Nick Lowe - Theatre of the Living Arts, Philadelphia, PA, 1-28-1995

Here's a great sounding Nick Lowe concert from 1995.

As part of my big BBC project, I'm still trying to finish off album series a started long ago before posting BBC albums from other musical acts. I already posted a couple of 1980s BBC concerts starring Nick Lowe and Paul Carrack, so I want to finish their BBC stuff off as well. I have a couple of Lowe BBC concerts from the 2000s, but nothing at all from the 1990s. According to setlist.fm, he just wasn't touring much that decade, so maybe that's why the BBC missed him. But to cover the gap, here's a soundboard bootleg of a full concert.

In the 1970s and 80s, Lowe was a rock and roller. But with his 1994 album "The Impossible Bird," his musical style changed, and he's stuck with the new style ever since. Rock critic Jim Farber later commented that this style change "moved him out of the realms of ironic pop and animated rock and into the role of a worldly balladeer, specializing in grave vocals and graceful tunes." So this concert, supporting "The Impossible Bird," finds him at a crossroads, moving into that new style while still playing some more rocking songs from earlier in his career.

This unreleased bootleg only had two problems. One is that the beginning of the first song, "12-Step Program (To Quit You Babe)," was cut off. The other is that there was about a five second section in "Without Love" that sounded muddy and bad. Lowe later released a live album called "Untouched Takeaway." Most of the songs on that were from 2001, but six were from this tour. Luckily, those included versions of those two songs. So I patched in bits from that live album to fix them. That's why those two songs have "[Edit]" in their titles.

Lowe sang most of the songs, but in a couple of songs he let members of his backing band, the Impossible Birds, sing lead.

This album is an hour and 26 minutes long.

01 12-Step Program [To Quit You Babe] [Edit] (Nick Lowe)
02 True Love Travels on a Gravel Road (Nick Lowe)
03 talk (Nick Lowe)
04 Without Love [Edit] (Nick Lowe)
05 Lover Don't Go (Nick Lowe)
06 The Rose of England (Nick Lowe)
07 Trail of Tears (Nick Lowe)
08 Dream Girl (Nick Lowe)
09 talk (Nick Lowe)
10 Cruel to Be Kind (Nick Lowe)
11 Where's My Everything (Nick Lowe)
12 I'm Coming Home (Nick Lowe)
13 Lonely Just like Me (Nick Lowe)
14 talk (Nick Lowe)
15 A Tombstone Every Mile (Nick Lowe)
16 Half a Boy and Half a Man (Nick Lowe)
17 Crying in My Sleep (Nick Lowe)
18 talk (Nick Lowe)
19 Soulful Wind (Nick Lowe)
20 I Knew the Bride [When She Used to Rock and Roll] (Nick Lowe)
21 Bo Bo Ska Diddle Daddle (Nick Lowe)
22 talk (Nick Lowe)
23 Raging Eyes (Nick Lowe)
24 talk (Nick Lowe) (Nick Lowe)
25 Shelley My Love (Nick Lowe)
26 talk (Nick Lowe)
27 Allons Rock and Roll (Nick Lowe)
28 [You're My] Wildest Dream (Nick Lowe)
29 talk (Nick Lowe) (Nick Lowe)
30 If You Ever Want Me by Your Side (Nick Lowe)
31 [What's So Funny 'Bout] Peace, Love and Understanding (Nick Lowe)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/irL4SdhH

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/tYf2p4PmUOpQw62/file

The cover photo is from a concert in Brussels, Belgium, on April 7, 1995.

Various Artists - FireAid, Intuit Dome, Inglewood, CA, and Kia Forum, Inglewood, CA, 1-30-2025

Here's something surprisingly timely from me. I mostly post music from decades ago, but as I write this in early 2025, this concert took place only three days ago! It's a big concert - five hours long - with lots of big name artists.

I like posting big rock festivals and benefit concerts, because I've noticed they tend to get overlooked. But I tend not to post many from the 2000s because I don't like many of the musical acts on the bills. However, I looked at the list of performers here and I liked most of them, and could at least tolerate the rest. If you frequently come to this blog, your musical tastes are probably pretty similar to mine. You might want to give this a listen even if you don't like some of the acts. I think it's better than the vast majority of these kinds of concerts.

The concert was a surprisingly fast response to a series of fires that burned parts of the Los Angeles region earlier that same month. Millions were raised that would go to a charity to help the victims of the fires. There are lots of natural disasters that don't result in big benefit concerts. But this disaster hit very close to home for many famous musicians and or the people they know. For instance, Billy Crystal, one of the presenters here, lost his house to one of the fires, and Stevie Nicks came very close to losing hers. So it's not surprising that so many artists wanted to take part in a benefit concert.

Before I say anything else, note that the crisis caused by the fires is very much still ongoing, and donations are still being accepted. If you want to donate, here's the link:

Homepage - FireAid

I'm posting this because the entire concert has been put out there for free all over the place, including on literally at least ten TV streaming services, Tik Tok, YouTube, and more. So I'm just helping to spread it. If you want to watch it instead of just listen, YouTube is an easy way to find it. (That said, I wouldn't at all be surprised if this gets taken down due to some copyright issue or another, so grab it fast!)

The Wall Street Journal put out an interesting article before the concert took place that explained how it came to be. It's a worthwhile read:

Archive Buttons | Free Paywall Remover

I'll spare the details, since you can read about everything there. But I want to note that famous musical acts were falling over each other to take part, so many were turned down. The ones that were included generally were ones who lived in Los Angeles or otherwise had close ties to the area. 

Also note that the concert was rather strange in that it actually two place in two different venues on the same night. This is similar to what happened with Live Aid in 1985, except that consisted of concerts in North America and Europe, whereas this was two concerts both in the two of Inglewood. The thinking was that one of the concerts was mainly for pop music and the other for rock music. While there was down time between acts in one concert, they would show a set from the other concert, keeping both audiences entertained almost all the time. I thought about splitting this into two album, one for each venue. But I ultimately decided on making one big one, with all the songs in the order they occurred.

Now, let's get to the music. I found high quality videos of each set at a bootleg sharing site, then I converted them to audio and broke them into mp3s. The videos were already almost entirely free of the frequent begging for money typical of these types of concerts. I kept nearly everything. However, there were some sequences highlighting the fires and the resulting homelessness that I cut out, mostly because those were videos meant to be seen, not just heard. But I did keep speeches by Billy Crystal and Jimmy Kimmel talking about the fires.

As I mentioned above, I liked most of the musical acts. The vast majority of them have been featured in albums I've posted at this blog already. The ones who haven't are: Anderson Paak, Dawes, Gracie Abrams, Tate McRae, Jelly Roll, Nirvana, Katy Perry, Olivia Rodrigo, Peso Pluma, Billie Eilish, and Lady Gaga. Some of those were merely okay, but a lot of them only played a song or two, and often did a cover of a famous song, so it didn't matter much. There was only one musical act I couldn't stand, and that was Lil Baby. Gawwwd, the Autotune on that is sooo awful! So that was the only act I didn't include.

I mentioned Nirvana above. It's hard to imagine Nirvana without Kurt Cobain, who died long ago. The set here featured the three surviving members, Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic, and Pat Smear. To fill Cobain's shoes as lead vocalist, different female singers sang each of the four songs performed: St. Vincent, Kim Gordon, Joan Jett, and Violet Grohl (the last being the daughter of Dave Grohl). 

Generally speaking, the sound quality was excellent. But I noticed the lead vocals seems quite low during the Nirvana set, as well as the subsequent Red Hot Chili Peppers set. An analysis of those songs in an audio editing program confirmed that. So I boosted the vocals relative to the instruments for just those two sets, using the UVR5 audio editing program.

One other problem was that there often were abrupt sonic transitions between each set. So I would carefully look at the last song of one set and the first song of the next one. If it didn't sound smooth, I made some edits until it did. Typically, I'd merge audience applause together so it just sounds like lots of cheering until the next act got started.

This album is five hours long exactly. The actual concert was more like six hours long, but there was some dead air between sets, plus the video presentations about the fires that I cut out, as well as the Lil Baby set I couldn't stand.

