Led Zeppelin - Richfield Coliseum, Richfield, OH, 4-27-1977

I recently posted a 1975 concert of Led Zeppelin when they were touring to promote their album "Physical Graffiti." I said I also want to post a 1977 concert when they toured to promote their 1976 album "Presence." Here it is.

Like the 1975 concert I posted, I wanted to pick the best 1977 show, for those who would only want one from that year. Many die-hard Led Zeppelin fans will tolerate poorer sound quality in order to enjoy better performances. But I only considered the best sounding soundboard bootlegs. Luckily, for 1977, this concert is very well known as a bootleg because it's both an excellent performance with excellent sound quality. There are many versions, but most are given the name "Destroyer," for some reason. It's so well known that there's a Wikipedia page for it, which is here:

Destroyer (Led Zeppelin bootleg recording) - Wikipedia

As that webpage notes, it was the first professionally recorded mixing desk tape to be leaked to the public. The sound quality has been described as "almost perfect." I used the best quality version available, passed along by musical associate Mike Solof.

That said, there still were some big problems with this version. The biggest was that parts of different songs were cut off. For instance, the first couple minutes of the first song, "The Song Remains the Same," were missing. A big chunk of over 10 minutes of "No Quarter" was missing. Most of the "White Summer - Black Mountain Side" medley was missing. Finally, the first minute of "Rock and Roll" was missing. 

So I decided to fill in the missing bits. In all four of those cases, I drew on a recording of a concert in Seattle on July 17, 1977. Luckily, this also is an excellent sounding soundboard bootleg. With "White Summer - Black Mountain Side," so much of it was missing that I decided to just use the Seattle version in its entirety. But for the other ones, I patched in the Seattle versions to fill in the missing sections. Hopefully when you listen it will sound seamless.

But there were some other problems too, despite the overall great sound quality. For one, sometimes the lead vocals were a bit low. That seemed to be more of a problem on some songs than others, based on my analysis of the sound files using the program Audacity. "Kashmir," for instance, had the lowest lead vocals. So I used the audio editing program UVR5 to boost the vocals relative to the instruments on all songs, but to varying degrees.

Another problem was that the soundboard was so good that there often wasn't much crowd noise at the ends of songs. This wasn't the case for every song, but it was for most of them. Luckily, there was enough for me to boost the cheering to a point where it sounded like a normal crowd reaction to my ears. I also boosted the banter between songs so that talking could be heard more clearly. Finally, the overall volume of some songs varied a lot. For instance, a couple (but not all) of the songs from the acoustic set in the middle of the concert were very quiet, especially "Going to California." I made adjustments to even all that out as well.

The end result is that this great bootleg sounds even better than before. Although there are many versions of this recording on the Internet, most people take a purist approach. Whereas I take more of a chainsaw approach, doing whatever it takes to fix what I consider problems. For instance, I couldn't find any other versions where someone filled in the missing sections of songs. (Although maybe such a version exists and I just didn't find it.)

Like the 1975 concert I recently posted, this is a very looooong concert. Lead singer Robert Plant would say of the tour:

"By 1977... that sort of wild energy that was there in the beginning had come to the point where we were showboating a bit. Unfortunately, we had no choice. We were on tours where places were going ape-shit. There was no way of containing the energy in those buildings. It was insane. And we became more and more victims of our own success. And the whole deal about the goldfish bowl and living in it, that kicked in."

So yeah, lots of excess and showboating (especially considering this was the year punk rock shook the music world by rebelling against all that). For instance, "No Quarter" is nearly half an hour long. But hey, by 1977, Led Zeppelin was arguably the biggest rock band on the planet, breaking records for playing in the largest venues for the most amount of money. They were the biggest for good reason, and on a good night like this they still kicked ass.

This album is three hours and two minutes long.

01 The Song Remains the Same [Edit] (Led Zeppelin)
02 Sick Again (Led Zeppelin)
03 talk (Led Zeppelin)
04 Nobody's Fault but Mine (Led Zeppelin)
05 talk (Led Zeppelin)
06 In My Time of Dying (Led Zeppelin)
07 talk (Led Zeppelin)
08 Since I've Been Loving You (Led Zeppelin)
09 talk (Led Zeppelin)
10 No Quarter [Edit] (Led Zeppelin)
11 talk (Led Zeppelin)
12 Ten Years Gone (Led Zeppelin)
13 talk (Led Zeppelin)
14 The Battle of Evermore (Led Zeppelin)
15 talk (Led Zeppelin)
16 Going to California (Led Zeppelin)
17 talk (Led Zeppelin)
18 Black Country Woman (Led Zeppelin)
19 Bron-Y-Aur Stomp (Led Zeppelin)
20 White Summer - Black Mountain Side [Instrumental] (Led Zeppelin)
21 Kashmir (Led Zeppelin)
22 talk (Led Zeppelin)
23 Out on the Tiles - Moby Dick [Instrumental] (Led Zeppelin)
24 Guitar Solo [Instrumental] (Led Zeppelin)
25 Achilles Last Stand (Led Zeppelin)
26 talk (Led Zeppelin)
27 Stairway to Heaven (Led Zeppelin)
28 talk (Led Zeppelin)
29 Rock and Roll [Edit] (Led Zeppelin)
30 talk (Led Zeppelin)
31 Trampled Underfoot (Led Zeppelin)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/DV8WJtUp

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/7maVHRnGWzGvN6c/file

alternate:

https://www.imagenetz.de/moZVQ

The cover art is from a poster promoting a Led Zeppelin concert in Oakland, California, on July 24, 1977. I think it's really cool. I wish there were most stylish concert posters like this. As usual with posters, I had to do some cropping to fit the rectangular poster into a square shape. The purple text surrounded by a red circle had been below the bottom edge of what I've included. I moved that, and changed the text to fit this concert.

The Flamin' Groovies - Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA, 6-30-1971

I have a bunch of albums by the Flamin' Groovies that I want to post, but there's a long, long list of albums I want to post. So here's a concert from them. I'll get to other albums later.

In case you're not familiar, the Flamin' Groovies were an American rock band that always seemed to have a retro sound, even though they were formed in 1965. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, they had a kind of proto-punk sound reminiscent of the Rolling Stones when they were in their mid-1960s bluesy mode. Then, in 1971, Roy Loney, one of the band's lead vocalists, left the band. He was replaced by Chris Wilson, who led the band in more of a Beatles / power pop direction. Their other lead singer, Cyril Jordan, stayed with both versions of the band. They never had much commercial success, but they're kind of a hidden treasure if you're into rootsy rock and roll.

Here's their Wikipedia page, if you want to know more:

Flamin' Groovies - Wikipedia

There have been a bunch of official live albums by the band, but they're generally either from way past the band's prime or the sound quality is middling at best. One key exception is this concert. It has been officially released at different times under different names: "Slow Death, Live!," "Bucket of Brains," and "The Flamin' Groovies in Person." I'm posting it here because I was able to significantly improve the sound quality by the simple trick of boosting the lead vocals relative to the instruments (using the UVR5 audio editing program).

This seems to be the only soundboard quality live recording of the original line-up of the band. Roy Loney left the band in 1971, but that happened shortly after this concert. It seems the band wasn't high profile and/or wealthy enough to professionally record their concerts. This is a lucky exception, because this comes from a series of concerts marking the closing of the Fillmore West concert venue in San Francisco, that included lots of famous acts like the Grateful Dead, Santana, and Creedence Clearwater Revival. Most of the performances were professionally recorded and broadcast on the San Francisco radio station, including this set by the Flamin' Groovies. 

The Flamin' Groovies played cover versions more often than not. But they could write very good originals as well. For instance, in my opinion, two of the songs here, "Slow Death" and "Teenage Head," are classic originals that should be much better known. "Road House" and "Doctor Boogie" are also originals, but the rest are covers.

This album is 46 minutes long.

01 I Can't Explain (Flamin' Groovies)
02 Sweet Little Rock and Roller (Flamin' Groovies)
03 talk (Flamin' Groovies)
04 Have You Seen My Baby (Flamin' Groovies)
05 talk (Flamin' Groovies)
06 Road House (Flamin' Groovies)
07 Doctor Boogie (Flamin' Groovies)
08 talk (Flamin' Groovies)
09 Slow Death (Flamin' Groovies)
10 talk (Flamin' Groovies)
11 Shakin' All Over (Flamin' Groovies)
12 talk (Flamin' Groovies)
13 Teenage Head (Flamin' Groovies)
14 Louie, Louie (Flamin' Groovies)
15 Walking the Dog (Flamin' Groovies)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15389467/TFlamnGrvies_1971_FillmorWestSnFrancscoCA__6-30-1971_atse.zip.html

I don't know anything about the cover photo, except that it's of the original version of the band.

