'Blues Anytime' is a show from April 24th, 1969, at Fillmore West, in San Francisco.
Recorded from the side of the stage by concert promoter Bill Graham, this is an outstanding audience recording of a young Led Zeppelin just blowing the audience away. The sound is crisp and punchy, but Plant is a little far back in the mix as a result of the recorder placement. John Paul Jones' amp craps out during the "As Long As I Have You" medley, and Robert Plant jokes about it via some amusing impromptu lyrics.
Track List:
1. As Long As I Have You
-Fresh Garbage
-Shake
-Mockingbird
-You Can't Judge A Book By The Cover
2. Killing Floor
3. White Summer/Black Mountainside
4. Babe I'm Gonna Leave You
5. Pat's Delight
What equipment malfunctions have you seen at shows?
Really great vocalist in NO (sort of like a modern Sam Cooke), Jon Boutte, is noted for being extremely rough on sound board guys. His sound is not ultra hard to mix since its typically drums, bass, guitar, 3 horns a vocals. But, he's a perfectionist. So much so that for years he had the best gig available in NO for a jazz act, Saturday nights at dba. He voluntarily gave it up for a less lucrative Tuesday night gig at the same spot because he got tired of dealing with drunks in the audience.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, one gig was an outdoor show in NO. Nice sized crowd for it. But, there were an unreal number of issues with monitors that plagued the first 3 songs in the set which prompted all 4'11" of Jon to literally pick up and toss off of the stage every single monitor, and play the rest of the show sans monitors, microphones, or a sound board. Despite that, it was an amazing show.
In the 1970s I saw a series of concerts held on the campus of Occidental University in LA under the banner of the Ravi Shankar Music Circle. The venue was a chapel that was beautiful to behold, but presented certain problems to performers due to its tendency to reverberate in confusing ways, especially for percussion instruments. This was the case when tabla maestros Alla Rakha and his son Zakir Hussain appeared, performing tabla duets in the chapel. In the first few passages, the pair seemed a little off their game, confounded by the slap-back effects of the chapel. But suddenly, Alla Rakha seemed to grasp what was going on and began playing off the echo. And quickly, Zakir Hussain joined in, and magically, the space was filled with the sound of four tabla artists. The audience , mostly Indian expats, swayed in concert with the percussive beauty unfolding before them. So what might have been an absolute cock-up, thanks to these masters' ability to adapt to wayward sounds, turned an ordinary performance into one I remember vividly going on 60 years ago.
ReplyDeleteHmm...in some ways, that's "Frippertronics..." playing with a tape delay...although in this case with the live echo of the room.
DeleteSteve Miller Band, 69 or 70, had effects and instrumental passages cued up on a reel to reel recorder. Tape fatigues, stretches, gets abused and suffers extensive wow and flutter. It was ghastly for the band and the audience that night. One of the worst things I've ever seen.
ReplyDeleteAt an arena concert with The Who in Tempe, Arizona in June of 1980 all of the power went out for several minutes. That included no air conditioning in the desert venue. The band waited it out and returned when the power was restored.
ReplyDeleteMy friend and I waited at the arena exit after the show. We saw someone below exit their car and walk up the ramp from the arena. It was Roger Daltrey! It was just the 2 of us and three other people. He spoke with us for several minutes and signed autographs. Such a cool memory.
On New Year's Eve, 1985, my husband Jerry and I saw Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers at Sweet Basil (a sorely missed Greenwich Village jazz club). This was a nice edition of The Jazz Messengers, with Donald Harrison on alto sax, Jean Toussaint on tenor sax, Terence Blanchard on trumpet, Tim Williams on trombone, Mulgrew Miller on piano and Lonnie Plaxico on piano. After a midnight champagne toast, Art asked “Is there anything you want to hear?”, and about half the room shouted, “Mosaic”, Art laughed and said, “Mosaic it is!”. Just as Art was about to solo, his hi-hat became stuck. His drum tech came out, and couldn’t budge it, and took it backstage, and returned with it a few minutes later. Art thanked the tech and said to him, “Good thing I’m not Buddy Rich”. This cracked-up everyone in the room including the band.
ReplyDeleteOh lawd! That was a great edition of the JM. Plaxico and Toussaint really shined with that group, but have seemingly disappeared.
DeleteWell, this isn't at the show, but we bring this up with my younger brother. The poster for this show was the first big job Randy Tuten did for Bill Graham; it's not one of his best, just a big green avocado that has no connection to the band. They used to hand these out on the street; my 11 year old brother took the poster, flipped it over, and painted on back of it. Hey, poster board was expensive, and the poster was free cardboard. Why not? These days Fillmore posters get pretty good prices...
ReplyDeleteI was doing a roadie thing for Bonnie Hayes and the Wild Combo and spur of the moment Hayes decides she wants to bring the Dickheads on join on a unplanned unrehearsed encore and wants us to clear equipment off the stage; we had no idea what equipment was to remain so of course we're unplugging and moving things that they wanted moved back a few minutes later, so we looked like confused clowns bumbling about the stage.
Went to a free show at Speedway Meadows in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park circa 1969. The headline act was Quicksilver Messenger Service and the Ace Of Cups were the openers. Not having the electrical power infrastructure in the park, the show was run on a generator. The Ace Of Cups managed to blow out that power arrangement mid-set, sending everybody home before Quicksilver could take the stage. Still, it was fun to be a 15 year old getting high in the park with a bunch of hippies and we got double our money back.
ReplyDeleteNever having been a fan in the "old days", my expectations were low for an Alvin Lee-less version of Ten Years After festival set. The bassist/vocalist's amp blew up about 3 seconds into the first number! Smoke and everything! A replacement was found, but what followed had little to recommend it (at least to my ears).
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saw a wall of giant JBL speakers fall into the crowd at an outdoor Faces show in the 70s.
ReplyDeleteLast night, at the BEAT concert in Wolverhampton, Adrian Belew's alternative guitar packed-in. Later, his whammy-bar fell off another axe. Steve Vai stepped over and picked it up, graciously passing it to him. Vintage gear is not without it's problems...
ReplyDeleteI once played guest guitar for the encore with the band we were the openers for, and they did a Wreckless Eric on me. My guitar did not work, they "forgot" to plug me in
ReplyDeleteThe band I was in, which was the shittiest band I ever heard. Four minutes into our exciting warm-up for the Average White Band (pre-first hit), the crash cymbal spun its wing nut and sliced through my bass cable. It made no appreciable difference. Even our girlfriends went to the bar.
ReplyDeleteShittiest? No, you shoulda heard my band "Null and Void" (Willie Nullson & Lloyd Void). We were cowpunk before cowpunk was cool, as the song should have gone.
DeleteGreat stories, thanks!
ReplyDeleteD in California
I attended a Roger McGuinn solo show in scenic Fairhope, Alabama, about 30 years ago. He came on & his amp didn't work. No Rickenbacher! So he played the entire set acoustic with the Ric sitting on its stand, every now & then glaring at the amp disapprovingly.
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