001 Last Night on Earth (Green Day & Billie Eilish)
002 talk (Green Day)
003 Still Breathing (Green Day)
004 When I Come Around (Green Day)
005 talk (Billy Crystal)
006 Hand in My Pocket (Alanis Morissette)
007 talk (Alanis Morissette)
008 Thank U (Alanis Morissette)
009 talk (Anderson Paak)
010 Put Me Thru (Anderson Paak with Sheila E.)
011 talk (Anderson Paak)
012 Come Down (Anderson Paak with Sheila E.)
013 Still D.R.E. (Dr. Dre & Anderson Paak with Sheila E.)
014 talk (Anderson Paak)
015 California Love (Dr. Dre & Anderson Paak with Sheila E.)
016 talk by Alanis Morissette (Joni Mitchell)
017 Both Sides Now (Joni Mitchell)
018 talk (Dawes)
019 Time Spent in Los Angeles (Dawes)
020 talk (Stephen Stills with Dawes)
021 For What It's Worth (Stephen Stills with Mike Campbell & Dawes)
022 talk (Graham Nash with Stephen Stills & Dawes)
023 Teach Your Children (Graham Nash with Stephen Stills & Dawes)
024 talk (Pink)
025 What about Us (Pink)
026 talk (Pink)
027 Me and Bobby McGee (Pink)
028 talk (Pink)
029 Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You (Pink)
030 talk by Samuel L. Jackson (Rod Stewart)
031 Forever Young (Rod Stewart)
032 talk (Rod Stewart)
033 Maggie May (Rod Stewart)
034 talk (Rod Stewart)
035 People Get Ready (Rod Stewart)
036 talk by Pink (John Mayer)
037 Neon (John Mayer)
038 Gravity (John Mayer)
039 Free Fallin' (John Mayer)
040 That's the Way of the World (Earth, Wind & Fire)
041 Shining Star (Earth, Wind & Fire)
042 September (Earth, Wind & Fire)
043 talk by Graham Nash (Black Crowes)
044 Remedy (Black Crowes)
045 talk (Black Crowes)
046 Have You Ever Seen the Rain (John Fogerty with the Black Crowes)
047 talk (Black Crowes)
048 Going to California (Black Crowes with Slash)
049 talk by Philip Bailey (Gracie Abrams)
050 I Love You, I'm Sorry (Gracie Abrams)
051 talk (Gracie Abrams)
052 A Long December (Gracie Abrams)
053 talk by John Meyer (No Doubt)
054 Just a Girl (No Doubt)
055 Don't Speak (No Doubt)
056 Spiderwebs (No Doubt)
057 talk (Tate McRae)
058 You Broke Me First (Tate McRae)
059 talk (Tate McRae)
060 Don't Dream It's Over (Tate McRae)
061 I Am Not Okay (Jelly Roll)
062 talk (Jelly Roll)
063 Hollywood Nights (Jelly Roll with Travis Barker)
064 talk by Gwen Stefani (Stevie Nicks)
065 Stand Back (Stevie Nicks)
066 talk (Stevie Nicks)
067 Landslide (Stevie Nicks)
068 talk (Stevie Nicks)
069 Edge of Seventeen (Stevie Nicks)
070 talk (Stevie Nicks)
071 talk by Jelly Roll (Katy Perry)
072 Rise (Katy Perry)
073 Roar (Katy Perry)
074 talk (Katy Perry)
075 California Gurls (Katy Perry)
076 Breed (Nirvana & St. Vincent)
077 School (Nirvana & Kim Gordon)
078 talk (Nirvana)
079 Territorial Pissings (Nirvana & Joan Jett)
080 talk (Nirvana)
081 All Apologies (Nirvana & Violet Grohl)
082 talk by Stevie Nicks (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
083 Dani California (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
084 Californication (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
085 talk (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
086 Black Summer (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
087 Under the Bridge (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
088 talk (Olivia Rodrigo)
089 Drivers License (Olivia Rodrigo)
090 talk (Olivia Rodrigo)
091 Deja Vu (Olivia Rodrigo)
092 talk by Olivia Rodrigo (Sting)
093 Message in a Bottle (Sting)
094 Driven to Tears (Sting)
095 Fragile (Sting)
096 talk by Lil Baby (Peso Pluma)
097 La Bebe (Peso Pluma)
098 talk by Sting (Billie Eilish with Finneas)
099 talk (Billie Eilish with Finneas)
100 Wildflower (Billie Eilish with Finneas)
101 The Greatest (Billie Eilish with Finneas)
102 talk (Billie Eilish with Finneas)
103 Birds of a Feather (Billie Eilish with Finneas)
104 talk (Billie Eilish with Finneas)
105 talk (Stevie Wonder)
106 Love's in Need of Love Today (Stevie Wonder)
107 Superstition (Stevie Wonder with Sting)
108 Higher Ground (Stevie Wonder & Sting)
109 talk (Jimmy Kimmel)
110 Shallow (Lady Gaga)
111 talk (Lady Gaga)
112 Always Remember Us This Way (Lady Gaga)
113 talk (Lady Gaga)
114 Time Is a Healer (Lady Gaga)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ZQXR1WV7

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/1MTEuDFXIW31ySS/file

I had hundreds of photos to choose from for the cover art. Unfortunately, there was no big encore with lots of famous people on stage together. So I decided to go with a photo of the stage and a bit of the audience, with John Mayer playing guitar and looking quite small on the huge stage. Then I added a huge version of the FireAid logo to the top half of the image.

Tom Paxton - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: In Concert, Paris Theatre, London, Britain, 11-4-1972

Here's another BBC album by folk singer Tom Paxton. It's another concert.

This music here has been officially released as part of the 1998 album "Live in Concert." But that was taken from more than one concert. I was able to figure out the part that's from this concert. 

It appears there was more to this concert that I still can't find. According a set list I found, he also played the songs "Mr. Blue," The Last Thing on My Mind," "Peace Will Come," and "What a Friend You Are." I am pretty certain though that all of the banter between songs was taken out, because Paxton typically talks a fair amount and this album has none of that. If anyone has more of this, please share so I can add it in.

I'm still frustrated that I can't find more of Paxton's BBC concerts. I found this concert recording list:

The Tom Paxton Setlist Archive

It shows there are recordings of BBC concerts from 1978 and 1985, amongst others. But that person didn't respond when I asked to share. If anyone else has them, please let me know. I did find one from 1995, which I plan on posting soon.

This album is 39 minutes long.

01 Wasn't That a Party (Tom Paxton)
02 Out Behind the Gypsy's (Tom Paxton)
03 Whose Garden Was This (Tom Paxton)
04 Outward Bound (Tom Paxton)
05 I Lost My Heart on a 747 (Tom Paxton)
06 Cindy's Cryin' (Tom Paxton)
07 Annie's Going to Sing Her Song (Tom Paxton)
08 Retrospective (Tom Paxton)
09 Dance in the Shadows (Tom Paxton)
10 Jesus Christ S.R.O. (Tom Paxton)
11 Talking Pot in Vietnam (Tom Paxton)
12 Jimmy Newman (Tom Paxton)

 https://pixeldrain.com/u/Xn7CDMTW

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/0OC8BtVcCDYASlf/file

I don't know much about the source for the cover photo, except it was taken in Britain in 1972.

Supertramp - BBC Sessions, Volume 5: In Concert, Sheffield Arena, Sheffield, Britain, 9-26-1997

I posted four Supertramp BBC albums a while back, all from the 1970s. I thought that's all there was, but I recently discovered material for a fifth one. This is a concert from 1997.

I was a bit reluctant to post this, because it doesn't include Roger Hodgson. Hodgson left Supertramp for good in 1983. The band was led by Rick Davies from that point on. Both Hodgson and Davies wrote and sang songs for the band. For instance, Davies wrote the hits "Bloody Well Right," "Rudy," and "Goodbye Stranger." But Hodgson wrote more hits, including "Dreamer," "Give a Little Bit," "Take the Long Way Home," "Breakfast in America," and "The Logical Song." So while both were very talented, I'd say Hodgson was the bigger reason for the band's success. Thus, it's pretty rough not having him in the band.

Still, Supertramp carried on without him (while he had a solo career). They released albums in 1985 and 1987, then took a long break before releasing "Some Things Never Change" in 1997. That's what they were promoting for this concert and tour. I think it sounds pretty good overall, and very Supertramp-y, since everyone but Hodgson remained. Still, it's a bit weird hearing band member Mark Hart sing "Take the Long Way Home" and "The Logical Song" instead of Hodgson. I'm rather surprised the concert didn't feature "Cannonball," which was the one big hit the band hand (in 1985) after Hodgson left. But no doubt this was edited down from a longer concert, and the BBC must have cut that one out.

The last two songs have "[Edit]" in their titles. That's because BBC DJs returned to the old habit of talking over the song. There was some talking right at the end of one song and into the start of the next one. I got rid of all that the usual way, with the UVR5 editing program.

This concert is unreleased. However, note that an official album from this concert tour was released, called "It Was the Best of Times."

This album is 59 minutes long.

01 It's a Hard World (Supertramp)
02 You Win, I Lose (Supertramp)
03 talk (Supertramp)
04 Listen to Me Please (Supertramp)
05 Sooner or Later (Supertramp)
06 Rudy (Supertramp)
07 Another Man's Woman (Supertramp)
08 Take the Long Way Home (Supertramp)
09 The Logical Song [Edit] (Supertramp)
10 Crime of the Century [Edit] (Supertramp)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/9vKFGein

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/Wim1nYGrsttuzCM/file

The cover photo was taken in Paris, France, in 1997. That's Rick Davies on keywords and John Helliwell on the saxophone in the background.
 

