Thursday, September 12, 2019

Stevie Wonder - Winterland, San Francisco, CA, 3-3-1973

I'm doing something a little strange with this post and the one to immediately follow: I'm posting two Steve Wonder concerts from succeeding nights in 1973 that are very similar to each other. If you're a fan of Wonder's classic 1970s era, you really should listen to one of these. But you might not need both, since they are so very similar.

The reason I'm posting both concerts is because I believe that a very popular Wonder bootleg, of a concert at the Berkeley Community Theater, in Berkeley, California, on March 4, 1973, is actually a mix of songs from that show plus some songs from a concert the day earlier, at the Winterland, in San Francisco. There are very, very few excellent soundboard recordings from Wonder's career, especially from this era of his career. But for some reason, there are great concerts from two nights in a row in 1973.

The Berkeley concert is one of the most popular of his bootlegs. By contrast, the Winterland is very little known. I was able to find multiple bootlegs of both shows, each one a little different. Using some deductive reasoning, as well as accessing some setlist information from setlist.fm, I'm pretty sure I've been able to put together nearly full version of both shows for possibly the first time ever in the public domain. So I want to make both of these available, in hopes of finally clearing up some inaccuracies.

I don't want to go too deep into the weeds on how and why I figured out which songs belonged to which show. But to make a long story short, I figure that whoever put the popular Berkeley bootleg together combined the best of both shows. Because some songs were only played at once of the concerts or the other, but the bootleg generally has all of them.

I wish I could recommend one of these, for the casual fan who doesn't want both. But I can't do that, because they're both good, but in different ways. The Winterland show is short two songs: "For Once in My Life" and "You Are the Sunshine of My Life." I found only partial versions of those two, and I figured it was better not to include them when they get rudely cut off, especially since the other concert has the full versions. But, on the other hand, the Winterland show has the complete version of a long and interesting "Superstition," while the Berkeley show is missing roughly the end half of that song. So in terms of minutes, both shows are missing roughly the same about.

In my opinion, both shows are interesting, because even when Wonder is playing the same song on succeeding nights, he does them in different ways. A case in point is the jam that follows "Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I'm Yours." The jam doesn't seem to have a name, but I call it "Party Jam," because "Party!" gets shouted a lot for the first few minutes on both nights. But then the performances diverge, with Wonder seemingly coming up with totally different lyrics on each night, as well as a lot of instrumental differences.

Anyway, both shows are here, and I figure it's better to have too many options instead of not enough. In terms of sound quality, both are stellar soundboards. Although on this Winterland show, there some rough noise near the end of "You Were My First, but Not My Last," and the next song, "Big Brother" fades in. But that trouble is only about two minutes out of the whole concert.

01 Instrumental Jam - For Once in My Life (Stevie Wonder)
02 If You Really Love Me (Stevie Wonder)
03 Me and Mrs. Jones (Stevie Wonder)
04 Superwoman (Stevie Wonder)
05 talk (Stevie Wonder)
06 I Wanna Be by Your Side (Stevie Wonder)
07 You Were My First, but Not My Last (Stevie Wonder)
08 Big Brother (Stevie Wonder)
09 Blowin' in the Wind (Stevie Wonder)
10 What's Going On [Instrumental] - My Cherie Amour (Stevie Wonder)
11 Love Having You Around (Stevie Wonder)
12 Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours (Stevie Wonder)
13 Party Jam (Stevie Wonder)
14 Papa Was a Rolling Stone (Stevie Wonder)
15 Jam [Instrumental] (Stevie Wonder)
16 Superstition (Stevie Wonder)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15274927/StevieW_1973a_WinterlndSnFranciscoCA__3-3-1973_atse.zip.html

The cover photo of Wonder is from 1973, but I don't know the details.

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