Etta James - Tramps, New York City, 11-3-1993

There are a bunch of Etta James live albums, but the vast majority of them are only the length of a single vinyl album, roughly 45 minutes. Here's a great sounding bootleg of a full show that would make up a double album instead.

One live album of hers that I highly recommend is called "Rocks the House." It's only 32 minutes long, but it dates to 1963. I've also posted a couple of her concerts from the mid-1970s. Other than that, nearly all of her live material, official or bootleg, come from the 1980s or after. This one is from 1993. She was still in full command of her musical powers, and had a minor career revival around this time with some solid studio albums. (She died in 2012.)

That revival began in 1992 with the release of the critically acclaimed studio album "The Right Time." But only one song here is from that, "Love and Happiness," and that's a cover of an Al Green soul classic. Instead, most of the songs are favorites that she did on many tours, such as "At Last" and "I Would Rather Go Blind."

This is a soundboard bootleg, and sounds as good as any of her official live albums. I did boost the volume of her comments between songs, although there weren't many of those. The one problem was that many of the songs had the applause at the end cut off after only a second or two. I did my best to fix that by patching in applause from the few songs that had a full amount of cheering. But I had to reuse the same applause multiple times, so you might notice some of the same "woo-hoo" noises and such.

By the way, the last song is actually from the previous night's concert. It was at the same venue, and also a soundboard with the same quality. The set list was basically identical with the exception of one song. So that's why I only added that one. 

This concert is an hour and 19 minutes long.

01 Feel like Breaking Up Somebody's Home (Etta James)
02 talk (Etta James)
03 I Would Rather Go Blind (Etta James)
04 Come to Mama (Etta James)
05 talk (Etta James)
06 A Lover Is Forever (Etta James)
07 talk (Etta James)
08 Your Good Thing [Is About to End] (Etta James)
09 How Strong Is a Woman (Etta James)
10 Sugar on the Floor (Etta James)
11 At Last (Etta James)
12 Baby, What You Want Me to Do - Dust My Broom - Hoochie Coochie Man - My Babe (Etta James)
13 Love and Happiness - Take Me to the River (Etta James)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15379328/EttaJms_1993_TrmpsNewYrkC__11-3-1993_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame concert in January 1993.

The Grateful Dead - Golden Era Cover Versions, Volume 3: 1972

I recently posted the second volume in this series of Grateful Dead cover versions from their 1969 to 1973 golden era. I'd posted that after forgetting for a year plus to follow up posting the first volume. I figure I'd better post the rest of this series before I forget again. There's this volume, for the year 1972, and one more volume coming soon for the year 1973.

There's been such a proliferation of official live albums by the Dead over the decades that most of the songs here sound great since they come from official releases. However, there are two exceptions: "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" and "Tomorrow Is Forever."

Also, I didn't include "Morning Dew" and "I Know You Rider." Both of those are covers, but I put version of them on 1972 studio albums I put together.

Many of the songs here were done lots of times by the Dead over the years. But others are extremely rare. For instance, "Are You Lonely for Me" and "How Sweet it Is (To Be Loved by You)" were only played once in concert.

This album is an hour and 15 minutes long.

01 Are You Lonely for Me (Grateful Dead)
02 How Sweet It Is [To Be Loved by You] (Grateful Dead)
03 Good Lovin' (Grateful Dead)
04 Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu (Grateful Dead)
05 Hey Bo Diddley (Grateful Dead)
06 It Hurts Me Too (Grateful Dead)
07 You Win Again (Grateful Dead)
08 Promised Land (Grateful Dead)
09 Sing Me Back Home (Grateful Dead)
10 Big River (Grateful Dead)
11 It's All Over Now, Baby Blue (Grateful Dead)
12 Around and Around (Grateful Dead)
13 Don't Ease Me In (Grateful Dead)
14 Tomorrow Is Forever (Grateful Dead)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15376826/TGratefulD_1972_GoldnEraCovrVrsionsVolume3_atse.zip.html

Like the other volumes in this series, I'm using interesting concert posters as the basis for the cover art. This one is for their 1972 fall tour. As usual, I had to do some cropping to get the rectangular poster art to fit into a square space.

Elastica - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: 1995-2000

Here's the third and last of the Elastica BBC albums I'm posting. This is another compilation of BBC studio sessions.

Like Volume 1 in this series, most of the songs come from the official album "The Radio One Sessions," but not all of them. The songs "Connection" and "The Other Side" are from a 1996 session that got overlooked by the official release. "Mad Dog" is from the same 1999 session as the two songs before it and the two songs after it. Finally, "Suicide" is from a 2000 Glastonbury Festival concert, which was broadcast on the BBC. If anyone has that full performance, please let me know, so I could post that here as a fourth volume.

Just like Volume 1, the lead vocals were low in the mix, so I fixed that for all songs using the UVR5 audio editing program. I don't recall why I've added "[Edit]" to the titles of "The Other Side" and "Da Da Da," but I think it was because I took some extra measures to get the balance of those songs to sound better.

This album is 38 minutes long.

01 Rockunroll (Elastica)
02 2-1 (Elastica)
03 I Want You (Elastica)
04 Human (Elastica)
05 Love like Ours (Elastica)
06 Connection (Elastica)
07 The Other Side [Edit] (Elastica)
08 KB (Elastica)
09 Da Da Da [I Don't Love You, You Don't Love Me, Aha Aha Aha] [Edit] (Elastica)
10 Mad Dog (Elastica)
11 Generator (Elastica)
12 Your Arse My Place (Elastica)
13 Suicide (Elastica)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15376017/Elastca_1995-2000_BBSessionsVolum3_atse.zip.html

All I know about the cover photo is that it's from the year 2000.

The Bongos - Columbia University, New York City, 8-21-1983

I'll bet a lot of people reading this are asking themselves "Who the heck are the Bongos?" They're not a very well known band, I think mostly because they were only together for a few years in the early 1980s (though there have been some reunion concerts much later). But if you're into 1980s New Wave music, as I am, I think you'll find them very good, perhaps a previously unknown gem.

I don't want to summarize the entire history of the band, so here's their Wikipedia entry if you're interested:

The Bongos - Wikipedia

Suffice to say they put out a debut album in 1982, "Drums Along the Hudson," that was critically acclaimed, but didn't sell much. In 1983, they released an EP that contained "Numbers with Wings," a minor hit and probably their best known song. Then in 1985, they released the album "Beat Hotel." It has good songs, but was criticized for being too slick and overproduced. They broke up before they could release any album, though it came out decades later ("Phantom Train"). Richard Barone, the band's lead singer and main songwriter, has gone on to have a low-key but critically successful solo career.

The Bongos are so obscure that it's rather surprising there's a bootleg of one of their concerts at all. But what's really surprising is how good this one sounds. In my opinion, it sounds exactly like you'd expect an official live album to be. The sound quality is great, and there are no flaws at all. There isn't even any dead air between songs. I suspect this was professionally recorded for a live album, but it never got released for some reason or another.

Anyway, if you're not familiar with the Bongos, this is a great place to start. It has all their best known songs (such as "The Bulrushes" and "Barbarella, plus a cover of "Mambo Sam" by T. Rex) done arguably as well or better than the studio versions. This band deserves to be better known.

This album is 47 minutes long.

01 talk (Bongos)
02 Telephoto Lens (Bongos)
03 Tiger Nights (Bongos)
04 Glow in the Dark (Bongos)
05 The Bulrushes (Bongos)
06 Automatic Doors (Bongos)
07 Roman Circus (Bongos)
08 Burning Bush (Bongos)
09 Numbers with Wings (Bongos)
10 Three Wise Men (Bongos)
11 Skydiving (Bongos)
12 Barbarella (Bongos)
13 In the Congo (Bongos)
14 Question Ball (Bongos)
15 My Sin (Bongos)
16 Mambo Sun (Bongos)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15376011/TBngos_1983_ColmbiaUnivrstyNewYrkC__8-21-1983_atse.zip.html

 I couldn't find any photos of the band in concert back in the 1980s. So I've used a 1982 promotional photo instead. Richard Barone is the one in the light colored shirt, with his arms around his legs.

Led Zeppelin - Earls Court, London, Britain, 5-24-1975

Since there seems to be a lot of interest, I've resolved to plug the biggest remaining holes when it comes to live Led Zeppelin sooner rather than later. Most critically, I want at least one show from their 1975 and 1977 tours. Here's something for the 1975 tour.