Squeeze - BBC Sessions, Volume 8: 1993-1998

It's time for another Squeeze BBC album. This one, "Volume 8," is meant to be a collection of studio sessions.

In 1993 and 1994, Squeeze had at least three BBC studio sessions to promote their 1993 studio album "Some Fantastic Place." Most of their performances were later included in their archival album "The Complete BBC Sessions." However, unfortunately, they played some of the same songs multiple times, with barely any difference between the versions. So I've only included one version of each. I believe the songs they played multiple times were "Third Rail," "Some Fantastic Place," and "Tempted."

They went on to release the albums "Ridiculous" in 1995 and "Domino" in 1998. Then they broke up for an extended time. Their next studio album of original material wouldn't come out until 2015. So I wanted material from those albums, but it seems they didn't do any more BBC studio sessions in that time, at least none that I could find. However, they did perform a BBC concert in Cambridge, Britain, in 1998. I thought about posting the whole concert, but these concerts mostly consist of them playing their biggest hits, and I've posted a bunch of concerts like that already. So instead I just took the relatively new songs they played in that concert ("Domino," "Donkey Talk," "Memory Motel," and "To Be a Dad"), plus one older hit that wasn't played in concert that much, "Goodbye Girl," and added it to this album. Since there's a mix of studio and live material, I removed the cheering noises from the live cuts with the use of the UVR5 audio editing program.

So that's why I said up above that this volume is "meant to be a collection of studio sessions," since about half of it actually comes from a concert. But now it plays like all studio sessions.

Tracks 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, and 7 have been officially released on the "Complete BBC Sessions" album. "It's Over" is from one of the exact same BBC sessions as some songs on that album, but it remained unreleased. The last five songs are from that 1998 BBC concert I mentioned above and are unreleased. 

This album is 53 minutes long.

01 Third Rail (Squeeze)
02 Cold Shoulder (Squeeze)
03 Loving You Tonight (Squeeze)
04 Some Fantastic Place (Squeeze)
05 It's Over (Squeeze)
06 Hourglass (Squeeze)
07 Tempted (Squeeze)
08 Domino (Squeeze)
09 Donkey Talk (Squeeze)
10 Melody Motel (Squeeze)
11 To Be a Dad (Squeeze)
12 Goodbye Girl (Squeeze)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/HDu9YBCn

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/T1ElqTZVc7AqDT3/file

The cover photo only features Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook, who basically became Squeeze by this time, since they co-wrote all the songs and were the only two consistent members. It's from a photo shoot in New York City in 1996.

David Bowie - BBC Sessions, Volume 15: In Concert, John Labatt Centre, London, Canada, 5-14-2004

Finally! I posted David Bowie's "BBC Sessions, Volume 1" back in 2019. Now, it's the start of 2025, and I'm posting "Volume 15," the last one. This is another BBC concert.

Bowie lived for another dozen years before dying of cancer in 2016. But he retired from touring in 2004 and basically went into seclusion until coming out with new studio albums in 2013 and 2016. At the time of this concert, he was touring to support his album "Reality," released in late 2003. I previously commented that I'm not a big fan of Bowie's songwriting from the late 1980s onward. I still think he went into a prolonged slump. But "Reality" was a pretty good album, and it got a lot of critical praise. I think he was finding his musical groove again around this time. He would finish strongly with his last two albums in 2013 and 2016, so it's a shame we don't have any concerts from that time period.

Only "New Killer Star" and "The Loneliest Guy" come from "Reality." There are some unusual choices with some of the other songs. For instance, "Sister Midnight" is a song Bowie wrote, but he gave it to Iggy Pop for a 1977 album. Similarly, he wrote "All the Young Dudes," but gave it to Mott the Hoople, who had a big hit with it in 1972. "Cactus" is a Pixies song that he recorded for his 2002 album "Heathen."

Everything here is officially unreleased, as far as I know. The sound quality is excellent.

This album is 59 minutes long.

01 New Killer Star (David Bowie)
02 Cactus (David Bowie)
03 Sister Midnight (David Bowie)
04 talk (David Bowie)
05 All the Young Dudes (David Bowie)
06 The Loneliest Guy (David Bowie)
07 Under Pressure (David Bowie)
08 Station to Station (David Bowie)
09 Ashes to Ashes (David Bowie)
10 talk (David Bowie)
11 Quicksand (David Bowie)
12 Modern Love (David Bowie)
13 I'm Afraid of Americans (David Bowie)
14 'Heroes' (David Bowie)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/P9QohvUM

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/1BWE3bvGL7DPRGT/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert.

Stevie Ray Vaughan - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: In Concert, Apollo Theatre, Manchester, Britain, 6-22-1988

Here's the second of three BBC concert albums by Stevie Ray Vaughan that I plan on posting. 

I have to admit this concert isn't particularly amazing. I wouldn't be posting it if it wasn't a BBC concert. The biggest bummer is that it's only half an hour long. But it does have excellent sound quality, just what you'd expect from the BBC. And pretty much any live Stevie Ray Vaughan is impressive.

I thought about adding some extra songs to fill this out a bit, but I couldn't think of anything that fit. For instance, I couldn't find anything from his trip to Britain in 1988. So I'm keeping it short and on point.

This concert is officially unreleased. There were no problems with the recording that needed fixing.

This album is 30 minutes long.

01 You'll Be Mine (Stevie Ray Vaughan)
02 Tell Me (Stevie Ray Vaughan)
03 I'm Leaving You (Stevie Ray Vaughan)
04 Pride and Joy (Stevie Ray Vaughan)
05 Texas Flood (Stevie Ray Vaughan)
06 Love Struck Baby (Stevie Ray Vaughan)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/EhB6STTR

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/wANtIGTEgHs5Cc6/file

The cover photo is from a concert in the Meadowlands Arena on May 20, 1988, in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

U2 - BBC Sessions, Volume 10: U2 at the BBC, Abbey Road Studios, London, Britain, 11-16-2017

Here is the tenth, and last, album of U2 performing for the BBC. At least the last so far, since they may well give more such performances in the future. This is a short but full concert. And it's one with a twist, since they are backed by a BBC orchestra.

This contains all the music from this concert, but it isn't entirely complete. You see, there was a BBC DJ who led lengthy question and answer sessions with the band members between some songs. In my opinion, those interview sections are good for one or two listens, but not the hopefully many repeat listens one could have of the music. So I cut most of that out. I only kept some of the answers if they fit as lead ins to the next song that was being played.

Also, the BBC has broadcast this multiple times, and included different songs, and different song orders, on different occasions. I consulted a U2 fan website and discovered a list of the true order the songs were played in, which was different from any of the BBC broadcasts. So I rearranged the songs to match the true order. This probably isn't the complete concert. For instance, one of the songs was played twice due to a filming problem. And some of the banter probably got edited out. But it has at least one version of every song that got performed.

As U2 likes to do, there are little snippets of other songs included in some of the songs. I didn't mention the snippets in the set list, because they're pretty short. But they included references to "Starman" by David Bowie, "Love Will Tear Us Apart" by Joy Division, "Invisible," "Father and Son" by Cat Stevens, "All You Need Is Love" by the Beatles, and "Walk to the Water."

The concert happened shortly after the release of the band's 2017 studio album "Songs of Experience." Five of the eleven songs played are from that album. I think that album is a lesser work compared to most of their earlier albums, but they chose the best ones and they sound pretty good here mixed with some older classics.

As far as I know, everything here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent.

This album is 56 minutes long.

01 talk (U2)
02 Beautiful Day (U2)
03 talk (U2)
04 Lights of Home (U2)
05 talk (U2)
06 You're the Best Thing about Me (U2)
07 talk (U2)
08 Every Breaking Wave (U2)
09 With or Without You (U2)
10 talk (U2)
11 Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of (U2)
12 talk (U2)
13 Get Out of Your Own Way (U2)
14 One (U2)
15 Love Is Bigger than Anything in Its Way (U2)
16 13 [There Is a Light] (U2)
17 All I Want Is You (U2)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Boa8RUbZ

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/dn17aGnNDZBa8yR/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. Sorry to bassist Larry Mullen, since I couldn't find a way to crop the picture without cutting him out, due to him being way off to the side.

The Velvet Underground - The Playhouse, Edinburgh, Britain, 6-2-1993

The Velvet Underground is one of the most legendary and revered rock bands of all time. But it seems like their 1993 reunion tour has been mostly forgotten. Maybe that's because the only way most people have of judging it, the official live album that documents it, "Live MCMXCIII," was curiously lackluster. Perhaps this concert bootleg will change some minds. I like it a lot, and I much prefer it to the official album.

Velvet Underground member John Cale considered the official album a disappointment, mainly due to the way it was mixed. He later commented:

The trouble is that we had an opportunity here with the live album to really show what the band sounded like and it really doesn't give it to you. Some of the bootlegs that came out of the tour are almost a truer vision of what the band sounded like than the well recorded one, because the well recorded one really didn't take advantage of the ambiance of the room in the mix of the music. And that's what we were always pushing at. We wanted to fill the room up with this noise. Unfortunately it wasn't quite as present in the mix as I would have liked it to be or others would have liked it to be either.

