velvet Underground - The Playhouse, Edinburgh, Britain, 6-2-1993

The Velvet Underground is one of the most legendary and revered rock bands of all time. But it seems like their 1993 reunion tour has been mostly forgotten. Maybe that's because the only way most people have of judging it, the official live album that documents it, "Live MCMXCIII," was curiously lackluster. Perhaps this concert bootleg will change some minds. I like it a lot, and I much prefer it to the official album.

Velvet Underground member John Cale considered the official album a disappointment, mainly due to the way it was mixed. He later commented:

The trouble is that we had an opportunity here with the live album to really show what the band sounded like and it really doesn't give it to you. Some of the bootlegs that came out of the tour are almost a truer vision of what the band sounded like than the well recorded one, because the well recorded one really didn't take advantage of the ambiance of the room in the mix of the music. And that's what we were always pushing at. We wanted to fill the room up with this noise. Unfortunately it wasn't quite as present in the mix as I would have liked it to be or others would have liked it to be either.

I wonder what Cale would think about this particular bootleg. I didn't post anything from this reunion tour prior to this, because I thought there was nothing but rough audience bootlegs. But I recently discovered this. It's either a soundboard or an FM radio broadcast. Either way, I think the sound quality is as good or better than the official live album.

Now, let me say a little bit about the reunion tour in general. The two main singers and songwriters in the band, Lou Reed and John Cale, put out an album together in 1990, "Songs for Drella." While they toured together to support that album, they were joined on stage for a single song at a concert in France by the other two original members of the Velvet Underground, Maureen Tucker and Sterling Morrison. That set the stage for a reunion tour with all four of them.

The tour began in Edinburgh on June 1, 1993. This was the second night of the tour, also in Edinburgh. Creative juices must have been flowing, because the last song played here, "Coyote," was apparently written jointly by Reed and Cale mere hours before the concert began. That's according to some banter in the concert by Reed. But that also matches the information at setlist.fm, because it wasn't performed on the first night, and this was the first time it was played in public. 

The tour was a relatively short one, hitting different countries in Europe over six weeks. There was a plan to follow it up with a North American tour, a studio album, and more. But relations between band members quickly deteriorated, and all further reunion plans were canceled at the end of the six weeks. So we're very lucky to have this excellent recording from the second night of the tour, before the troubles began. By the way, the "Live MCMXCIII" was recorded over a couple of nights in Paris, France, about two weeks later. So maybe the band was already in decline by then compared to this night, who knows.

John Cale was only in the Velvet Underground for their first two albums, "Velvet Underground and Nico" and "White Light/White Heat." So, not surprisingly, many of the songs in this concert came from those early albums. But it's interesting to see Cale take part in the songs that were recorded after he left, such as "Sweet Jane" and "Rock and Roll." This reunion tour was probably the only time he ever did that. 

Also, Cale didn't sing lead vocals much at all while he was a member of the Velvet Underground, but he did have a long, successful solo career as a lead vocalist afterwards. So I liked how he sang lead on a few of the songs here, taking vocals that had been done by Nico or even by Reed.

Although the bootleg was excellent in most respects, it did have some problems. The biggest problem was that all but the first minute and a half of the song "I Can't Stand It" was missing. So I used the "Live MCMXCIII" version to patch in the rest. That's why that song has "[Edit]" in its title. Also, in some cases (but not most cases), the applause at the ends of songs was cut off. So I patched in applause from the ends of other songs to give every song a normal sounding ending.

Sterling Morrison died of a degenerative disease (non-Hodgkin's lymphoma) just two years after this tour, so we're lucky it happened when it did. 

This album is an hour and 55 minutes long.

01 Real Good Time Together (Velvet Underground)
02 talk (Velvet Underground)
03 Venus in Furs (Velvet Underground)
04 talk (Velvet Underground)
05 Guess I'm Falling in Love (Velvet Underground)
06 After Hours (Velvet Underground)
07 All Tomorrow's Parties (Velvet Underground)
08 Some Kinda Love (Velvet Underground)
09 I'll Be Your Mirror (Velvet Underground)
10 Beginning to See the Light (Velvet Underground)
11 The Gift (Velvet Underground)
12 I Heard Her Call My Name (Velvet Underground)
13 Femme Fatale (Velvet Underground)
14 talk (Velvet Underground)
15 Hey Mr. Rain (Velvet Underground)
16 talk (Velvet Underground)
17 Sweet Jane (Velvet Underground)
18 Velvet Nursery Rhyme (Velvet Underground)
19 talk (Velvet Underground)
20 White Light-White Heat (Velvet Underground)
21 I'm Sticking with You (Velvet Underground)
22 The Black Angel's Death Song (Velvet Underground)
23 Rock and Roll (Velvet Underground)
24 talk (Velvet Underground)
25 I Can't Stand It [Edit] (Velvet Underground)
26 I'm Waiting for the Man (Velvet Underground)
27 Heroin (Velvet Underground)
28 talk (Velvet Underground)
29 Coyote (Velvet Underground)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/f2j62dqb

