Audience 8.7 - Brassy, loud, and guitar dominant recording that delivers where it counts and finds Rory sounding, to my ears, much more rock/metal/grunge even though he features plenty of raw, blues soaked numbers in his set. It’s just that the atmosphere and volume don’t suggest this is a “blues” band blowing through town…I just get the feeling Rory felt the times changing and adjusted accordingly. Either way you parse it, this is high-intensity music, and the recording here really manages to capture that pretty realistically.

Rory Gallagher The Stone Palo Alto, California May 17, 1985 Disc One 01 - intro - Double Vision 02 - Bad Penny 03 - band intros - Off The Handle 04 - Moonchild 05 - Hey Mama, Keep Your Big Mouth Shut 06 - I Wonder Who 07 - Tattoo'd Lady 08 - Mississippi Sheiks 09 - Big Guns Disc Two 01 - Out On The Western Plain 02 - Seven Days 03 - Philby 04 - Follow Me 05 - Shadow Play 06 - My Babe 07 - All Around Man - Bullfrog Blues - Roll Over Beethoven - Route 66 Rory Gallagher Group; May 1981 - 1991: Rory Gallagher - guitar, vocals Gerry McAvoy - bass Brendan O'Neill - drums Mark Feltham - harmonica

 Soundboard 9.2 - A “reference” board mix, clearly…but it’s great. It isn’t going to win any awards for sparkling and atmospheric sound, but it’s a punchy, in-the-pocket sound that marries well with Kansas’ heavy progressive style.

Kansas Springfield Civic Center Springfield, MA. 2nd September 1979 Disc 1 1. Intro 2. On the Other Side 3. People of the Southwind 4. Away From You 5. Point of Know Return 6. Closet Chronicles 7. The Wall 8. Reason To Be 9. Dust in the Wind 10. Angels Have Fallen Disc 2 1. Opus Insert 2. Stay Out of Trouble 3. The Spider 4. Portrait (He Knew) 5. Band Introductions 6. Glimpse of Home 7. How My Soul Cries Out For You 8. Carry On Wayward Son Steve Walsh – keyboards, lead and backing vocals Kerry Livgren – guitars, keyboards Rich Williams – guitars Robby Steinhardt – violin, vocals Dave Hope – bass Phil Ehart – drums

Neunkirchen Audience 8.8 - A large sound, almost feel the sound pressure against your chest on this one! The bass is huge and guitars sit slightly behind creating a sensation of dread, and thankfully the vocals are really placed very nicely in the live sound mix. Definitely the better of the two in this set.

Boblingen 1983 Audience 8.6 The overall sound here is somewhat average but it's actually slightly clearer than the Neunkirchen show albeit more distant and hollow sounding. It really could use some mid-range boost to bring up the guitars but if you have a good system you can attenuate this to dial in your desired EQ. It's not bad, it's just not quite up to prime time and you'll get more satisfaction from the Neunkirchen show in this set.

Audience 8.7 - An excellent 8.7 too! First off let me just say how blown away I am to find a long lost 1978 recording previously un-circulated and in such great shape! Wow man, this is a fantastic find. The sound is pretty beefy for what sounds like an old tape deck, normally you'd expect something either thin as hell or muddy as crap but it's neither. It lacks a little clarity, but it's maybe near the drums and I can tell you guitar sounds clear (maybe a little thin but bass is pretty solid so it picks up the guitar sound a bit) and Ozzy is situated in the middle and can be heard pretty well. A solid tape that will fit nicely in with your collection.

Audience/Soundboard 8.6-9.0 - The majority of the set is very good, audience quality tapes that have a decent enough sound where you can take it easy and not strain yourself trying to hear George rip his leads. I would say the lone exception though might be the Amsterdam tape which is less clear, but even here it's not a trainwreck at all. The board tape from France is good to have, obviously Dokken is clearly the top of the heap when it comes to the 80's "hair" metal bands although I hate to classify them there because they were class musicians first.