Moby Grape - Rai Congrescentrum, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2-12-1969

Here's a really nice sounding short live radio show by the American band Moby Grape, from 1969.

I recently posted the most complete version available of the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. That contains a short set by the band Moby Grape. Hearing that made me want to hear more of them in concert in their 1960s prime. But then I remembered I'd gone down that road before, and the problem is there just isn't that much live stuff with worthy sound quality. I did previously find some bits and pieces, which I put together as the album "Live 1967." You can find that here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2023/05/moby-grape-live-1967.html

But I took a deeper dive to see if there was anything else I'd missed, and found this concert. The problem was the band didn't stay together for long. It was a gathering of five talented singer-songwriters, which meant five creative types all with their own agendas, so perhaps it wasn't surprising it didn't last. Skip Spence was the first to go after having a mental breakdown in 1968. Then, after the band did a short tour of Britain and the Netherlands in February 1969, bassist Bob Mosley shocked the rest of the band by quitting and joining the U.S. Marines. That left just three band members. They put out one album later in 1969, and then broke up. There were the almost inevitable later reunions, but I wanted a live album of them in their 1960s heyday.

Luckily for us, there's this recording, from that tour that took place just before Mosley left the band. It was recorded by a Dutch radio station, so the sound quality is generally much better than bootlegs of the band from that era. As I mentioned above, I've found bits and pieces, a couple of songs here and there, but this is the closest thing to a full concert from the band in the 1960s I could find, even though this also is relatively short. 

The sound quality was already pretty good. But I noticed the vocals were relatively low in the mix, so I fixed that with the help of the MVSEP audio editing program. For a couple of the songs, the vocals volume bounced around between loud and quiet somewhat, so I fixed that line by line. I believe this now sounds much better.

Strangely, two songs were performed twice, "Murder in My Heart for the Judge" and "Omaha." Also, there's no banter between songs at all. I'm guessing these are highlights chosen by the radio station from a longer concert. If they did an early and late show, which was common in that era, that could explain the repeats. 

This album is 45 minutes long. 

01 I Am Not Willing (Moby Grape)
02 Trucking Man (Moby Grape)
03 Sitting by the Window (Moby Grape)
04 Fall on You (Moby Grape)
05 Murder in My Heart for the Judge (Moby Grape)
06 Miller's Blues (Moby Grape)
07 Omaha (Moby Grape)
08 Murder in My Heart for the Judge [Second Version] (Moby Grape)
09 If You Can't Learn from My Mistakes (Moby Grape)
10 Omaha [Second Version] (Moby Grape)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ktCpK8ch

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/FSEgk1RFFxNrjD8/file

I couldn't find any good photos of the band in 1969. However, I found an interesting looking concert poster headlining the band from that year, specifically at the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco in March. I did some cleaning up, especially at the bottom, cropping it there and adding some text.