There are lots of soundboard bootlegs from the 1975, but it was kind of a no-brainer to pick a concert from Earl's Court. They were the largest and most important concerts in the band's history up until that point. There's even a Wikipedia page on the concerts:

Earls Court 1975 - Wikipedia 

Here's what author Dave Lewis had to say about the concert, from a book he wrote about the band:

"When Led Zeppelin undertook the series of five shows at London's Earl's Court Arena on May of 1975 they were at the very peak of their creative powers. Spurred on by the critical and commercial success of their sixth album, the double set 'Physical Graffiti,' each show they played took on event-like proportions. The 17,000 capacity Earls Court afforded them the luxury to showcase in the best possible setting, the sheer enormity of their stage act. Over five nights of May 1975 Zeppelin delivered perhaps the most impressive series of shows of their entire career ... Photographic images from the shows still light up the pages of countless Zep features and books, bootleg performances are eagerly snapped up, and the official video footage of the gigs projects the sheer magnitude and power of Led Zeppelin in full flight more than any other surviving film of the group."

As mentioned in that quote, there were five Earls Court concerts, on May 17th, 18th, 23rd, 24th, and 25th. Die-hard fans consider the May 17th and 18th shows the best in terms of performance, but the only soundboards that have reached the public are from the 24th and 25th. Video footage of a few songs from the 25th show were released on the 2003 DVD "Led Zeppelin." I chose to feature the 24th here because fans generally consider that the better performance, and there are fewer problems with the recording.

The sound quality is excellent. The only problems had to do with the songs "Going to California" and "That's the Way." For some reason, the soundboard of all of the first song and the beginning of the second song doesn't exist. There is an audience bootleg, so people have used that to fill in the gap. However, in my opinion, the sound quality is way worse, and I didn't like it. So instead I used the soundboard versions from the next night, May 25th. 

There were a couple of problems with that though. Both versions of those songs began with lots of cheering, but the lead in from the previous track had no cheering. So I used the audio editing program UVR5 to get rid of the cheering for the first ten seconds or so on each song. Also, lead singer Robert Plant talked some between the two songs on the 24th, but there was apparently no talking on the 25th. So I included the talking from the 24th, using the audience bootleg for that. I used UVR5 again to get rid of as much background noise and cheering during the talking as possible. Even so, the sound quality of that talking is noticeably worse than anything else here. For "That's the Way," I spliced the two versions together about twenty seconds into the song, so that vast majority of that comes from this show, the 24th. All of that is why three tracks have "[Edit]" in their titles.

I also edited down some of the cheering. For instance, after "Stairway to Heaven," there was an encore break of about seven minutes of cheering. That's way too much applause for me, so I cut that down to more like two minutes.

There are different versions of this bootleg circulating with slightly different mixes. I read up on what fans consider the best version. I ended up going with the "Watch Tower" version.

This album is a whopping three hours and 31 minutes long! This was a time of rock and roll excess, not long before punk rock came along and shook things up. So, for instance, "Dazed and Confused" is 33 minutes long, and "Moby Dick," which is basically a drum solo, is 28 minutes long. But the concert also has an acoustic set of short songs in the middle of the show.

01 talk by Nicky Horne (Led Zeppelin)
02 Rock and Roll (Led Zeppelin)
03 Sick Again (Led Zeppelin)
04 talk (Led Zeppelin)
05 Over the Hills and Far Away (Led Zeppelin)
06 talk (Led Zeppelin)
07 In My Time of Dying (Led Zeppelin)
08 talk (Led Zeppelin)
09 The Song Remains the Same (Led Zeppelin)
10 The Rain Song (Led Zeppelin)
11 talk (Led Zeppelin)
12 Kashmir (Led Zeppelin)
13 talk (Led Zeppelin)
14 No Quarter (Led Zeppelin)
15 talk (Led Zeppelin)
16 Tangerine (Led Zeppelin)
17 talk (Led Zeppelin)
18 Going to California [Edit] (Led Zeppelin)
19 talk [Edit] (Led Zeppelin)
20 That's the Way [Edit] (Led Zeppelin)
21 talk (Led Zeppelin)
22 Bron-Y-Aur Stomp (Led Zeppelin)
23 talk (Led Zeppelin)
24 Trampled Underfoot (Led Zeppelin)
25 talk (Led Zeppelin)
26 Moby Dick (Led Zeppelin)
27 talk (Led Zeppelin)
28 Dazed and Confused - Woodstock - Dazed and Confused (Led Zeppelin)
29 talk (Led Zeppelin)
30 Stairway to Heaven (Led Zeppelin)
31 talk (Led Zeppelin)
32 Whole Lotta Love - Turn On Your Love Light (Led Zeppelin)
33 Black Dog (Led Zeppelin)
34 talk (Led Zeppelin)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/aLMcYYxU

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/bZFecB2kDRK3HTW/file

alternate:

https://www.imagenetz.de/a7Gxj

The cover is based on a promotional poster. Basically, the band had just played a tour of North America, and only played these five shows in Britain. They were then going to do a tour of South America (which ultimately got cancelled due to Robert Plant getting in a car accident). To appease British fans outside of London, the band arranged for special trains to pick up and return fans from other towns just for the concerts. So the poster was promoting that - you can see a map of the train lines towards the bottom.

I had to make some adjustments to get the rectangular poster to fit into the square space. I cropped off part of the bottom, but that wasn't enough. I had to stretch things a bit, so the band name and the little train illustration is a bit distorted. I kept the text mostly the same, but I replaced a mention of all five dates with just May 24, 1975, and I moved the mention of ticket prices from a section below that I cropped off.

The Grateful Dead - Golden Era Cover Versions, Volume 2: 1971

I hate it when I start to post a series of albums, but then get distracted and fail to follow through. It's happened again with this series. I posted Volume 1 over a year ago (as I write this in June 2023). But at least I do tend to notice these things eventually and finish them off. In this case, there are four volumes total.

From about 1969 to 1973, the Grateful Dead had a remarkable burst of creativity, what I'm calling their "golden era" for this series. They wrote more original songs than they ever did before or since, with the vast majority of them becoming classics. But they also played many cover songs they'd never done before. For the rest of the 1970s, they would do very, very few new cover songs, but they did lots of covers during those same years, 1969 to 1973. Volume 1 dealt with covers from 1969 to 1970. This one just focuses on covers from the year 1971.

It would have taken forever and a day to listen to all of the different versions of each song here and pick the best versions based on sound quality and performance. So instead, I assumed the performances were all solid, since this was their golden era, and chose the versions mainly based on sound quality. That means the vast majority of these are officially released versions. The only unreleased ones are "Searchin" (performed with the Beach Boys), "Hide Away," "I Washed My Hands in Muddy Water," and "The Same Thing." If there are any Deadheads out there with strong opinions on which versions I should have used instead, I'm all ears.

This album is an hour and 26 minutes long. The songs are ordered chronologically based on the exact performance dates.

01 Dark Hollow (Grateful Dead)
02 Johnny B. Goode (Grateful Dead)
03 Big Railroad Blues (Grateful Dead)
04 Not Fade Away - Going Down the Road Feelin' Bad (Grateful Dead)
05 I'm a Hog for You (Grateful Dead)
06 Oh Boy (Grateful Dead)
07 I Second That Emotion (Grateful Dead)
08 Big Boss Man (Grateful Dead)
09 I'm a King Bee (Grateful Dead)
10 Mama Tried (Grateful Dead)
11 Searchin' (Grateful Dead with the Beach Boys)
12 Me and Bobby McGee (Grateful Dead)
13 El Paso (Grateful Dead)
14 Ain't It Crazy [The Rub] (Grateful Dead)
15 Hide Away [Instrumental] (Grateful Dead)
16 Run Rudolph Run (Grateful Dead)
17 I Washed My Hands in Muddy Water (Grateful Dead)
18 The Same Thing (Grateful Dead)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15366272/TGratefulD_1971_GoldnEraCovrVrsionsVolum2_atse.zip.html

The cover is based on a concert poster for a concert in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1971. I cropped it and vertically squished it some in order to get most of the rectangular poster to fit into a square space. I also replaced the name of the opening act (The New Riders of the Purple Sage) with the album title. I made some other changes in Photoshop to clean and simplify things a bit.

Elle Cordova & Toni Lindgren - Sunday Mornings with Elle & Toni, Volume 14: 2022-2023

It's a slow process that only happens once or twice a year, but once again I've collected the latest cover songs YouTube performances by Elle Cordova and Toni Lindgren. As usual, they perform mostly classic cover versions as an acoustic duo in their charming, low-key style. May this series go on forever.