I wonder what Cale would think about this particular bootleg. I didn't post anything from this reunion tour prior to this, because I thought there was nothing but rough audience bootlegs. But I recently discovered this. It's either a soundboard or an FM radio broadcast. Either way, I think the sound quality is as good or better than the official live album.

Now, let me say a little bit about the reunion tour in general. The two main singers and songwriters in the band, Lou Reed and John Cale, put out an album together in 1990, "Songs for Drella." While they toured together to support that album, they were joined on stage for a single song at a concert in France by the other two original members of the Velvet Underground, Maureen Tucker and Sterling Morrison. That set the stage for a reunion tour with all four of them.

The tour began in Edinburgh on June 1, 1993. This was the second night of the tour, also in Edinburgh. Creative juices must have been flowing, because the last song played here, "Coyote," was apparently written jointly by Reed and Cale mere hours before the concert began. That's according to some banter in the concert by Reed. But that also matches the information at setlist.fm, because it wasn't performed on the first night, and this was the first time it was played in public. 

The tour was a relatively short one, hitting different countries in Europe over six weeks. There was a plan to follow it up with a North American tour, a studio album, and more. But relations between band members quickly deteriorated, and all further reunion plans were canceled at the end of the six weeks. So we're very lucky to have this excellent recording from the second night of the tour, before the troubles began. By the way, the "Live MCMXCIII" was recorded over a couple of nights in Paris, France, about two weeks later. So maybe the band was already in decline by then compared to this night, who knows.

John Cale was only in the Velvet Underground for their first two albums, "Velvet Underground and Nico" and "White Light/White Heat." So, not surprisingly, many of the songs in this concert came from those early albums. But it's interesting to see Cale take part in the songs that were recorded after he left, such as "Sweet Jane" and "Rock and Roll." This reunion tour was probably the only time he ever did that. 

Also, Cale didn't sing lead vocals much at all while he was a member of the Velvet Underground, but he did have a long, successful solo career as a lead vocalist afterwards. So I liked how he sang lead on a few of the songs here, taking vocals that had been done by Nico or even by Reed.

Although the bootleg was excellent in most respects, it did have some problems. The biggest problem was that all but the first minute and a half of the song "I Can't Stand It" was missing. So I used the "Live MCMXCIII" version to patch in the rest. That's why that song has "[Edit]" in its title. Also, in some cases (but not most cases), the applause at the ends of songs was cut off. So I patched in applause from the ends of other songs to give every song a normal sounding ending.

Sterling Morrison died of a degenerative disease (non-Hodgkin's lymphoma) just two years after this tour, so we're lucky it happened when it did. 

This album is an hour and 55 minutes long.

01 Real Good Time Together (Velvet Underground)
02 talk (Velvet Underground)
03 Venus in Furs (Velvet Underground)
04 talk (Velvet Underground)
05 Guess I'm Falling in Love (Velvet Underground)
06 After Hours (Velvet Underground)
07 All Tomorrow's Parties (Velvet Underground)
08 Some Kinda Love (Velvet Underground)
09 I'll Be Your Mirror (Velvet Underground)
10 Beginning to See the Light (Velvet Underground)
11 The Gift (Velvet Underground)
12 I Heard Her Call My Name (Velvet Underground)
13 Femme Fatale (Velvet Underground)
14 talk (Velvet Underground)
15 Hey Mr. Rain (Velvet Underground)
16 talk (Velvet Underground)
17 Sweet Jane (Velvet Underground)
18 Velvet Nursery Rhyme (Velvet Underground)
19 talk (Velvet Underground)
20 White Light-White Heat (Velvet Underground)
21 I'm Sticking with You (Velvet Underground)
22 The Black Angel's Death Song (Velvet Underground)
23 Rock and Roll (Velvet Underground)
24 talk (Velvet Underground)
25 I Can't Stand It [Edit] (Velvet Underground)
26 I'm Waiting for the Man (Velvet Underground)
27 Heroin (Velvet Underground)
28 talk (Velvet Underground)
29 Coyote (Velvet Underground)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/f2j62dqb

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/WKgJXJR7BeX4jH2/file

The cover photo isn't from this concert, but it's close. It was taken three days later at the Forum in London. From left to right, that's Cale, Reed, Tucker, and Morrison. For the band name at the top, I used the art from the official live album.

Paul Weller - BBC Sessions, Volume 11: In Concert, Riverside Studios, Hammersmith, London, Britain, 9-14-2004

Here's yet another BBC album from Paul Weller. This is another concert.

As I've mentioned previously, Paul Weller has frequently promoted his music through the BBC. He's been on the BBC so often that even a 13 disc version of his box set "Weller at the BBC" doesn't include all of the BBC performances he did from 1990 to 2008, the scope of that release. I have posted many studio sessions as well as full concerts that weren't included. And here's another one that didn't make the box set. 

But I think it's a particularly interesting one, since it took place just after the release of his 2004 studio album "Studio 150." That's the only one of his many albums that consists entirely of covers. So naturally, this concert mostly featured covers that he did for that album. That makes it different from other concerts in the years before and after this, which tended to have many of the same songs. Only five of the 12 songs here are ones Weller wrote.

This could be a full concert, though it's hard to tell. Clearly, it was done in a studio (with a small audience) specifically for the radio show. So maybe he made sure to play for as much time as the BBC gave him. Or maybe the edited the show down later. But in any case, he didn't talk much between songs, though he did made a comment here and there.

This album is 59 minutes long.

01 talk (Paul Weller)
02 Hercules (Paul Weller)
03 talk (Paul Weller)
04 One Way Road (Paul Weller)
05 Wishing on a Star (Paul Weller)
06 Close to You (Paul Weller)
07 Hung Up (Paul Weller)
08 Early Morning Rain (Paul Weller)
09 Tales from the Riverbank (Paul Weller)
10 Thinking of You (Paul Weller)
11 Amongst Butterflies (Paul Weller)
12 All Along the Watchtower (Paul Weller)
13 talk (Paul Weller)
14 Birds (Paul Weller)
15 If I Could Only Be Sure (Paul Weller)
16 talk (Paul Weller)
17 My Ever Changing Moods (Paul Weller)
18 talk (Paul Weller)
19 Broken Stones (Paul Weller)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/PRQR3h9L

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/bjxhHPtOLM3TPj2/file

The cover photo was taken at a concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London on March 30, 2004.

The Bee Gees - BBC Sessions, Volume 6: In Concert, BBC Radio Theatre, London, Britain, 3-22-2001

Here's the sixth and last BBC album by the Bee Gees. This time, it's another concert, though a rather short one.

The concert took place a couple of weeks before the release of the band's twenty-second studio album, "This Is Where I Came In." It also turned out to be their last, as one of the three brothers of the band, Maurice Gibb, died two years later.

Naturally, the band played some songs from their latest album. I didn't have high expectations for an album this late in their career, but all the songs sounded pretty good to me.

The album remains unreleased. The sound quality is excellent.

This album is 48 minutes long.

01 Jive Talkin' (Bee Gees)
02 This Is Where I Came In (Bee Gees)
03 talk (Bee Gees)
04 She Keeps On Coming (Bee Gees)
05 To Love Somebody (Bee Gees)
06 talk (Bee Gees)
07 Sacred Trust (Bee Gees)
08 talk (Bee Gees)
09 Wedding Day (Bee Gees)
10 Massachusetts (Bee Gees)
11 I Started a Joke (Bee Gees)
12 How Deep Is Your Love (Bee Gees)
13 talk (Bee Gees)
14 Man in the Middle (Bee Gees)
15 You Win Again (Bee Gees)
16 You Should Be Dancing (Bee Gees)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/NcLpa862

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/jANUQMl2tX4Zf7V/file

The cover photo is from a concert at the Hammerstein Ballroom, in New York City, on April 27, 2001.

Chris Farlowe - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: 1966-1969

A couple of months ago, I posted "Volume 1" of Chris Farlowe's BBC sessions. Then I promptly forgot to post "Volume 2." Luckily, I stumbled across him in my music collection today and remembered. This is more of the same, all BBC studio sessions from the 1960s.

Farlowe was one of those rare 1960s British singers who had some of the soulfulness in his voice of Black American soul singers. This made him very popular around 1965 and 1966, when Britain had kind of a soul music boom. But styles drastically changed in 1967 with the rise of psychedelic music. Farlowe did have one Top Forty hit in 1967 with "Handbags and Gladrags." (Rod Stewart would later have success with that song too.) But after that, the hits dried up.

However, while the careers of other British singers like him petered out entirely, Farlowe would manage to reinvent himself. He would join the band Colosseum in 1970. Its mix of jazz, rock, and blues suited his style. But they would break up in 1971. He then would join the band Atomic Rooster for a couple of years. This BBC collection only concerns itself with his solo music. But I plan on posting a "Volume 3" for when he solo career resumed in the mid-1970s.