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/WKgJXJR7BeX4jH2/file

The cover photo isn't from this concert, but it's close. It was taken three days later at the Forum in London. From left to right, that's Cale, Reed, Tucker, and Morrison. For the band name at the top, I used the art from the official live album.

Paul Weller - BBC Sessions, Volume 11: In Concert, Riverside Studios, Hammersmith, London, Britain, 9-14-2004

Here's yet another BBC album from Paul Weller. This is another concert.

As I've mentioned previously, Paul Weller has frequently promoted his music through the BBC. He's been on the BBC so often that even a 13 disc version of his box set "Weller at the BBC" doesn't include all of the BBC performances he did from 1990 to 2008, the scope of that release. I have posted many studio sessions as well as full concerts that weren't included. And here's another one that didn't make the box set. 

But I think it's a particularly interesting one, since it took place just after the release of his 2004 studio album "Studio 150." That's the only one of his many albums that consists entirely of covers. So naturally, this concert mostly featured covers that he did for that album. That makes it different from other concerts in the years before and after this, which tended to have many of the same songs. Only five of the 12 songs here are ones Weller wrote.

This could be a full concert, though it's hard to tell. Clearly, it was done in a studio (with a small audience) specifically for the radio show. So maybe he made sure to play for as much time as the BBC gave him. Or maybe the edited the show down later. But in any case, he didn't talk much between songs, though he did made a comment here and there.

This album is 59 minutes long.

01 talk (Paul Weller)
02 Hercules (Paul Weller)
03 talk (Paul Weller)
04 One Way Road (Paul Weller)
05 Wishing on a Star (Paul Weller)
06 Close to You (Paul Weller)
07 Hung Up (Paul Weller)
08 Early Morning Rain (Paul Weller)
09 Tales from the Riverbank (Paul Weller)
10 Thinking of You (Paul Weller)
11 Amongst Butterflies (Paul Weller)
12 All Along the Watchtower (Paul Weller)
13 talk (Paul Weller)
14 Birds (Paul Weller)
15 If I Could Only Be Sure (Paul Weller)
16 talk (Paul Weller)
17 My Ever Changing Moods (Paul Weller)
18 talk (Paul Weller)
19 Broken Stones (Paul Weller)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/PRQR3h9L

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/bjxhHPtOLM3TPj2/file

The cover photo was taken at a concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London on March 30, 2004.

The Bee Gees - BBC Sessions, Volume 6: In Concert, BBC Radio Theatre, London, Britain, 3-22-2001

Here's the sixth and last BBC album by the Bee Gees. This time, it's another concert, though a rather short one.

The concert took place a couple of weeks before the release of the band's twenty-second studio album, "This Is Where I Came In." It also turned out to be their last, as one of the three brothers of the band, Maurice Gibb, died two years later.

Naturally, the band played some songs from their latest album. I didn't have high expectations for an album this late in their career, but all the songs sounded pretty good to me.

The album remains unreleased. The sound quality is excellent.

This album is 48 minutes long.

01 Jive Talkin' (Bee Gees)
02 This Is Where I Came In (Bee Gees)
03 talk (Bee Gees)
04 She Keeps On Coming (Bee Gees)
05 To Love Somebody (Bee Gees)
06 talk (Bee Gees)
07 Sacred Trust (Bee Gees)
08 talk (Bee Gees)
09 Wedding Day (Bee Gees)
10 Massachusetts (Bee Gees)
11 I Started a Joke (Bee Gees)
12 How Deep Is Your Love (Bee Gees)
13 talk (Bee Gees)
14 Man in the Middle (Bee Gees)
15 You Win Again (Bee Gees)
16 You Should Be Dancing (Bee Gees)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/NcLpa862

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/jANUQMl2tX4Zf7V/file

The cover photo is from a concert at the Hammerstein Ballroom, in New York City, on April 27, 2001.