Albums That Should Exist: The Kinks - BBC Sessions, Volume 8: In Concert, The Palladium, New York City, 12-31-1980

Wednesday, November 30, 2022

The Kinks - BBC Sessions, Volume 8: In Concert, The Palladium, New York City, 12-31-1980

I didn't realize at first that this unreleased Kinks concert was a BBC concert, because it took place in New York City and was broadcast on a US radio station. But it turns out it was also broadcast in Britain by the BBC. I've even heard the version with a British accented DJ introducing the show to prove it.

Perhaps because this was recorded by a US radio station instead of the BBC, the sound quality was a bit lacking. But I decided the main problem was the lead vocals were too low, and that's something I can fix today, thanks to audio editing programs like X-Minus. So I used that to boost the vocals of every single song. It couldn't do anything for the banter between songs, since the program can't differentiate the vocals of lead singer Ray Davies from the cheering crowd, but it helped a lot with the actual songs.

This isn't that different from the official live album "One for the Road." Both are based on 1980 concert recordings supporting the band's "Low Budget" album. But I prefer full concerts like this over those taken from multiple concerts, like the "One for the Road" album does. Also, the set list is somewhat different. The band even played one song destined for their next album of the same name, "Give the People What They Want."

Speaking of that song, the X-Minus program had to do some extra work on that one. There was some talking that sounded as if it wasn't from the concert at all, but somehow recorded on top of it. There even was a female voice saying the line "At the tone the time will be," which is what you get when you call for the current time! I had to patch in some vocals from a different concert, because some of the talking was over the lead vocals, but you shouldn't be able to hear anything strange now.

Oh, the entire musical intro to "David Watts" was patched in from the "One for the Road" version of the song. I found two versions of this concert. The BBC version didn't have the encore, so it was missing that. The other version had so much DJ talking and cheering over the intro that it couldn't be fixed well. But I think it sounds good now.

This album is an hour and 32 minutes long.

01 You Really Got Me [Instrumental] (Kinks)
02 The Hard Way (Kinks)
03 talk (Kinks)
04 Where Have All the Good Times Gone - Tired of Waiting for You (Kinks)
05 talk (Kinks)
06 Catch Me Now, I'm Falling (Kinks)
07 talk (Kinks)
08 Bird Dog (Kinks)
09 talk (Kinks)
10 N. Y. C. Blues (Kinks)
11 talk (Kinks)
12 Lola (Kinks)
13 Dead End Street (Kinks)
14 Till the End of the Day (Kinks)
15 Low Budget (Kinks)
16 talk (Kinks)
17 Imagination's Real (Kinks)
18 Nothin' More to Lose (Kinks)
19 talk (Kinks)
20 I'm Not like Everybody Else (Kinks)
21 Come On Now (Kinks)
22 talk (Kinks)
23 You Really Got Me (Kinks)
24 talk (Kinks)
25 Give the People What They Want (Kinks)
26 A Gallon of Gas (Kinks)
27 Celluloid Heroes (Kinks)
28 talk (Kinks)
29 All Day and All of the Night (Kinks)
30 talk (Kinks)
31 David Watts (Kinks)
32 Pressure (Kinks)
33 [Wish I Could Fly Like] Superman (Kinks)