Just like with "Volume 1," all the songs here are officially released on the album "Live at the BBC." The one exception is "Knock On Wood" done with Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & the Trinity, which is taken from a TV show. However, once again I've made changes, to focus on the music. I removed the many short interview tracks from that album. I also removed all the instances of BBC DJs talking over the music, of which there were many. Those are all the songs with "[Edit]" in their titles.

This album is 40 minutes long.

01 North, South, East and West (Chris Farlowe)
02 I Can't Get You Out of My Mind [Edit] (Chris Farlowe)
03 My Way of Giving (Chris Farlowe)
04 What Becomes of the Broken Hearted [Edit] (Chris Farlowe)
05 Paint It, Black (Chris Farlowe)
06 Yesterday's Papers (Chris Farlowe)
07 I Just Don't Know What to Do with Myself [Edit] (Chris Farlowe)
08 Summertime [Edit] (Chris Farlowe)
09 Moanin' (Chris Farlowe)
10 Reason to Believe [Edit] (Chris Farlowe)
11 Do What You Gotta Do [Edit] (Chris Farlowe)
12 Knock on Wood (Chris Farlowe & Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & the Trinity)
13 Gemini [Edit] (Chris Farlowe)
14 Dawn [Edit] (Chris Farlowe)
15 That's Why [Edit] (Chris Farlowe)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/M2oswYyK

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/lmQW1I4j648wq7V/file

The cover photo was taken in November 1966. I don't know anything more than that.

Stevie Wonder - BBC Sessions, Volume 1- A Night of Wonder, Teddington Studios, London, Britain, 9-11-1995

Back in 2022, I posted a 2005 BBC concert by Stevie Wonder. I thought that was the only concert he did for the BBC. But it turns out he actually did two more (at least), that I recently found. So this one becomes "Volume 1," the 2005 one becomes "Volume 2," and I'll be posting one that took place after that as "Volume 3."

In retrospect, it's not surprising I came across the 2005 concert first, because it's one of the most popular Stevie Wonder bootlegs. But this one should be better known, because the sound quality and performance are just as good as the 2005. The one disadvantage is that it's somewhat shorter. But it's still over an hour long. 

This has made the rounds as a grey market bootleg under different names. But those usually don't mention that it came from a BBC source, which is probably why it took me a while to figure it out. (By the way, a grey market bootleg is one that is presented as if it's an official release, except it was done without the permission of the artist or the legit record company.) Most versions of this lacked three songs: "Tomorrow Robins Will Sing," "You and I," and "Overjoyed." But I found a version that had them and put them in the correct running order. I don't know if there were more songs performed that just didn't get broadcast.

Earlier in 1995, Wonder released the studio album "Conversation Peace." Three of the songs here come from that album: "Tomorrow Robins Will Sing," "Sensuous Whisper," and "Cold Chill." Note that later in 1995, he released a double live album, called "Natural Wonder." While this was a BBC special with the similar name "A Night of Wonder," the performances are totally different. All the songs on the official album come from concerts in Japan and Israel. Still, not surprisingly, many songs were performed in both. But he had such a deep discography that there are some songs on this one not on that album and vice versa.

This album is an hour and two minutes long.

01 talk (Stevie Wonder)
02 Master Blaster [Jammin'] (Stevie Wonder)
03 Higher Ground (Stevie Wonder)
04 talk (Stevie Wonder)
05 Tomorrow Robins Will Sing (Stevie Wonder)
06 talk (Stevie Wonder)
07 You and I (Stevie Wonder)
08 Overjoyed (Stevie Wonder)
09 talk (Stevie Wonder)
10 Sensuous Whisper (Stevie Wonder)
11 My Cherie Amour (Stevie Wonder)
12 Singed, Sealed, Delivered, I'm Yours (Stevie Wonder)
13 Sir Duke (Stevie Wonder)
14 I Wish (Stevie Wonder)
15 You Are the Sunshine of My Life (Stevie Wonder)
16 Superstition (Stevie Wonder)
17 talk (Stevie Wonder)
18 I Just Called to Say I Love You (Stevie Wonder)
19 talk (Stevie Wonder)
20 Cold Chill (Stevie Wonder)
21 Do I Do (Stevie Wonder)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/wzzwhLvB

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/zpNDcBHgQX5TXqw/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert.

k.d. lang - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: In Concert, BBC Radio Theatre, London, Britain, 4-20-2011

I posted a k.d. lang BBC concert from 2008 here a couple of years ago. Now, I've found a second one. So that one is being retitled "BBC Sessions, Volume 1," and this one is "Volume 2."

I still am not very familiar with most music from lang's long music career. However, I was impressed with the previous BBC concert I posted, and I was impressed with this one too. She most definitely is a talented singer, with a great range.

This concert took place just a couple of weeks after the release of her studio album "Sing It Loud." Naturally, many of the songs here are from it. It mostly consisted of originals, but one exception was "Heaven" by the Talking Heads. That's also performed here.

This concert is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. There were no problems.

This album if 56 minutes long.

01 talk (k.d. lang)
02 I Confess (k.d. lang)
03 Helpless (k.d. lang)
04 A Sleep with No Dreaming (k.d. lang)
05 talk (k.d. lang)
06 Hallelujah (k.d. lang)
07 The Water's Edge (k.d. lang)
08 talk (k.d. lang)
09 Matte Kudasai (k.d. lang)
10 Perfect Word (k.d. lang)
11 Western Stars (k.d. lang)
12 Habit of Mind (k.d. lang)
13 talk (k.d. lang)
14 Heaven (k.d. lang)
15 talk (k.d. lang)
16 Reminiscing (k.d. lang)
17 talk (k.d. lang)
18 Constant Craving (k.d. lang)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/KzTRPDT9

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/uRIFIkUBeIWNzX1/file

The cover photo comes from this exact concert.

Richie Havens - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: In Concert, Glastonbury Festival, Worthy Farm, Pilton, Britain, 6-20-1982

Here's the third and probably last of BBC albums for folk singer Richie Havens. (I say "probably" since there's no telling what might eventually pop up.) It's a concert from 1982.

Back in the early 1980s, the annual Glastonbury Festival was a lot smaller and didn't have the reputation it had later. The BBC very rarely broadcast anything from the festival prior to 1985, but luckily this concert is an exception.

This is not the full concert, but we're lucky to have this much, because I found two separate parts and put them together. The first three tracks are from one source, and the rest are from another. I'm guessing one came before the other, and I don't know what happened in between. The first song of the second section, "Just like a Woman," started about halfway through the song. So I found a different live version, from 1976, and patched that in to complete it. That's why that one song has "[Edit]" in its title.

Everything here is officially unreleased. Havens played the whole concert in solo acoustic mode, as was his usual style then. If there was any banter between songs, nearly all of it got edited out, because there's only a little bit before the first song here.

This album is 53 minutes long.

01 talk (Richie Havens)
02 Nobody Left to Crown (Richie Havens)
03 The Last One (Richie Havens)
04 Just like a Woman [Edit] (Richie Havens)
05 No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Needed (Richie Havens)
06 Here Comes the Sun (Richie Havens)
07 Younger Men Grow Older (Richie Havens)
08 Long Train Runnin' (Richie Havens)
09 Wild Night (Richie Havens)
10 Here Again (Richie Havens)
11 Zodiac (Richie Havens)
12 Freedom (Richie Havens)
13 You Are So Beautiful (Richie Havens)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/r67YZ3fE

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/GKGF2UQUsZ4TSQs/file

The cover image is from this exact concert. I took a screenshot of a low-res YouTube video. Then I used Krea AI to sharpen it up some.

Jimmy Cliff - BBC In Concert, Glastonbury Festival, Worthy Farm, Pilton, Britain, 6-24-2011

Here's reggae star Jimmy Cliff performing at the annual Glastonbury Festival in 2011.

It seems Cliff actually played the festival two other times, in 2003 and 2008. But I can't find any recordings of those. Maybe they'll turn up eventually. And this is the only BBC concert I can find from him, period. 

Also, it seems at least two more songs were played in this concert, "Treat the Youths Right" and "Save Our Planet Earth." But it seems this was all that got broadcast by the BBC, so it's all I have too. Furthermore, the last song, "One More," got cut off near the end. I added some applause from earlier in the show to hopefully give it a decent sounding finish.

This music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent.

This album is 44 minutes long.

01 Introduction (Jimmy Cliff)
02 You Can Get It If You Really Want (Jimmy Cliff)
03 Wild World (Jimmy Cliff)
04 World Upside Down (Jimmy Cliff)
05 Vietnam [Afghanistan Version] (Jimmy Cliff)
06 Rebel in Me (Jimmy Cliff)
07 Many Rivers to Cross (Jimmy Cliff)
08 I Can See Clearly Now (Jimmy Cliff)
09 Bongo Man - Rivers of Babylon (Jimmy Cliff)
10 talk (Jimmy Cliff)
11 One More (Jimmy Cliff)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/PKPXgzEQ

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/u0ybSZiD5TSHfkT/file 

The cover photo comes from this exact concert.

