Studio and Live - Excellent source material used, especially the studio stuff. The June 10, 1979 performance is perhaps the weakest tape here but one can still hear all the action from the stage even if it sounds a little far back. Fans consider the Accolades set to be a classic piece, it’s easy to hear why.

Audience 8.8 - Very well recorded, superb atmosphere!

Pro Broadcast 9.3 - Excellent quality!

Soundboard 8.7 - Sounds like it comes from a video source, with some of that compression factor present. For such a major stadium act, there are surprisingly few tapes out there of him.

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.

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

Audience 8.8 - Great stuff, a lot of atmosphere without sounding super distant. Love it!

Soundboard 9.5 - An absolutely marvelous, bright, snappy recording here! Get it!

Audience 9.0 - A very clear and atmospheric recording, no stage banter is lost, in fact this is pretty much in your face presence all the way. Good stuff!

Audience 8.8 - Very nice live sound, slamming kick drums, great vocals, guitars slightly more behind but overall a lovely recording and the best of this tour so far.

Audience 8.4 - Pretty loud and intense recording, sounds close to the stage.

Audience 8.4 - Some tape hiss present, and recorded from maybe midway back in the hall but if you turn up the volume a bit, this actually is very decent quality. Having relatively low recording levels means, essentially, they were conscience of overloading and distortion so they protected against that. You can turn the volume up as loud as you can stand, and it sounds better and better!

Soundboard 9.1

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.

Radio Broadcast 8.7 - The organ sounds killer on this. Vocals up front, mixed for radio.

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.