Hopefully, after 13 previous volumes, you know the deal, so I don't have to say much. There's not much different with this volume, except you may note that some of the songs are done with various collaborators, such as Josh Turner, Carson McKee, Alana, and Kent Nishimura. That includes one song, "Into the Great Wide Open," that's a rare case of Toni Lindgren singing the lead vocals. She also sings lead on "Dire Wolf."

This album is 47 minutes long.

Here are the original artists for each song:

01 Save Me - Aimee Mann
02 Lovin' You - Dolly Parton
03 When You Say Nothing at All - Keith Whitley / Alison Krauss
04 Flowers on the Wall - Statler Brothers
05 Dire Wolf - Grateful Dead
06 Tiptoe through the Tulips - Nick Lucas / Tiny Tim
07 Black Water - Doobie Brothers
08 She Drives Me Crazy - Fine Young Cannibals
09 Honeybee - Connie Converse
10 Halley Came to Jackson - Mary Chapin Carpenter
11 Love Hurts - Everly Brothers
12 The Sound of Silence - Simon & Garfunkel
13 Fireflies - Owl City
14 Into the Great Wide Open - Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers

Here's the usual song list: 

01 Save Me (Elle Cordova & Toni Lindgren)
02 Lovin' You (Elle Cordova & Toni Lindgren)
03 When You Say Nothing at All (Elle Cordova & Toni Lindgren)
04 Flowers on the Wall (Josh Turner, Carson McKee, Elle Cordova & Toni Lindgren)
05 Dire Wolf (Elle Cordova & Toni Lindgren)
06 Tiptoe through the Tulips (Elle Cordova & Toni Lindgren)
07 Black Water (Josh Turner, Carson McKee, Elle Cordova & Toni Lindgren)
08 She Drives Me Crazy (Elle Cordova & Toni Lindgren)
09 Honeybee (Elle Cordova & Toni Lindgren)
10 Halley Came to Jackson (Elle Cordova, Toni Lindgren & Alana)
11 Love Hurts (Elle Cordova & Toni Lindgren)
12 The Sound of Silence (Elle Cordova & Toni Lindgren)
13 Fireflies (Elle Cordova, Toni Lindgren & Kent Nishimura)
14 Into the Great Wide Open (Toni Lindgren with Andy Mark)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17363725/ELLECRDVATNILINDRN2022-2023SndyMrnngswthEllTniVlum14_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Eg5BKqD4

The cover shows the duo playing one of these songs in Joshua Tree National Park in California.

Elastica - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: In Concert, Glastonbury Festival, Worthy Farm, Pilton, Britain, 6-25-1995

Here's the second of three albums of Elastica performing for the BBC. This volume is a full concert at the annual Glastonbury Festival, which has huge crowds of over 100,000 people for the main stage.

Elastica arguably were at their peak of popularity in 1995, so it makes sense they played at Glastonbury that year. They released their debut album, simply called "Elastica," in March 1995, a few months prior to this concert. It's a great, five-star album, in my opinion. Unfortunately, it would take the band five years to release a second album, and that one was considered a disappointment, followed soon by the band disbanding.

I've noticed that when it comes to this band, just about everything they'd done is improved by boosting the volume of the lead vocals relative to the instruments. That was the case here, so I did the boosting using the audio editing program UVR5. This is a bootleg, but the sound quality is excellent, as is typical of BBC broadcasts.

This is a fairly short concert at 37 minutes. But it seems to be the complete performance. 

By the way, the band played the 2000 Glastonbury Festival as well, but I've only been able to find part of it in high sound quality comparable to this. If anyone has the full thing and wants to send it to me, I would appreciate it.

01 Gloria (Elastica)
02 Line Up (Elastica)
03 Annie (Elastica)
04 Rockunroll (Elastica)
05 talk (Elastica)
06 Car Song (Elastica)
07 talk (Elastica)
08 Stutter (Elastica)
09 talk (Elastica)
10 2-1 (Elastica)
11 See That Animal (Elastica)
12 Smile (Elastica)
13 Waking Up (Elastica)
14 S.O.F.T. (Elastica)
15 talk (Elastica)
16 Connection (Elastica)
17 Blue (Elastica)
18 Vaseline (Elastica)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15358956/Elastca_1995_BBSessionsVolum2InConcrtGlstonuryFestivl__6-25-1995_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is of lead singer Justine Frischmann at this exact concert.

Led Zeppelin - The Old Refectory, Southampton University, Southampton, Britain, 1-22-1973

How much do you value a spirited performance vs. sound quality? I recently looked at some Led Zeppelin social forums, and this is considered quite possibly THE best sounding live recording of the band, even though it's a bootleg. It's not just a soundboard; this was a professionally done multi-track recording that somehow got leaked to the public. I think the sound quality is freaking amazing. 

The downside for die-hard fans is that this was considered merely a good night for the band, not an outstanding one. But I think that's nitpicking. The band sure sounded "on" to me. I'd much rather listen to this than some supposedly great performance that's buried in hiss and muck.

As amazing as this sounded already, I think I made it sound even better. I used the audio editing program UVR5 to make a few changes. For starters, the lead vocals were a bit low, so I boosted them for all the songs. There also were occasional sections of songs when the vocals were especially low - perhaps lead singer Robert Plant wasn't singing close enough to the microphone. So I took care to give those spots an extra boost, sometimes adjusting line by line. I also boosted the banter between songs so the talking could be heard better over the crowd noise. Finally, the applause was rather low, which is common for soundboards. I also boosted that for most of the songs.

Oh, one more edit I made was that I cut the length of some of the applause way down. Towards the end of the show, there were several encore breaks with cheering that lasted for three or four minutes at times. It's boring for me to hear nothing but applause for that long, so I cut those down to a minute or two each instead.

One other great thing about this concert is that it was played in a small venue of only a few hundred people. That's extraordinary, because by 1973, Led Zeppelin was one of the biggest musical acts on the planet. Their 1971 album "Led Zeppelin IV" sold over 20 million copies, making it one of the top ten best selling albums of all time. I'm not sure why they deigned to play such a small place in 1973, but maybe it was part of a plan to record this for a possible live album. Whatever the case, that helped even more with the sound quality. It's as if the band was still playing small clubs like they did when they started in early 1969, only with a set list that included tons of classics like "Stairway to Heaven" and "Black Dog." Frankly, I don't understand why this recording isn't a lot better known, or even officially released.

At the time of this concert, the band's next album "Houses of the Holy" was still two months away from being released. But a few songs from that album were played anyway: "The Song Remains the Same," "Over the Hills and Far Away," "The Rain Song," and "Dancing Days." They also did a 23-minute long version of "Whole Lotta Love" that effectively have some full versions of interesting cover songs inside it, such as "(You're So Square) Baby I Don't Care" and "Let's Have a Party."

I'm still working my way through understanding Led Zeppelin bootlegs. If anyone knows of other "best of the best" shows with outstanding sound quality like this one that you think I should post at my blog, please let me know. I'd especially like to fill in some gaps by finding the best shows from 1975 and 1977.

This concert is two hours and 28 minutes long.

01 talk (Led Zeppelin)
02 Rock and Roll (Led Zeppelin)
03 Over the Hills and Far Away (Led Zeppelin)
04 talk (Led Zeppelin)
05 Black Dog (Led Zeppelin)
06 Misty Mountain Hop (Led Zeppelin)
07 Since I've Been Loving You (Led Zeppelin)
08 talk (Led Zeppelin)
09 Dancing Days (Led Zeppelin)
10 talk (Led Zeppelin)
11 The Song Remains the Same (Led Zeppelin)
12 The Rain Song (Led Zeppelin)
13 talk (Led Zeppelin)
14 Dazed and Confused (Led Zeppelin)
15 Stairway to Heaven (Led Zeppelin)
16 talk (Led Zeppelin)
17 Whole Lotta Love - Everybody Needs Somebody to Love - Whole Lotta Love (Led Zeppelin)
18 Boogie Chillun’ - [You're So Square] Baby I Don't Care (Led Zeppelin)
19 Let's Have a Party (Led Zeppelin)
20 I Can't Quit You Babe - Whole Lotta Love [Reprise] (Led Zeppelin)
21 talk (Led Zeppelin)
22 Heartbreaker (Led Zeppelin)
23 talk (Led Zeppelin)
24 Organ Solo [Instrumental] (Led Zeppelin)
25 Thank You (Led Zeppelin)
26 talk (Led Zeppelin)
27 How Many More Times - The Hunter - How Many More Times (Led Zeppelin)
28 Communication Breakdown (Led Zeppelin)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/JK3hXr6S

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/T4TS4YQhLpi9ECC/file

alternate:

https://www.imagenetz.de/fGJCg

The good news is, the cover photo shows Led Zeppelin at this exact venue. The bad news is, it's from the one previous time they played there, on March 11, 1971. So, two years earlier. But I figure the band members more or less looked the same, and this photo gives you a sense of just how small the stage was. I did find a few photos from the correct date, but they were only black and white (and not easily colorized), and none of them are as well composed as this one is.

