Raspberries - Palace Theatre, New York City, 11-7-1973

I have to admit I'm not much of a Raspberries fan. (And by the way, they're known as just "Raspberries," not "The Raspberries.") I consider them a greatest hits type band. They had some really fantastic songs, but not a deep catalog.

So I don't have a lot of their stuff, and I wasn't planning on posting anything by them. But I recently came across a concert bootleg of theirs that seems to be very little known. They never released a live album when they were together in the 1970s (there's a reunion live album from decades later). They should just release this. It's got a great setlist, including some interesting covers ("Roll Over Beethoven" and "Be My Baby"), and it includes most of their best songs (though "Overnight Sensation" came a year too later to fit).

Most importantly, it has fantastic sound. It's definitely a soundboard, and sounds as good as any official live album you'd expect from that era. Apparently, the concert was professionally recorded in order for it to be shown on the TV show "Don Kirshner's Rock Concert," but only a few of the songs actually were shown on TV. From what I can tell, this bootleg is miles better than most other of the relatively few bootlegs by them, due to the sound quality issue.

Since the concert is a bit on the short side, I added "Let's Pretend" to the end. It's from a 1973 TV performance. That makes the whole thing 41 minutes long.

Although I said above I'm not a big Raspberries fan, I do think they get unfairly overlooked. They were marketed as a bubblegum-type band, wearing very uncool matching white suits most of the time, and they only lasted a few years. It doesn't help that lead singer Eric Carmen pretty much gave up on rock and roll after leaving the band, and went in the dreaded "adult contemporary" direction. But if you forget the image and just listen to the music, they should be counted with Big Star and Badfinger as the founders of power pop.

01 Tonight (Raspberries)
02 Making It Easy (Raspberries)
03 Roll Over Beethoven (Raspberries)
04 Last Dance (Raspberries)
05 I Wanna Be with You (Raspberries)
06 I Can Remember (Raspberries)
07 Be My Baby (Raspberries)
08 Drivin' Around (Raspberries)
09 Go All the Way (Raspberries)
10 Let's Pretend (Raspberries)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16701019/TRASPBRRIS1973_PalceThetreNwYrkC__11-7-1973_atse.zip.html

I don't know where or when the cover art photo comes from. But it does show Raspberries in concert in their early 1970s heyday. Too bad it only shows three of the four band members.