The Bangles - Kaaboo Festival, Del Mar Fairgrounds, Del Mar, CA, 9-15-2019

There seems to be some kind of curse when it comes to live recordings from the Bangles. The band has never released an official live album, and when it comes to bootlegs, nearly all of them sound middling to bad. But the Bangles are known for their harmony vocals, and you need excellent sound to be able to fully appreciate that. 

Happily, I've finally found a Bangles bootleg with truly excellent sound. I've taken it from a high-quality video file (not YouTube), so I don't think it's ever circulated as audio files before.

When it comes to music by the Bangles, I like their earliest stuff the best. My favorite album from them is their first one (1984's "All Over the Place") and I like their EP from 1982 even better. This concert is from MUCH later, 2019. But in terms of the music, it's almost like it's from the early 1980s instead. For most of the 2010s, the Bangles were just a three-piece band. But in 2018, their original bassist, Annetta Zalinskas, who quit the band after that first EP, rejoined the band. Maybe because of that, their set list leaned heavily on their early stuff, with them playing four out of the five songs from that EP, and more from that first album. The latest song they played was "Eternal Flame" from 1989, which they probably felt obliged to play since it was a number one hit.

When it comes to sound quality, as I said above, this is truly excellent. That's because it was professionally recorded for a live Internet broadcast. There were no problems whatsoever. The audience is relatively low in the mix, but that enables one to hear the band that much more clearly.

The only downside is I wish the concert was longer. This is only 51 minutes long. But they were part of a big music festival with dozens of acts, so they had to cut their usual set short. Still, when considering sound quality, performance, and song selection, if I had to pick just one live recording of that band to play to someone, I would pick this one.

01 talk (Bangles)
02 A Hazy Shade of Winter (Bangles)
03 I Want You (Bangles)
04 talk (Bangles)
05 Manic Monday (Bangles)
06 talk (Bangles)
07 Mary Street (Bangles)
08 I'm in Line (Bangles)
09 The Real World (Bangles)
10 talk (Bangles)
11 Going Down to Liverpool (Bangles)
12 talk (Bangles)
13 September Gurls (Bangles)
14 He's Got a Secret (Bangles)
15 talk (Bangles)
16 If She Knew What She Wants (Bangles)
17 Dover Beach (Bangles)
18 In Your Room (Bangles)
19 Hero Takes a Fall (Bangles)
20 talk (Bangles)
21 Walk like an Egyptian (Bangles)
22 talk (Bangles)
23 Eternal Flame (Bangles)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15277984/TBangls_2019_KaabooFestvalDelMarFairgrounds__9-15-2019_atse.zip.html

The cover art is was made by PJ of his "Albums I Wish Existed" blog. For the band name, he used the exact lettering from the band's 1982 EP, which I find very fitting, since many of the songs come from that. The picture is a screenshot taken from the exact concert in question. It may not be the best photo, but I asked if he could use one of all four band members, and that was a tough ask, since they were standing far apart from each other.