Chicago - Freedom Hall, Louisville, KY, 6-12-1974

This is the first time I've posted an album by the jazz-rock band Chicago. It's a concert bootleg, but if you want just one live recording of the band in their prime, this might be the best one out there. 

This is a fairly popular bootleg, because it was broadcast on the "King Biscuit Flower Hour" back in the day. However, I found several different versions of this bootleg, and none of them were complete. For instance, most of them miss the songs "Aire" and "Got to Get You into My Life" (a cover of the Beatles classic). I found the most complete version out there, but even this one was missing the second half of the song "Now More than Ever." I found a complete version of that from a different version, so this should have everything.

Different versions also have different sound quality, including some with fake audience applause added. This one has the best sound quality. It was professionally recorded for the radio, so it sounds as good as any live album at the time. In fact, the closest official live album chronologically is one called "Live in '75." But that has all kinds of performance and mixing problems. This is much better.

The timing of this album is key. In my opinion, Chicago's best years were 1969 to 1974. According to the crowd sourced ratings at rateyourmusic.com, six of the seven albums the band did in those years have a rating of 3.5 or higher. But no studio album the band has done in the many years since has ever come close to a 3.5. Also, in 1974, lead guitarist and occasional lead vocalist Terry Kath was still alive, and his playing is all over this recording. He would die in 1978.

This album is an hour and 35 minutes long.

01 talk (Chicago)
02 Introduction (Chicago)
03 Call on Me (Chicago)
04 Saturday in the Park (Chicago)
05 Something in This City Changes People (Chicago)
06 talk (Chicago)
07 Aire [Instrumental] (Chicago)
08 talk (Chicago)
09 Beginnings (Chicago)
10 Make Me Smile (Chicago)
11 So Much to Say, So Much to Give (Chicago)
12 Anxiety's Moment - West Virginia Fantasies [Instrumental] (Chicago)
13 Colour My World (Chicago)
14 To Be Free [Instrumental] (Chicago)
15 Now More than Ever (Chicago)
16 talk (Chicago)
17 Dialogue [Part I & II] (Chicago)
18 talk (Chicago)
19 Italian from New York [Instrumental] (Chicago)
20 Hanky Panky [Instrumental] (Chicago)
21 Life Saver (Chicago)
22 Just You 'n' Me (Chicago)
23 [I've Been] Searchin' So Long (Chicago)
24 25 or 6 to 4 (Chicago)
25 talk (Chicago)
26 Got to Get You Into My Life (Chicago)
27 talk (Chicago)
28 Feelin' Stronger Everyday (Chicago)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/cdDp4Lg3

alternate link:

https://www.imagenetz.de/iFD7R

The cover photo was taken at Caribou Ranch, a recording studio up in the Rocky Mountains, near the town of Nederland, Colorado. Chicago recorded five albums there in the 1970s. This photo comes from a performance for a TV special called "Meanwhile Back at the Ranch" filmed around July 1974. The guy on the left of the stage with his back turned to the camera is actually a member of the film crew.

Elastica - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1993-1994

This is the first of three volumes of Elastica performing for the BBC. This volume consists entirely of BBC studio sessions.

There is an officially released album called "The Radio One Sessions" that contain most of the songs here. But most, not all. Three songs, "Never Here," "Father Christmas" and "Blue," are unreleased. I don't know why they weren't on that official album, since they're from the same exact sessions as some of the songs that were included.

But there was an even bigger problem with that official release, in my opinion: the vocals were mixed too low. Perhaps that was a band decision rather than a BBC decision, since I've noticed this problem with some of their studio recordings too. But whatever the case may be, I used an audio editing program to boost the vocals relative to the instruments, and it sounds significantly better now. Three songs have "[Edit]" in their titles because I had to take some extra editing steps to make those ones sound better.

Since Elastica only released two studio albums before breaking up, these BBC recordings are a key part of their discography. Everything here sounds excellent, and there are some songs that didn't appear on either of those albums.

This album is 37 minutes long.

01 Annie [Edit] (Elastica)
02 Spastica [Edit] (Elastica)
03 Line Up (Elastica)
04 Vaseline (Elastica)
05 Brighton Rock (Elastica)
06 In the City (Elastica)
07 Waking Up (Elastica)
08 Never Here (Elastica)
09 Car Song (Elastica)
10 Hold Me Now (Elastica)
11 Ba Ba Ba [Bar Bar Bar] (Elastica)
12 Father Christmas [Cleopatra with Alternate Lyrics] (Elastica)
13 Blue [Edit] (Elastica)
14 Gloria (Elastica)
15 I Wanna Be a King of Orient Aah (Elastica)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15343206/Elastca_1993-1994_BBSessionsVolum1_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is a promo photo taken in Brussels, Belgium, in April 1995.

Paul McCartney - BBC Sessions, Volume 4: Electric Proms, The Roundhouse, London, Britain, 10-25-2007

Here's another Paul McCartney BBC concert.

It's true this is only two years after his previous BBC concert, but he had such a deep discography of classic songs that that didn't matter much. Plus, he had a new album to promote, "Memory Almost Full," which got a good amount of critical praise. (He played four songs from it.) Also, despite being around 65 years old at the time of this concert, his voice was still in pretty good shape (although he did struggle to hit a few notes here and there).

This concert remains officially unreleased. But it was broadcast live on the radio, so the sound quality is excellent. I didn't have to do much, though I boosted the vocals of the banter between songs sometimes.

This album is an hour and 30 minutes long.

UPDATE: On December 19, 2023, I updated the album title. After finding an earlier BBC concert I'd missed, this went from Volume 3 to Volume 4.

01 Magical Mystery Tour (Paul McCartney)
02 Flaming Pie (Paul McCartney)
03 talk (Paul McCartney)
04 Got to Get You into My Life (Paul McCartney)
05 talk (Paul McCartney)
06 Dance Tonight (Paul McCartney)
07 talk (Paul McCartney)
08 Only Mama Knows (Paul McCartney)
09 talk (Paul McCartney)
10 C Moon (Paul McCartney)
11 talk (Paul McCartney)
12 The Long and Winding Road (Paul McCartney)
13 talk (Paul McCartney)
14 I'll Follow the Sun (Paul McCartney)
15 talk (Paul McCartney)
16 That Was Me (Paul McCartney)
17 talk (Paul McCartney)
18 Here Today (Paul McCartney)
19 Blackbird (Paul McCartney)
20 talk (Paul McCartney)
21 Calico Skies (Paul McCartney)
22 talk (Paul McCartney)
23 Eleanor Rigby (Paul McCartney)
24 talk (Paul McCartney)
25 Band on the Run (Paul McCartney)
26 talk (Paul McCartney)
27 Back in the U. S. S. R. (Paul McCartney)
28 House of Wax (Paul McCartney)
29 talk (Paul McCartney)
30 I've Got a Feeling (Paul McCartney)
31 talk (Paul McCartney)
32 Live and Let Die (Paul McCartney)
33 talk (Paul McCartney)
34 Baby Face (Paul McCartney)
35 talk (Paul McCartney)
36 Hey Jude (Paul McCartney)
37 Let It Be (Paul McCartney)
38 Lady Madonna (Paul McCartney)
39 talk (Paul McCartney)
40 I Saw Her Standing There (Paul McCartney)
41 Get Back (Paul McCartney) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/p5BA5UW8

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/HmKwVD58PO5g7F7/file

alternate:

https://www.imagenetz.de/kniY6

The cover photo comes from this exact concert.

Elliott Smith - Tramps, New York City, 10-4-1998

A few days ago, I posted an album of singer-songwriter Elliott Smith playing at Tramps, a club in New York City, in 1998. This also is an album of Smith playing at Tramps in 1998. But the two concerts are very different, even though they're only about six months apart. The key difference is that first one I posted is a solo acoustic concert whereas this one is with a full band. But also, all but four of the songs are different. So if you're an Elliott Smith fan, I suggest you listen to both.