Elvis Costello - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: In Concert, Hope and Anchor, London, Britain, 5-14-1980

Here's a 1980 BBC concert by Elvis Costello with his backing band at the time, the Attractions.

Costello has had a long and great music career. But he probably was at the peak of his popularity around the time of this concert. His fourth album, "Get Happy!!" had been released earlier in 1980. Those four sold well, and still are his highest rated albums according to the crowd-sourced rateyourmusic.com. So this consists of nothing but solid songs.

This album is unreleased. The sound quality is pretty good, but maybe a tad lower than the usual BBC standards. 

Some of the songs here are covers: "Help Me," "I Stand Accused," "One More Heartache," "Little Sister," and "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding." A few songs are missing, all towards the start of the show: "I Can't Stand Up for Falling Down" (another cover), "The Beat," "He'll Have to Go" (yet another cover), and "(I Don't Want to Go To) Chelsea."

This album is 56 minutes long.

01 talk (Elvis Costello)
02 Temptation (Elvis Costello)
03 Help Me (Elvis Costello)
04 I Stand Accused (Elvis Costello)
05 One More Heartache (Elvis Costello)
06 Secondary Modern (Elvis Costello)
07 talk (Elvis Costello)
08 Little Sister (Elvis Costello)
09 talk (Elvis Costello)
10 High Fidelity (Elvis Costello)
11 Lipstick Vogue (Elvis Costello)
12 Waiting for the End of the World (Elvis Costello)
13 talk (Elvis Costello)
14 Don't Look Back (Elvis Costello)
15 Girls Talk (Elvis Costello)
16 Watching the Detectives (Elvis Costello)
17 You Belong to Me (Elvis Costello)
18 talk (Elvis Costello)
19 Oliver's Army (Elvis Costello)
20 Mystery Dance (Elvis Costello)
21 [What's So Funny 'Bout] Peace, Love and Understanding (Elvis Costello)
22 Pump It Up (Elvis Costello)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/rzsyqKKE

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/7c5f8DB1txuW9mb/file

All I know about the cover photo is it's circa 1980.

Spirit - Boston Tea Party, Boston, MA, 10-11-969

Does the album cover here look familiar to you? If you answered "yes," you have a good memory, because I used this exact cover when I posted a Spirit concert back in 2020. All I've changed is the text at the bottom. But today I've deleted that concert from this blog, because it's part of the 1969 Texas International Pop Festival. I plan on posting the entire festival soon, so the Spirit set will be reposted as a part of that. I have a different cover for that version, taken from that festival, so I'm recycling this cover here.

I had previously mentioned there are almost no good live recordings of the original version of Spirit, which existed from 1966 to 1970. The only ones with excellent sound quality are the 1969 Texas International Pop Festival one mentioned above, and a 1970 Fillmore show that I've posted here. But now this concert too can be added to that very short list. It's an excellent sounding soundboard bootleg. I had come across this concert years ago, but I had decided not to post it because it had one major sonic flaw: the vocals were too loud. That's unusual, because I've come across dozens and dozens of concert recordings with the vocals too low, but almost not where they were too loud. And it wasn't just a little bit too loud. No, the vocals went way into to the red.

Back then, that was a killer for me. But since then, audio editing technology has improved. Using the UVR5 program, I split all the songs into two, then lowered just the vocal track to a reasonable level. Luckily, the vocals weren't so loud as to have gotten badly distorted, so this sounds perfectly fine now, about as good as a typical soundboard bootleg from the era.  

There has been some confusion about the date and location of this concert. The bootleg has been passed around with a date of May 1970 from Boston, as well as May 1970 from Seattle. But I looked into this, and found solid evidence that it actually comes from a three date stand at the "Boston Tea Party" venue in Boston on either October 11th, 12th, or 13th.

At first, I didn't know which of the three dates this concert was from exactly. But then I remembered that one song from this show was included on the 2022 deluxe edition of the band's "Twelve Dreams of Doctor Sardonicus" album. The liner notes showed that was from October 11th. I checked that version to the bootleg version, and they were identical, so the whole thing must be from the 11th. And no, I don't know why only that one song was officially released. Perhaps they also had trouble with the vocals, and that song was an exception since it was mostly instrumental. (That version includes a long drum solo, while I have included it as a separate track.) Maybe now the technology exists to fix the vocals, we can hope to see the full concert officially released someday.

The one snag about this recording is that it was missing the last song, "I Got a Line on You." One can tell it's the last song because the very last few seconds of the bootleg are the start of that song, and right before it gets cut off, you can hear the vocalist say "We're going home." I think it's a good assumption that means the concert is coming to an end. So since that song definitely got played at this concert, I found a different live version of it to fit there, from a French TV show appearance in early 1970. That didn't have any applause at the end, but I added in some from earlier in the concert to help it fit in. I carefully edited it to fit with the tiny portion that exists at the start from the bootleg, including the "We're going home" comment. That's why it has "[Edit]" in the title.

Finally, I've added in "1984" from an appearance on the German TV show "Beat Club" in January 1970 at the very end. I wasn't going to do that, but I did add it at the end of the Spirit set from the 1969 Texas International Pop Festival that I had previously posted, and if I didn't include it here, I wouldn't have anywhere else to put it. I also added some crowd noise at the end to help that one fit it as well.

This album is 54 minutes long.

01 It's All the Same (Spirit)
02 Fresh Garbage (Spirit)
03 talk (Spirit)
04 Jealous (Spirit)
05 It Shall Be (Spirit)
06 Poor Richard (Spirit)
07 talk (Spirit)
08 Groundhog (Spirit)
09 I'm Truckin' (Spirit)
10 New Dope in Town (Spirit)
11 Drum Solo [Instrumental] (Spirit)
12 Mechanical World (Spirit)
13 I Got a Line on You [Edit] (Spirit)
14 1984 (Spirit)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/MTM6CP1M

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/Bys4jczs3m6pxEj/file

I was unpleasantly surprised to find very, very few good photos of Spirit in concert from their peak years. I found one good one that from around 1969, but it was only in black and white. I wanted it to have a psychedelic look, so I took a psychedelic background and melded it into the photo. I like how the combo worked out.

Donovan - BBC Sessions, Volume 6: In Concert, Paris Theatre, London, Britain, 11-14-1981

Here is the sixth volume of Donovan performing for the BBC. This is a 1981 concert, with some solo acoustic, and some with a band.

Boy, did I get lucky with this recording! I had been aware of this recording for years. But when I posted the first five volumes of Donovan at the BBC, I avoided posting this one due to sound quality issues. There was a lot of hiss on it, and I wasn't sure how to get rid of it. (One can use noise reduction for that, but it degrades the music too, so I almost always avoid that.) So I decided to deal with this problem later. Recently, here in early 2025, I'm trying to finish off all the series of BBC albums for musical acts where I've posted some already, so I can get to new ones. I was just about to tackle this, when I noticed that someone posted a brand new version of this concert just two days ago, because the BBC recently re-broadcast it. This version had excellent sound quality, saving me the trouble of dealing with the earlier version. God bless the BBC!

In the late 1970s, Donovan's musical style fell out of favor, thanks to new musical trends like disco, punk, and new wave. He generally kept a low profile, living in the desert in California raising his family for a few years and not releasing much new music. This, apparently, was part of his first tour of Britain in six years. Thankfully, rather than trying to ape new trends, like going new wave with synths all over his music, he kept to his old style. This sounds like it could be from 1971 as easily as 1981. That may not have been the popular move to make at the time, but it looks smart in retrospect.

I believe this is entirely unreleased. 

This album is 56 minutes long.

01 talk (Donovan)
02 Sunshine Superman (Donovan)
03 talk (Donovan)
04 Jennifer Juniper (Donovan)
05 talk (Donovan)
06 Lelena (Donovan)
07 talk (Donovan)
08 Universal Soldier (Donovan)
09 Catch the Wind (Donovan)
10 talk (Donovan)
11 Love Is Only Feeling (Donovan with Astrella Leitch)
12 Lady of the Flowers (Donovan)
13 talk (Donovan)
14 Johnny Tuff (Donovan)
15 talk (Donovan)
16 Neutron (Donovan)
17 Hurdy Gurdy Man (Donovan)
18 Colours (Donovan)
19 Season the Witch (Donovan)
20 Mellow Yellow (Donovan)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/XhNmAvDN

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/6mQtzeHHOiLWtlu/file

The cover photo is from 1981, probably from a TV appearance. But I don't know the details.

