Roger McGuinn 1991-04-12 Berklee Performance Center Boston, MA

 

For years now RM has been touring as a solo performer (acoustic or acoustic/electric), in a sort of Storytellers motif: walking the audience thru his career and playing the associated songs in pretty much chronological order. But this recording is notable for being from a brief sojourn (probably his last) with a full electric backing band. While there is not any shortage of recordings from his solo appearances (mostly with the same songs and anecdotes), there seems to be scant (if any?) other documentation of this short-lived experiment (which appears to have lasted only a month or so). Soon RM was back to doing solo gigs, opening for Steve Winwood and The Grateful Dead. And  less than a year after this show I saw him at the same venue again, solo acoustic on a co-bill w. Richard Thompson.

ROGER MCGUINN & THE HEADLIGHTS

personnel:
Roger McGuinn
Steve Connelly - gtr, vox, backing vox
Steve Robinson - guitar, backing vox
Scott Dempster - bass
Danny DiPietra - drums
[presumably: no band introductions]

venue: Berklee Performance Center
location: Boston MA USA
date: 1991-04-12 [April 12, 1991]

source: audience MASTER
recording location: can't find my ticketstub to verify, but if memory serves I was sitting in the R hand side of the orchestra section, aisle seat somewhere between the 5th and 10th row
recording gear:  single microphone (probably AKG 1000E) > videocamera (exact make & model # not remembered)
lineage: 8mm MASTER (pb on same camera as recorded) > Pioneer SG 9500 [10 band stereo equalizer] > dbx 117 [dynamic range restoration] > Sony RCD-W1 [standalone CD recorder, track start IDs inserted manually ‘on the fly’] > Exact Audio Copy [wav files extracted uncompressed] > DeGlitch [files scanned, no glitches detected] > Traders' Little Helper [flac files level 8 created, SBEs checked, checksums created] > torrent creation > www
total running time: 91' 54"
file size: 423 MB
sample rate: 16 bit / 44.1 kHz [CD compliant]
imaging: mono
sound quality: 7.5 (out of 10)
recorded and mastered: Isotope Feeney
title: 'Lytes Flytes
label: Aviaryations
artwork: yes

(audio was extracted from 'listening' CDRs, so there are fades out & in between disk breaks)

01 The Summer Of Love - performed HEADLIGHTS
02 Information - performed HEADLIGHTS
03 Earthbound - performed HEADLIGHTS
04 {enter ROGER MCGUINN}
- - Someone To Love
05 Car Phone
06 You Bowed Down
07 Chimes Of Freedom
08 The Trees Are All Gone
09 Tiffany Queen

10 The Time Has Come
11 Your Love Is A Gold Mine
12 Chestnut Mare
13 My Back Pages
14 King Of The Hill
15 Mr. Tambourine Man
16 Turn, Turn, Turn
17 Eight Miles High
18 So You Want To Be A Rock 'n' Roll Star
19 I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better
20 He Was A Friend Of Mine
21 I'm So Restless
22 Up To Me
23 Knockin' On Heaven's Door

PERFORMANCE NOTES
The Headlights do 3 songs on their own before Roger McGuinn takes the stage. Reminded me of all the blues shows I used to see at Jonathan Swift's, where the backing band would 'warm up' the audience before bringing out Mr. Big. (You just had to hope that the preliminaries didn't end up being longer than the headliner's performance.)

Having a backing band allows McGuinn to reproduce the full sound of his [then] new album Back From Rio. And the RM chestnuts [ha-ha] benefit from the added restitution (drums, backing harmonies, vocal echo &c.).The Headlights clearly did not get this gig simply because they were some dudes who lived down the street from McGuinn in Florida. They provide an appropriately jangular Paisley Underground infrastructure, and are able to faithfully replicate the original arrangements of Byrds classics.

The 2nd encore (4 songs) = just McGuinn acoustic, no backing band.

He Was A Friend Of Mine not often played, possibly included because of the Boston/JFK connection?

WARTS
A coupla instances of audience chatter (people looking for their seats or whatever) but very little. For the most part = the typical respectful --- almost worshipful --- Berklee assemblage.

UP TO ME DEPT.
Please do not upload this elsewhere, or publish a remaster without checking with me first. I'm a control-freak. [Well, a freak anyway.]

Link