One similarity between the two shows is that they both have great sound quality, even though they're unreleased. Clearly, someone running the club was making soundboard recordings and keeping them. These two Smith shows haven't gotten around much, but I'm hoping to change that. High sound quality is especially important for band performances, and I don't think you'll find any recordings of Smith's concerts with a band that sound better than this one.

The only problem with this recording was the first song, "Christian Brothers." About the first minute was missing. I found another recording from a concert about a week later, and used that to fill in that missing minute. That's from an audience bootleg, so the sound quality isn't as good. But it's pretty good as audience boots go. 

Regarding the set list, between the Tramps show earlier in the year and this one, Smith's studio album "XO" was released. He'd played a few songs from that in the earlier show, but he played a lot more in this one. In case you're curious, the four songs played in both shows are: "Alameda," "Division Day," "No Name No. 4," and "Waltz No. 2 [XO]." That concert had one cover of a famous song, and this one does also: "When I Paint My Masterpiece" by Bob Dylan. I guess because this was a full-band concert, Smith wanted to keep things moving and thus had almost no banter whatsoever between songs.

This album is 53 minutes long.

01 Christian Brothers [Edit] (Elliott Smith)
02 Waltz No. 2 [XO] (Elliott Smith)
03 Stupidity Tries (Elliott Smith)
04 talk (Elliott Smith)
05 Bottle Up and Explode (Elliott Smith)
06 Baby Britain (Elliott Smith)
07 Sweet Adeline (Elliott Smith)
08 Alameda (Elliott Smith)
09 Bled White (Elliott Smith)
10 Happiness (Elliott Smith)
11 Everybody Cares, Everybody Understands (Elliott Smith)
12 Ballad of Big Nothing (Elliott Smith)
13 Independence Day (Elliott Smith)
14 Good to Go (Elliott Smith)
15 No Name No. 4 (Elliott Smith)
16 I Didn't Understand (Elliott Smith)
17 Division Day (Elliott Smith)
18 talk (Elliott Smith)
19 When I Paint My Masterpiece (Elliott Smith)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15342741/EllittS_1998d_TrmpsNewYrkC_10-4-1998_atse.zip.html

The cover photo was taken at the Reading Festival in Reading, Britain, in August 1998.

Paul Weller - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: In Concert, Glastonbury Festival, Worthy Farm, Pilton, Britain, 6-25-1994

I've previously stated that Paul Weller has performed for the BBC many times. There are so many that I'm only going to post about every other full length BBC concert he did. Most of the ones I didn't include are on the digital 13 disc version of his "At the BBC" box set. I skipped a 1992 concert to post this one.

I believe I've previously mentioned that Weller's 1993 studio album "Wild Wood" is my favorite solo album by him. So it goes without saying that I think this is a great concert. 

Weirdly, this one was not included in that "At the BBC" box set, not even the 13 CD version. However, it is very similar to his 1994 live album "Live Wood." It's mostly the same songs, and has a similar length. However, that album was compiled from a bunch of concerts. I much prefer full concerts like this one without overdubs and messing with the song order and such.

Although this is officially unreleased, the sound quality is up to the usual high BBC standards. However, the lead vocals were a bit low, so I boosted them using the UVR5 audio editing program. I especially boosted the vocals of his banter between songs (although there's not much of that).

This concert is an hour and 19 minutes long.

01 The Weaver (Paul Weller)
02 Has My Fire Really Gone Out (Paul Weller)
03 Bull-Rush - Magic Bus (Paul Weller)
04 This Is No Time (Paul Weller)
05 Out of the Sinking (Paul Weller)
06 Remember How We Started - Dominoes (Paul Weller)
07 Above the Clouds (Paul Weller)
08 Hung Up (Paul Weller)
09 talk (Paul Weller)
10 Sunflower (Paul Weller)
11 talk (Paul Weller)
12 Wild Wood (Paul Weller)
13 talk (Paul Weller)
14 Can You Heal Us [Holy Man] - War (Paul Weller)
15 talk (Paul Weller)
16 5th Season (Paul Weller)
17 You Do Something to Me (Paul Weller)
18 Into Tomorrow (Paul Weller)
19 Foot of the Mountain (Paul Weller)
20 talk (Paul Weller)
21 Shadow of the Sun (Paul Weller)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16072644/PaulW_1994_BBSessonsVolum3InConcrtGlastnbryFestivl__6-25-1994_atse.zip.html

The cover photo comes from this exact concert.

Emmylou Harris - Tramps, New York City, 8-10-1996

I have to admit that some portions of Emmylou Harris's music career has more of a country sound than I like. But in 1995, her career took a turn with her album "Wrecking Ball." The Wikipedia page about the album comments: "The album received nearly universal acclaim, making many critics' year-end 'best of' lists, and pointed Harris' career in a somewhat different direction where she would incorporate a harder edge. As a career-redefining album, 'Wrecking Ball' was compared to Marianne Faithfull's 1979 'Broken English' album and Johnny Cash's 'American Recordings.'" This is a great sounding bootleg from the tour to promote that album.

Harris promoted the "Wrecking Ball" album a long time. She didn't release another studio album until 2000. But in 1998, she released the live album "Spyboy." That album has a lot of similarities to this one. However, this one is nearly twice as long, as I think it's a much better document from that tour.

The recording is flawless, so I didn't have to fix anything. There's surprisingly little banter, other than one story she told about watching a movie in a foreign country.

This is a good introduction to Harris' impressive music career even if you're not a big country music fan. It shows many of her older songs with her new sound she introduced with the "Wrecking Ball" album.

This album is an hour and 53 minutes long.

01 Where Will I Be (Emmylou Harris)
02 Orphan Girl (Emmylou Harris)
03 Wrecking Ball (Emmylou Harris)
04 Pancho and Lefty (Emmylou Harris)
05 Two More Bottles of Wine (Emmylou Harris)
06 I Ain't Living Long like This (Emmylou Harris)
07 Love Hurts (Emmylou Harris)
08 Goodbye (Emmylou Harris)
09 Green Pastures (Emmylou Harris)
10 Goin' Back to Harlan (Emmylou Harris)
11 Deeper Well (Emmylou Harris)
12 talk (Emmylou Harris)
13 Prayer in Open D (Emmylou Harris)
14 Calling My Children Home (Emmylou Harris)
15 Abraham, Martin and John (Emmylou Harris)
16 Wheels (Emmylou Harris)
17 Born to Run (Emmylou Harris)
18 Sweet Old World (Emmylou Harris)
19 Every Grain of Sand (Emmylou Harris)
20 All My Tears [Be Washed Away] (Emmylou Harris)
21 talk (Emmylou Harris)
22 Get Up John (Emmylou Harris)
23 The Maker (Emmylou Harris)
24 Boulder to Birmingham (Emmylou Harris)
25 Indian Red (Emmylou Harris)
26 Making Believe (Emmylou Harris)
27 Save the Last Dance for Me (Emmylou Harris)

https://www.imagenetz.de/ht3aJ

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/dNiewDQ8

The cover photo comes from an appearance on the TV show "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" in January 1996.

Katrina & the Waves - 9:30 Club, Washington, DC, 5-16-1985

Katrina and the Waves are mostly considered a "one-hit wonder" from the 1980s, even though they had multiple hits, including one as late as 1997. But I have a soft spot for them, which you may have noticed when I posted a two volume best of collection in 2022. They never released a live album, and bootlegs are nearly nonexistent. But I recently came across this soundboard boot, so I thought I'd share it here.

Katrina and the Waves will forever mainly be known for the hit song "Walking on Sunshine," and of course that's here, near the end. But all the songs are good, in my opinion, and very lively and danceable. If you want upbeat, this is what you want to hear. This band is way better than their one-hit wonder status would suggest.

There's not much else to say. The recording has great sound quality. For once, I didn't have to boost the lead vocals or do anything else.

This album is 47 minutes long.

01 talk (Katrina & the Waves)
02 Browned Eyed Son (Katrina & the Waves)
03 Lovely Lindsay (Katrina & the Waves)
04 Que Te Quiero (Katrina & the Waves)
05 Do You Want Crying (Katrina & the Waves)
06 The Game of Love (Katrina & the Waves)
07 talk (Katrina & the Waves)
08 Cry for Me (Katrina & the Waves)
09 talk (Katrina & the Waves)
10 Going Down to Liverpool (Katrina & the Waves)
11 Mexico (Katrina & the Waves)
12 Machine Gun Smith (Katrina & the Waves)
13 talk (Katrina & the Waves)
14 Do You Love Me (Katrina & the Waves)
15 Walking on Sunshine (Katrina & the Waves)
16 Red Wine and Whiskey (Katrina & the Waves)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16666483/KATRNANTWVES1985930ClbWshngtnDC__5-16-1985_atse.zip.html

The cover photo comes from a 1989 concert. I found other ones from around 1985, but I just particularly liked this one.