U2 - BBC Sessions, Volume 8: In Concert, Glastonbury Festival, Worthy Farm, Pilton, Britain, 6-24-2011

I screwed up with the album numbering for a BBC series yet again. But I'll keep on making changes until I get it right. Luckily, in this case, the screw-up only involves one album that I posted recently. There's a new "BBC Sessions, Volume 8" for U2, because I stumbled onto the Glastonbury Festival performance they gave in 2011, which was broadcast by the BBC.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, I'm not that enthusiastic about new U2 music after the early 2000s. But if you feel the same, don't worry, because they only played two songs from their most recent album at the time, 2009's "No Line on the Horizon." (The two were "Get on Your Boots" and "Moment of Surrender," which are fine songs.) Instead, no doubt mindful of the fact they would be playing to a crowd of nearly 200,000 people, many of whom weren't big U2 fans already, they generally stuck to their greatest hits. Although I like the fact that they finished with "Out of Control," a relatively obscure songs from their debut album in 1980.

As U2 likes to do, they slipped in little snippets of other songs here and there. In two cases, I added those to the song titles, because they were fairly significant. I didn't do that for some of the shorter snippet. Those include bits of "Independent Women," "Can't Take My Eyes Off You," "Move On Up," "Rain," "She Loves You," "Love Will Tear Us Apart," and "Pretty Vacant."

The sound quality is excellent. I don't believe anything here has been officially released.

Oh, by the way, if you want to grab the renumbered volume, the former Volume 8 that is now Volume 9, here's the link:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2025/01/u2-bbc-sessions-volume-8-acoustic.html

This album is an hour and 40 minutes long.

01 Even Better than the Real Thing (U2)
02 The Fly (U2)
03 Mysterious Ways (U2)
04 Until the End of the World (U2)
05 talk (U2)
06 One (U2)
07 Jerusalem - Where the Streets Have No Name (U2)
08 I Will Follow (U2)
09 talk (U2)
10 I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For (U2)
11 talk (U2)
12 Stay [Faraway, So Close] (U2)
13 Beautiful Day (U2)
14 Elevation (U2)
15 Get on Your Boots (U2)
16 Vertigo (U2)
17 Sunday Bloody Sunday (U2)
18 Bad (U2)
19 Pride [In the Name of Love] (U2)
20 With or Without You (U2)
21 Yellow - Moment of Surrender (U2)
22 Out of Control (U2)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/zist5mpu

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/ezPndUUGEI882Hi/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. As you can see, it was raining heavily.

Pete Townshend - Who Demos, Volume 9: 1979-1981: Empty Glass & Face Dances

The other day, I got a request to change something about Volume 8 in this series (which I did). That reminded me that I never quite finished this series off. So here's the next one, another collection of Pete Townshend's demos. There's just one more to go after this.

Townshend has made so many demos that I've created two different series for them. One series contains all the demos I could find of songs that weren't included on albums by the Who, or his solo albums. Then there's this series of demos for songs that did eventually make it to Who albums or solo albums. During this time period, Townshend was busy, putting out both 1980 solo album "Empty Glass" and the 1981 Who album "Face Dances." 

Five of the songs here made it to "Empty Glass" in different form. One, "Teresa," would later get on the 1982 album "It's Hard" with the title change to "Athena." I'm not quite sure why "Initial Machine Experiments" got on here instead of my other Townshend demos series, but oh well. The remaining six songs made it to "Face Dances."

Most of the versions here have been officially released. Generally, they came out on the compilations "Scoop," "Another Scoop," and "Scoop 3." Four of the songs that made it to "Empty Glass" were released as bonus tracks on that album. Finally, "Another Tricky Day" is unreleased.

This album is 59 minutes long.

01 I Am an Animal (Pete Townshend)
02 Initial Machine Experiments [Instrumental] (Pete Townshend)
03 Tough Boys [Rough Boys] (Pete Townshend)
04 And I Moved (Pete Townshend)
05 Did You Steal My Money (Pete Townshend)
06 Don't Let Go the Coat (Pete Townshend)
07 Gonna Get Ya [Long Version] (Pete Townshend)
08 Keep On Working (Pete Townshend)
09 Teresa [Early Version of Athena] (Pete Townshend)
10 You Better You Bet (Pete Townshend)
11 Another Tricky Day (Pete Townshend)
12 Cache, Cache (Pete Townshend)
13 How Can You Do It Alone (Pete Townshend)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/oTK1JQQN

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/g463VV9yGio0t7f/file

The cover photo was taken in New York City in November 1981.

The Animals - BBC Sessions, Volume 5: Sight and Sound, Golddigger's, Chippenham, Britain, 9-1-1983

I posted four volumes of the Animals performing for the BBC a while ago. I certainly didn't ever expect to see a fifth volume. But while looking for something else, I stumbled across this. Unlike the previous four, it's a concert (edited down quite a lot, no doubt). It took place during the band's 1983 reunion tour.

Normally, I wouldn't post this, because it's very similar to a live album I've already posted that took place only about a week later. All the songs played here were also played in that one. But I'm posting it for a few reasons. One, it seems very rare, at least as audio files, so I want to stop it from slipping into obscurity. (One can also find the video of it on YouTube, since it was broadcast on BBC TV.) Two, I managed to improve the sound quality by boosting the volume of the vocals in relation to the instruments. (Such a common problem, I've noticed.) And finally, this has excellent sound quality, and there's very little live Animals music available with this level of quality.

Note that Alan Price was part of this reunion tour. He sings one song here, "O Lucky Man."

This album is 48 minutes long.

01 It's Too Late (Animals)
02 Melt Down (Animals)
03 Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood (Animals)
04 My Favourite Enemy (Animals)
05 Tryin' to Get to You (Animals)
06 I'm Crying (Animals)
07 Bring It on Home to Me (Animals)
08 O Lucky Man (Animals)
09 The House of the Rising Sun (Animals)
10 talk (Animals)
11 We Gotta Get Out of This Place (Animals)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/zGaFi6DD

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/bB85SsNStWEUuuK/file

The cover photo shows the band's lead singer Eric Burdon in 1983. I don't know additional details.

Aimee Mann - Hultsfred Festival, Hultsfred, Sweden, 10-15-2001

Really excellent sounding Aimee Mann concert recordings are very few and far between (and she's only released one live album), so when I found one this good, I post it straight away. This is either a soundboard or FM radio bootleg. Either way, it sounds as good as an official live album.

I'm especially happy to find this, because it took place after the release of what I consider her two strongest albums, the "Magnolia" soundtrack in 1999, and "Bachelor No. 2" in 2000. And checking just now, I see the crowd-sourced ratings at rateyourmusic.com also give those two albums her highest ratings. Every song is a winner.

There's not much banter between songs, but this seems to have been all she said. At one point between songs, she mentioned she just didn't feel like saying much.

This album is 55 minutes long.

01 One (Aimee Mann)
02 Choice in the Matter (Aimee Mann)
03 Sugarcoated (Aimee Mann)
04 talk (Aimee Mann)
05 How Am I Different (Aimee Mann)
06 Save Me (Aimee Mann)
07 That's Just What You Are (Aimee Mann)
08 talk (Aimee Mann)
09 Red Vines (Aimee Mann)
10 Susan (Aimee Mann)
11 Ghost World (Aimee Mann)
12 Long Shot (Aimee Mann)
13 talk (Aimee Mann)
14 Calling It Quits (Aimee Mann)
15 talk (Aimee Mann)
16 Wise Up (Aimee Mann)
17 Deathly (Aimee Mann)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ySvpXckk

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/0DymNNKRT9ytRsk/file

The cover photo is from the Rock Werchter Festival in Werchter, Belgium, on June 30, 2001.

Joan Baez - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: In Concert, Dominion Theatre, London, Britain, 5-22-1993

When I posted a "BBC Sessions, Volume 2" album by Joan Baez a few weeks ago, I noted that I probably was missing some other BBC concerts she did. That's still true, but at least I found this one since then. It took place in 1993. 

When I've thought about Baez, I've generally considered her a folk singer in her 1960s and 1970s heyday. But after listening to this, plus another BBC concert I've found from the 1990s, I'm more impressed with her later material. She didn't start out a songwriter, but she eventually grew into being a pretty good one. For instance, her big 1975 hit "Diamonds and Rust" was written by her. And she had good taste in cover versions. So although I wasn't familiar with most of these songs, I thought they were pretty good.

This remains officially unreleased. The sound quality is solid, although this was sourced from relatively low quality mp3s. I edited them a bit, but I couldn't improve things much.

This album is 53 minutes long.

01 Love Is Just a Four-Letter Word (Joan Baez)
02 talk (Joan Baez)
03 Isaac and Abraham (Joan Baez)
04 talk (Joan Baez)
05 Amsterdam (Joan Baez)
06 talk (Joan Baez)
07 Play Me Backwards (Joan Baez)
08 talk (Joan Baez)
09 Strange Rivers (Joan Baez)
10 talk (Joan Baez)
11 Welcome Me (Joan Baez)
12 There but for Fortune (Joan Baez)
13 talk (Joan Baez)
14 Edge of Glory (Joan Baez)
15 Diamonds and Rust (Joan Baez)
16 talk (Joan Baez)
17 I'm with You (Joan Baez)
18 talk (Joan Baez)
19 Forever Young (Joan Baez)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/hVYyh7Nj

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/40ohxEKXgAYFDJ0/file

The cover photo is from the Central Park Summerstage concert in New York City in August 1993.

