Anderson Ponty Band 2015-10-30 Ridgefield Playhouse Ridgefield, CT

Anderson Ponty Band
2015-10-30
Ridgefield Playhouse
Ridgefield, CT

Jon Anderson - vocals, percussion, various guitars
Jean-Luc Ponty - violin
Rayford Griffin - drums, percussion
Wally Minko - keyboards
Jamie Glaser - guitar, vocals, keyboards
Keith Jones - bass, vocals

A Kitty Lickin' Discs Production

Disc One
 1. Intro
 2. One In The Rhythm Of Hope
 3. A For Aria
 4. Owner Of A Lonely Heart
 5. Listening With Me
 6. Happy Birthday
 7. Time And A Word/One Love
 8. Infinite Mirage
 9. Soul Eternal
10. Enigmatic Oceans (w. Drum Solo)
11. I See You Messenger
12. New New World
 
Disc Two
 1. New Country
 2. Under Heaven's Door (Never Ever)
 3. Wonderous Stories
 4. Long Distance Runaround
 5. Renaissance Of The Sun
 6. State Of Independence
 7. Jig
 8. And You And I
 9. Keith Jones Bass Solo
10. Roundabout
11. Re-Remembering Molecules (w. Yours Is No Disgrace snippet)
12. Soon

Lineage: SP-CMC-2 > SP-SPSB-8 > Sony PCM-M10 > USB > Wavelab 6.1 > CDWAV > FLAC

Recorded by: Relayer35

Comments: Jon sounded fantastic, and it was great to see him with a real band again. I saw a couple of "School Of Rock" shows about eight years ago, but that wasn't quite the same as a real professional band, and these guys were pretty good. While this isn't the forum to discuss how poorly the Kickstarter campaign was handled, the concert was great and they played everything from the "album". The new takes on the Yes material sounded fresh, with the exception of the reggae version of "Time And A Word" Jon had playing at his solo shows. I could have done without that one :)

This recording took a little more time than normal to get out. The problem was that the recording level dial on the PCM-M10 got turned down to 2 in my pocket. I had it set on 5. It was something that I was worried about five years ago when I purchased the device, but in all that time, it never happened before. I wound up preparing about ten different versions of this, trying to get the sound just right. I hate applying "De-Hiss" filters these days, but I had no choice with this one. In some of the quiet parts, it was hard to hear anything over the hiss. In the end, I took a very conservative approach, because I didn't like the swishiness on my first few attempts. I went back to the quiet parts and applied a bit more dehiss, making sure not to damage the sound in the process. I was not impressed with the sound in the venue. I was in the same exact seat for "The Musical Box" in 2011, and that show sounded fantastic. I don't know if the sound was any better elsewhere in the theater. All things considered, the recording actually came out pretty nice. It turned out, the crowd noise was the biggest issue. There is some audible chatter, most noticable during the first two numbers in the second set. The guy sitting in front of me was a real ass. He was wearing a Yes concert T-Shirt that said "North American Tour 1977". It was full of holes, looked like it hadn't been washed, and probably hadn't fit him in 35 years. His beer belly was hanging out. I almost thought it was an early Halloween costume. I wasn't the only one bothered by him, at one point security told him to be quiet. Later, security asked his wife to stop taking video, which was too bad because they were quiet when they were filming! Later in the show, he lost his cell phone and he thought someone stole it. Fortunately, none of the cell phone stuff is audible on the recording. When you buy a ticket, you never know who is going to be sitting around you and unfortunately I was unlucky this time around.

Artwork is included in the torrent, with photos from the actual show.

PLEASE DO NOT USE AS A SOURCE FOR A MATRIX.
Please share this recording in unaltered lossless quality. If you need to remaster, or something, let me know, and I can provide the undedited raw master (without EQ/volume tweaks) for you to use.


-- MP October 2015

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