The Who - BBC Sessions, Volume 8: In Concert, Glastonbury Festival, Worthy Farm, Pilton, Britain, 6-24-2007

Here's the eighth and probably last BBC sessions album by the Who. This wasn't mainly a BBC concert, but the Who had the most prestigious spot of being the headlining act for the final night of the Glastonbury Festival in 2007, playing in front of over 100,000 people. Many sets from that festival every year get played on the BBC, so that makes this a BBC concert.

This concert came about six months after the Who released the studio album "Endless Wire" in late 2006. It was their first studio album since 1982. I'm not a fan of it. (I think their 2019 album "Who" is much better.) But it turns out that's not much of a factor here, because they only played two songs from it, "Fragments" and "Tea and Theatre."

Considering this comes from a bootleg of a BBC broadcast, the sound quality isn't as good as I would expected. Very good, yes, but not excellent. One big problem was the lead vocals were surprisingly low. But I did my usual thing, using the UVR5 audio editing program to boost the vocals in relation to the instruments. Now, the sound quality is better, maybe borderline excellent.  

The Who did played the Glastonbury Festival after this, in 2015. But the band suffered equipment problems, and lead guitarist Pete Townshend said the show "it was one of the very worst we ever played." So I don't have that one, and I'm not planning on posting it. I don't know of any other BBC concerts they'd done after this one.

This album is an hour and 23 minutes long.

01 talk (Who)
02 I Can't Explain (Who)
03 The Seeker (Who)
04 Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere (Who)
05 Fragments (Who)
06 talk (Who)
07 Who Are You (Who)
08 Behind Blue Eyes (Who)
09 Baba O'Reilly (Who)
10 talk (Who)
11 The Relay (Who)
12 You Better, You Bet (Who)
13 My Generation (Who)
14 Won't Get Fooled Again (Who)
15 The Kids Are Alright (Who)
16 Pinball Wizard (Who)
17 Amazing Journey - Sparks (Who)
18 See Me, Feel Me (Who)
19 talk (Who)
20 Tea and Theatre (Who)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17233573/TWHOO2007BBSessionsVolum8InConcrtGlstonburyFestivl__6-24-2007_atse.zip.html

alternate:

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

The cover photo comes from this exact concert. However, in the original, Roger Daltrey (holding the microphone) and Pete Townshend (playing the guitar in front) were what I'd guess about ten feet further apart. There was nothing but empty space between them, so I used Photoshop to move them closer together. There also was a distracting video screen behind the drums, so I removed that.

Maria McKee - Karen, Goteborg, Sweden, 11-6-1993

I keep intending to post more music by Maria McKee, and then I keep forgetting to do it. I guess it's easy to overlook her because her music career has been nearly inactive for a bunch of years now. But here's something, at least. I have a lot more I plan on posting eventually.

This is a excellent sounding bootleg of a full-band concert to support my favorite album by her, 1993's "You Gotta Sin to Get Saved." Apparently, this concert was played on Swedish radio. But this is a pre-FM version that sounds even better and includes a bunch of songs that were cut from the radio broadcast. This is peak Maria McKee, in my book.

Despite the sound quality, the recording did have one big flaw: the lead vocals were rather low. (As I process live albums from my music collection to post here, I'm surprised at just how many have that problem.) But that was easily fixed, as usual, using the UVR5 audio editing program. So this version sounds better than the others out there.

Naturally, McKee mostly played songs from her "You Gotta Sin to Get Saved" album, plus her previous solo album (just called "Maria McKee") and her time in the band Lone Justice. But she also played some very interesting covers that she never put on album, such as "Free Money" by Patti Smith, "When You Were Mine" by Prince, "Pills" by the New York Dolls, and "Sister Anne" by the MC5.

One weird aspect about this concert is that she had almost no banter between songs whatsoever. She said the word "Hello" before the first song, and that was about it. I thought about it, and then came up with the theory that perhaps the concert was in Sweden she could have guessed that much of the audience wouldn't have been able to understand her English comments.

This album is an hour and 23 minutes long.

01 talk (Maria McKee)
02 East of Eden (Maria McKee)
03 I Can't Make It Alone (Maria McKee)
04 My Lonely Sad Eyes (Maria McKee)
05 I'm Gonna Soothe You (Maria McKee)
06 Am I the Only One [Who's Ever Felt This Way] (Maria McKee)
07 Shelter (Maria McKee)
08 Panic Beach (Maria McKee)
09 My Girlhood Among the Outlaws (Maria McKee)
10 This Property Is Condemned (Maria McKee)
11 Free Money (Maria McKee)
12 When You Were Mine (Maria McKee)
13 Pills (Maria McKee)
14 Why Wasn't I More Grateful [When Life Was Sweet] (Maria McKee)
15 Sister Anne (Maria McKee)
16 Ways to Be Wicked (Maria McKee)
17 Soap, Soup and Salvation (Maria McKee)
18 You Gotta Sin to Get Saved (Maria McKee)
19 Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye (Maria McKee)
20 Nobody's Child (Maria McKee)
21 Has He Got a Friend for Me (Maria McKee)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15329586/MariMcK_1993_KarenGtebrgSwedn__11-6-1993_atse.zip.html

 The cover photo comes from a concert in Belgium in June 1993.

Bob Marley & the Wailers - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: In Concert, Paris Theatre, London, Britain, 5-24-1973

As I explained in my last post, I screwed up with a Bob Marley and the Wailers post I made a few days ago. I thought the band had done a full episode concert for the BBC TV show "The Old Grey Whistle Test," which happened for some musical artists at the time. But it turns out that actually was a performance for the "In Concert" BBC radio series. Luckily, a commenter pointed out my mistake. I deleted that post, because not only was it mislabeled, it wasn't the best version available. You should delete that and replace it with this instead.

This contains the same exact songs as the version I've just deleted. However, this is better, because it turns out that concert was emceed by BBC DJ Pete Drummond, and he introduced all the songs except for the first one. This is a less common version that includes all of Drummond's comments as separate tracks.

Like the other Bob Marley and the Wailers BBC volume I just posted, this remains officially unreleased. I'm surprised, since it's a rare, high quality recording of the band while Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer were still key members. In fact, Tosh wrote and sang lead vocals on "Stop That Train" and "400 Years," and shared the writing and singing on "Get Up, Stand Up."

The vocals were a bit low in the mix, so I used the audio editing program UVR5 too boost them some. Otherwise, there were no problems.

I had posted the mislabeled version of this concert as "BBC Sessions, Volume 1." But I got the date wrong. I thought this was from May 1, 1973, when in fact it was recorded on May 24th. There are some BBC studio sessions from May 1st, so I've called the album with those songs "Volume 1" and made this "Volume 2." It's also the last volume, because it seems there were no more extensive BBC appearances after this.

This album is 50 minutes long.

01 Rastafarian Chant (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
02 talk (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
03 Slave Driver (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
04 talk (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
05 Stop That Train (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
06 talk (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
07 No More Trouble (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
08 talk (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
09 400 Years (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
10 talk (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
11 Midnight Ravers (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
12 talk (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
13 Stir It Up (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
14 talk (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
15 Concrete Jungle (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
16 talk (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
17 Get Up, Stand Up (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
18 talk (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
19 Kinky Reggae (Bob Marley & the Wailers)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15328781/BobMar_1973b_BBSessionsVolum2InConcrtPrisTheatreLondnBritain__5-24-1973_atse.zip.html

The cover photo comes from the "Old Grey Whistle Test" performance they did earlier in May 1973. From left to right: Tosh, Marley, and Wailer. Other band members are cropped out. As a random aside, this is the second album cover in a week with big time lens flare after not having any of that pretty much ever.

Bob Marley & the Wailers - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1973-1980

A few days ago, I posted a BBC album of Bob Marley and the Wailers from 1973. But I screwed up. I'm not quite sure what I posted, but it's not what I said it was. Luckily, an alert commenter noticed the problem and alerted me. So please delete your version, if you have one (just as I've deleted that post). Instead, I'm replacing it with two BBC albums. This one isn't really the replacement for what I posted. This contains BBC studio sessions, plus some TV appearances at the end. All of it remains officially unreleased. But the other volume I'll be posting is a BBC concert that more directly replaces my mistaken post.

