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Audience 8.7 - Is it possible to be too good of a player? I mean, he’s clearly got mastery of the instrument, and the material, but there’s something about a player that gets too close to the edge that excites me, like Rory Gallagher for instance, you know, where it seems at any moment they might just completely take it to the ragged edge – and Joe has a very controlled fire in contrast which is fine, but I need more. Fans will love this performance, he’s clearly at the top here.
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Audience 7.8 - Let me first say this: Why did this album get panned so harshly? I mean, even the band expressed some regret over it. Look, I get that Passion Play may not fit with the preconception of what Jethro Tull’s music is supposed to be, but at face value the music and playing is superior. The fault may have been the accompanying stage show, and maybe if I were to criticize one thing about the compositions would be that they relied a lot on overly dramatic minor key shifts way too often. However that stuff does not diminish the overall content and performance of a fine and unfairly panned album. This CD captures a complete performance of Passion Play in pretty good overall quality with some minor issues here and there. Fascinating!
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Aud 7.4 - Lo-Fi sound to be sure but the upside is that it’s not a sludge wall of sound mess here. Guitar is reasonably clear and louder than everything else by far as it sort of cuts right through this tapes’ audio spectrum. Drums peak through the haze next followed by distinguishable bass notes, and Jimi is remarkably clear as far as hearing every word he sings. Let your ears adjust to the narrow bandwidth and you are going to enjoy this show a lot more. It has many good qualities to offset a lack of sonics. Less loud songs shine through the clouds.
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SDBRD 9.0 and Aud 7.8 - What you have here are two big upgrades. The first is a well travelled sdbrd that had problems that were never addressed, but should have been. Mainly, hiss and uneven volume. Those have been fixed here, and the results are spectacular! The second show was not terrible but got little respect mainly because of terrible tape noise. Thanks to modern technology, that has been fixed. Now, this tape is MUCH easier to listen to, even though it still gets cluttered during very loud passages.
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Aud 6.9 - Not an impossible one, for instance, vocals and guitar are here, although in a not-so-hi-fi form. That being said, the guitar bombastics in this show are second to none. He’s really letting it all fly, so I figure he was getting a good sound from his backline and he was in a terrific mood. Fiery show and worth getting for that alone.
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Aud 6.9 - Not very good, but I think someone has mastered this nonetheless because a lot of the mid band muck is gone, and you can hear Jimi sing! You get his guitar next in this mix, and at times the sun peaks from behind the clouds. I think, if you are a collector, this is of historical importance due to Jimi’s connection with the Southern blues.
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Aud 6.9 - Distant, with only Jimi’s singing and a booming bass audible, except for when Jimi is soloing and then you hear his leads bouncing almost like quadraphonic around the venue. Now, that does add some cool atmospherics, but this tape is for the hard core. Lastly, I can say at least this – Red House sounds much better, and I am sure if someone remastered this tape it would bring out a lot more good stuff so it is salvageable IMHO.