Dave Berry - BBC Sessions (1965-1967)

I mentioned some weeks back that I'm making it a point of posting the BBC sessions of some less popular 1960s musical acts, since nobody else seems to be doing it and it fits into my larger big BBC project. Tim Rose, Chris Farlowe, and the Ivy League are some recent examples. Here's another one, Dave Berry.

Berry was a star in Britain and some European countries from about 1963 to 1966. He never had success on the charts in the U.S. His biggest hits were "The Crying Game," "Little Things," and "Mama," all featured here. He's also known for the original version of "This Strange Effect," which was written by Ray Davies of the Kinks but not released by the Kinks at the time. It barely scraped into the Top 40 in Britain, but it was a Number One hit in the Netherlands. His star faded suddenly in 1967, when musical tastes drastically shifted with the rise of psychedelic music. So it's not surprising the last BBC session here is from early 1967.

Everything here is officially unreleased. But the sound quality is excellent, since all but one of the songs come from acetates of the "Top of the Pops" BBC radio show, which survived in pristine condition. The one exception to that is "The Crying Game." That's my favorite song sung by Berry (it also was a hit by Boy George in the 1990s), so I was disappointed to see that no BBC session of him singing it survived. So I had to resort to using a version he sang on the TV show "Shindig!" I believe this had live vocals over the instruments from the record. There were a few minor gaps in that recording, but I patched them up with some audio editing. That's why that song has "[Edit]" in its title.

There are a bunch of other songs with "[Edit]" in their titles too. That's due to the usual problem at the time of BBC DJs talking over the music. (I'm looking at you in particular, DJ Dave Matthew.) As I usually do, I wiped out the talking while keeping the underlying music using the UVR5 audio editing program.

Berry wasn't in the top tier of 1960s artists by any means, but if you like British Invasion music, you should like this. Although these are all BBC versions, I think this also basically works as a "best of" for him.

This album is 52 minutes long.

01 Little Things (Dave Berry)
02 Cadillac (Dave Berry)
03 I've Got a Tiger by the Tail (Dave Berry)
04 The Crying Game [Edit] (Dave Berry)
05 Southern Love (Dave Berry)
06 This Strange Effect (Dave Berry)
07 It Ain't Me, Babe [Edit] (Dave Berry)
08 Roll Over Beethoven (Dave Berry)
09 I'm Gonna Take You There (Dave Berry)
10 Just Don't Know [Edit] (Dave Berry)
11 Now [Edit] (Dave Berry)
12 If You Wait for Love (Dave Berry)
13 Hidden [Edit] (Dave Berry)
14 Mama (Dave Berry)
15 Understand Your Man (Dave Berry)
16 My Heart Skips a Beat [Edit] (Dave Berry)
17 Stranger (Dave Berry)
18 God Bless the Child [Edit] (Dave Berry)
19 It's Gonna Be Fine [Edit] (Dave Berry)
20 Forever (Dave Berry)
21 It's So Easy (Dave Berry)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/9sXYvqdj

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/ldDmXhqjicjI6Nl/file

The cover photo is from 1965.

The Guess Who - HSBC Arena, Buffalo, NY, 9-9-2001

The Guess Who first broke up in 1975. This is a concert from a reunion tour in 2001.

Normally, I'm not a fan for albums by musical acts long past their glory years. But this is an exception. One key reason is that the two main creative forces in the original band, lead singer Burton Cummings and lead guitarist Randy Bachman, didn't actually stay together that long. Bachman left the band in 1970. Then he went on to big success with his band Bachman-Turner Overdrive, even having a Number One single in the U.S. in 1974 with "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet." Their reunion in the early 20002s featured Cummings and Bachman together for the first time since 1970 (outside a couple of early reunion shows), which meant Bachman got to play lead guitar on all the Guess Who songs he missed after 1970, and some Bachman-Turner Overdrive hits got incorporated into the set list.

Furthermore, while Cummings and Bachman may not have looked as fit as they were back in the 1970s, their singing and playing was top notch. Furthermore, the rest of the band consisted of members from the 1970s. The one major holdout was Jim Kale, who was the bassist from the band's origin until 1972. In the 1980s, he noticed that the name "The Guess Who" had never been trademarked in the U.S., and he scooped that up for himself without consulting other band members. Then he created a touring group using that name. Not surprisingly, this pissed off Cummings, Bachman, and others. So while Kale didn't take part in the reunion tours, he got a percentage of their profits by allowing them to use the Guess Who name. (In 2024, after many years of legal battles, Cummings and Bachman finally reclaimed the band name.)

This soundboard bootleg sounds great, as good as an official live album. However, note that there is a similar official live album called "Running Back Thru Canada." It was recorded a year earlier at a concert in Winnipeg, Canada. But while the set list is pretty similar, there are unique songs on both. I'm a big enough Guess Who fan to have both that and this.

This album is an hour and 30 minutes long.

01 talk (Guess Who)
02 Shakin' All Over (Guess Who)
03 Guns, Guns, Guns (Guess Who)
04 Hand Me Down World (Guess Who)
05 talk (Guess Who)
06 These Eyes (Guess Who)
07 talk (Guess Who)
08 You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet (Guess Who)
09 Clap for the Wolfman (Guess Who)
10 Glamour Boy (Guess Who)
11 Lookin' Out for Number One (Guess Who)
12 No Sugar Tonight - New Mother Nature (Guess Who)
13 Let It Ride (Guess Who)
14 talk (Guess Who)
15 Undone (Guess Who)
16 talk (Guess Who)
17 American Woman (Guess Who)
18 Laughing (Guess Who)
19 Bus Rider (Guess Who)
20 No Time (Guess Who)
21 talk (Guess Who)
22 Share the Land (Guess Who)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/19RFfoiF

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/Yyv1Ft0MFSDdSFD/file

The cover photo shows Randy Bachman (left) and Burton Cummings (right) at the Radio and Records Convention in Beverly Hills, California, in 2001. They were further apart, but I moved them closer together in Photoshop.

Supertramp - Reitstadion Riem, Munich, Germany, 7-23-1983

I recently got a request to post more Supertramp music, so here you go. I very much would have liked to post a BBC concert from the last tours with Roger Hodgson, who wrote and sang the majority of the band's hits (with Rick Davies writing and singing the rest). However, I can't find any BBC concerts from those tours in 1979 and 1983, so probably they didn't happen. The 1979 tour is already well represented with the official live album "Paris." But there's no such album from the 1983 tour. So this bootleg serves that role.

Here's what Wikipedia has to say about Hodgson leaving Supertramp:

"In 1981, Hodgson moved his family from Los Angeles to northern California, where he built a home studio and began contemplating solo recordings. The rest of Supertramp remained in Los Angeles and the geographic separation created a rift between them and Hodgson; feuding was virtually non-existent, but the group harmony was lost. Hodgson felt increasingly constrained in the group context, and during the [1983 tour] he made the decision to leave Supertramp. He has denied any real problems in his relationship with Davies as speculated."

If you listen to the banter between songs in this recording, at one point Hodgson told the crowd that this was his last concert with Supertramp. That wasn't actually true, since the tour continued for a couple more months. Probably, he said something like that at every concert, meaning this was the last time people in that location would hear him with Supertramp. The rest of the band continued without him (though that's a bit like Pink Floyd continuing without Roger Waters). He never did get back with them for a reunion tour or anything like that.

The sound quality here is excellent, as good as an official live album. This is probably the best sounding bootleg from this tour. There were no problems for me to fix.

This album is an hour and 37 minutes long.

01 Crazy (Supertramp)
02 Ain't Nobody but Me (Supertramp)
03 talk (Supertramp)
04 Breakfast in America (Supertramp)
05 Bloody Well Right (Supertramp)
06 It's Raining Again (Supertramp)
07 Put on Your Old Brown Shoes (Supertramp)
08 talk (Supertramp)
09 Hide in Your Shell (Supertramp)
10 Waiting So Long (Supertramp)
11 talk (Supertramp)
12 Give a Little Bit (Supertramp)
13 From Now On (Supertramp)
14 The Logical Song (Supertramp)
15 Goodbye Stranger (Supertramp)
16 Dreamer (Supertramp)
17 Rudy (Supertramp)
18 Fool's Overture (Supertramp)
19 talk (Supertramp)
20 School (Supertramp)
21 Crime of the Century (Supertramp) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/zcZanQQE 

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/5KxV2E9fdnhDrWF/file

The cover photo shows the band on the German TV show "Auf Los Gehts Los" in 1983.