Bob Marley and the Wailers did two BBC sessions with DJ John Peel in 1973. The first session took place on May 1, 1973, and make up the first tracks here. That same day, they also filmed an appearance for the BBC TV show "The Old Grey Whistle Test." They played two songs, "Stir It Up" and "Concrete Jungle." I've only included "Stir It Up" as track four, because they did "Concrete Jungle" at the Peel session that same day. Also, it's probable that the "Old Grey Whistle Test" performance was only a live vocal done to prerecorded instrumental version.

In November 1973, they did another BBC sessions hosted by Peel. That makes up tracks five through seven. Their album "Burnin'" had just been released and they were promoting that (although only the song "Get Up, Stand Up" was from that album). Note that at this point, the Wailers still included Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer, although it was the last album with them.

Those seven songs only total 28 minutes. So I've added some more live TV appearances done in later years. They weren't on TV much, and sometimes when they were they had to do lip-syncing. So these are all the real live TV appearances I could find. I've included a second version of "Kinky Reggae" since there are so few TV appearances like this. Two of the four TV appearances - "Exodus" and "Satisfy My Soul" - are BBC performances on the show "Top of the Pops." Many artists did lip-syncing for that show, but I double checked and these two were actually live.

This album is 40 minutes long.

01 Concrete  Jungle (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
02 Rastaman Chant (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
03 Slave Driver (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
04 Stir It Up (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
05 Kinky Reggae (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
06 Can't Blame the Youth (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
07 Get Up, Stand Up (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
08 Kinky Reggae (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
09 Exodus (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
10 Satisfy My Soul (Bob Marley & the Wailers)
11 Redemption Song (Bob Marley & the Wailers)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15328805/BobMar_1973a1980_BBSessionsVolum1_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is a screenshot I took from the "Old Grey Whistle Test" version of "Stir It Up."

Spirit - Rougher Road - Non-Album Tracks (1968-1970)

I recently posted an album of stray tracks by the band Spirit. Here's a second one. This concludes their peak years from 1967 to 1970. I have one more sort of stray tracks album from 1971 that I plan on posting later. But my interest in the band drops a lot after that time period, and I'm not aware of lots of stray tracks from later in any case.

This album deals with the time period of three studio albums: "The Family that Plays Together" (1968), "Clear" (1969), and "Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus" (1970). The vast majority of the songs here are bonus tracks released on later versions of those three albums. The song "1984" was released as an A-side in 1969 and later included as a bonus track for the "Clear" album. It's one of the band's best songs. Its B-side was "Sweet Stella Baby." 

There's only one song here  that has not been released as a bonus track, or in fact officially released at all, and that's "Jealous." I don't know why that one's been overlooked, since it's a good original. This version comes from a 1969 concert bootleg. It has good enough sound quality to fit in with the others.

This album is 45 minutes long.

01 Fog [Instrumental] (Spirit)
02 So Little to Say (Spirit)
03 Mellow Fellow [Instrumental] (Spirit)
04 Now or Anywhere (Spirit)
05 Space Chile [Instrumental] (Spirit)
06 1984 (Spirit)
07 Sweet Stella Baby (Spirit)
08 Jealous (Spirit)
09 Fuller Brush Man (Spirit)
10 Coral [Instrumental] (Spirit)
11 Walking on My Feet (Spirit)
12 Rougher Road (Spirit)
13 Red Light Roll On (Spirit)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15328525/Spirt_1968-1970_RoughrRd_atse.zip.html

The cover photo comes from a promotional photo session, but I don't know the details.

Elliott Smith - Tramps, New York City, 4-22-1998

I recently discovered two Elliott Smith soundboard bootlegs that took place at the same New York City venue, Tramps, in the same year, 1998. They're surprising rare bootlegs because their sound quality is excellent. I'm going to post them both, because one is an acoustic performance and the other one is with a full band, plus the vast majority of songs played are different. I'll start by posting this acoustic one first.

There were no problems to speak of with this recording. I did boost the vocals of the banter between songs, but there were only a few instances of banter.

There's not much else to say. If you're familiar with acoustic Elliott Smith, this is prime stuff. I believe the only cover is a version of John Lennon's "Jealous Guy." This concert took place a few months before the release of his "XO" studio album, but includes some songs from it.

This album is 52 minutes long.

01 talk (Elliott Smith)
02 Angeles (Elliott Smith)
03 Division Day (Elliott Smith)
04 Clementine (Elliott Smith)
05 talk (Elliott Smith)
06 Southern Belle (Elliott Smith)
07 Waltz No. 2 [XO] (Elliott Smith)
08 Between the Bars (Elliott Smith)
09 Alameda (Elliott Smith)
10 Oh Well, Okay (Elliott Smith)
11 Rose Parade (Elliott Smith)
12 Pictures of Me (Elliott Smith)
13 Jealous Guy (Elliott Smith)
14 Say Yes (Elliott Smith)
15 St. Ides Heaven (Elliott Smith)
16 talk (Elliott Smith)
17 The Biggest Lie (Elliott Smith)
18 No Name No. 4 (Elliott Smith)
19 Coming Up Roses (Elliott Smith)
20 Some Song [Help Me Kill My Time] (Elliott Smith)
21 No Name No. 3 (Elliott Smith)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15325650/EllittS_1998a_TrmpsNewYrkC__4-22-1998_atse.zip.html

I've posted a zillion album covers of someone standing on a concert stage facing an audience. I came across this picture of the backside of Smith, so I thought I'd post something different for a change. This one comes from a concert in Belgium in August 1998.

Led Zeppelin - Copenhagen, Denmark, 3-15-1969 to 3-17-1969

The other day, I was in the mood to hear some early Led Zeppelin that I'd never heard before. But I wanted something with excellent sound quality, because I think sound quality matters a lot for a band such as them. I discovered that the band played a bunch of times in Copenhagen in the middle of March 1969. What makes these concerts stand out is the fact that some of them were recorded for local TV or radio shows. As a result, the sound quality is as good as it gets for live Led Zeppelin in 1969. 

I suspect these bootleg recordings haven't gotten as much attention as they deserve because they only played short sets of half an hour or less. But I've combined three different concerts, all recorded in Copenhagen on March 15th, 16th, and 17th, and combined them, removing a few cases of repeated songs. The result is a soundboard level quality live album that's just over an hour long.

The first three tracks come from a radio show played on March 16th. The sound quality is excellent. The next four tracks come from a TV show, "TV Bren," played on March 17th. Again, the sound quality is excellent. One nice thing about these recordings from a listening point of view is that the band was brand new, with the debut album "Led Zeppelin" only coming out two months earlier, and the audience was small and polite. So these are almost like studio recordings, with just a bit of applause when the songs are all over. Things would be very different a few months later, when the band was selling millions of albums.

The final five tracks from from March 15th. I've put them out of chronological order because the sound quality is little lower on these. So you could remove them and still have 41 minutes with great sound quality. But I doubt you'll want to do that, because these sound pretty darn good too. Originally, they weren't so great, but I made some adjustments to all five of them with the audio editing program UVR5, including boosting the lead vocals. I think that helped a lot. At the end of "The Train Kept A-Rollin'" the band immediately went into a different song. But that one already appeared earlier on this album from a different performance. So I patched in some applause from the end of a different song to give it a decent sounding finish.

This is practically a live version of the band's debut album, "Led Zeppelin." It has all the songs from that that they commonly played in concert. (I still don't get why they almost never played "Good Times, Bad Times.") But there's a few extra ones: "I Gotta Move," "The Train Kept A-Rollin'," and "As Long as I Have You." The cover song "As Long as I Have You" in particular is a really interesting 12-minute long epic. It's frustrating that no version of this has ever been officially released. 

This album is an hour and five minutes long.

01 I Can't Quit You Baby (Led Zeppelin)
02 talk (Led Zeppelin)
03 I Gotta Move (Led Zeppelin)
04 Communication Breakdown (Led Zeppelin)
05 Dazed and Confused (Led Zeppelin)
06 Babe I'm Gonna Leave You (Led Zeppelin)
07 How Many More Times (Led Zeppelin)
08 The Train Kept A-Rollin' (Led Zeppelin)
09 talk (Led Zeppelin)
10 As Long as I Have You (Led Zeppelin)
11 talk (Led Zeppelin)
12 You Shook Me (Led Zeppelin)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15322997/LdZepp_1969ca_CpenhagnDenmrk__3-15-1969_to_3-17-1969_atse.zip.html

The cover photo comes from the "TV Bren" performance on March 17th. You can find the whole thing on YouTube in black and white. Luckily, there also were a few color photos taken, so I used one of those. I used Photoshop to move the bassist John Paul Jones a little closer to the others.