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Audience 7.7 - If you love very loud and raw recordings, like right in front of the PA stacks, guitars BLASTING, this is your show! A lot of the other acts were also recorded, most of them sound distant and thin, not this! Crank it, but I am warning you, this is a sonic ear blast of epic proportions.
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Audience 8.7 - A lo fi recording that astounds you, how can it be possible? It is like a cassette deck recording with one mic but man, it is VERY hot! Blazing electric guitar runs, manic rhythm section, insane over the top music on a cheap portable deck and it smokes. Wow! Torino show is a strong 7.6
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CD 1 - Soundboard 9.0 and Audience 8.7 - The Sparrow show is great, amazing that such an early document was captured so well (by a radio station no less). The Dallas material comes after and is also very good, and at first it may seem it could even be a board tape but closer inspection suggests otherwise but it’s pretty decent. The Baltimore material filling out the 2nd half of Disc 2 is the worst of this collection at an 8.3 Audience rating which is not bad at all really. John Kay sounds very prominent in the mix, guitar and bass pretty heavy sounding, keys and drums kind of washed out a bit, but you hear pretty much all of it nonetheless.
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CD 1 - Audience 7.4 - A much better source tape here for this show, sounds a lot better than I remember it being. It’s still somewhat thin, but the bass guitar is very clear note-wise, just do not expect slamming bottom end. The second show on CD 1 is Soundboard 9.4 - Superb! CD 2 - Audience 7.4 - Similar to the Portland show, with more emphasis on drums, less clarity in the total mix- but heavier low end. CD 3 - All Radio Broadcast 8.8
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Soundboard 9.0 - For those who want to know what Bruce Springsteen was about before he went all FM friendly singer songwriter, look no further than this hard and heavy hard rock jam fest from 1971. I do not like Bruce, I think he’s kind of a big douche, but damn you have to give him props because he is a rock and roll survivor and this early stuff smokes.
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Audience 8.5 - Recorded by French radio, so you would think maybe soundboard or at least multiple stage mics right? Naw, this sounds almost like a bootleg, a REALLY good bootleg recording, but the old reel to reel tape shows signs of degredation…still this is quite good with some flaws here and there.
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Multiple sources used to make up this first volume of the 70’s series. * The first is a really cool 1967 show that is professionally recorded in an amateur fashion. So, yes, a pro recording but whoever engineered it was slow on the uptake, levels are peaked, the mix is funky, oh well, it could have been much better but for a super early Spirit show this is PURE GOLD and the surprise is how jazzy they are here. * The second disc comes from another early gig (1969) from Seattle and is Audience 8.3 for the clarity but has some hiss, and is not exactly hi-fi but you can hear everything very nicely and clear, pretty much, maybe vocals are a little buried but that is all. * Disc 3 is the continuation of the previous plus begins the Chicago 1975 gig (Disc 4) which is Soundboard 8.8 and has lovely atmosphere, and I think it is in stereo, or at least the way it is panned, mimics a stereo effect.