Peter Gabriel
The Roxy
Los Angeles, California
April 10, 1977
Early show
FM broadcast from master reel -- from JEMS archives
Lineage: JEMS 2014 Transfer: off-air master reel to reel tape > Otari 5050mkII azimuth-adjusted transfer > Sound Devices USBPre 2 > Audacity 2.0 (24/96) capture > iZotope RX click repair > Peak 6.0 with iZotope Ozone 5.0 > re-sample 16/44.1 > Audigy Audio Cleaning Lab* => FLAC front-end (16-bit)
* Audio Cleaning Lab was used to apply the following effects to the source recording:
- Moderate de-hissing and de-noising (adaptive)
- Boost higher range (primarily 13 kHz)
- Boost lower range (primarily 170 Hz)
The mix on the broadcast improved approximately 15 minutes in; the upper registers opened up and the stereo separation improved slightly. I tried to apply additional EQ lightly on the first portion so that the change appears seamless.
Disc one (41:13):
(1) Here Comes The Flood (2:04) *
(2) On The Air (4:07)
(3) Moribund The Burgermeister (4:33)
(4) DJ Comments (0:13)
(5) Waiting For The Big One (7:21) **
(6) "Good Evening Roxy" (1:08)
(7) A Song Without Words (3:22)
(8) DJ comments (0:24)
(9) Excuse Me (3:39)
(10) Solsbury Hill (4:44)
(11) PG banter (0:26)
(12) Ain't That Peculiar (4:50)
(13) PG banter (0:20)
(14) Humdrum (3:55)
Disc two (42:36):
(1) Story of Prunes and Prisms Mating Time (1:26)
(2) Slowburn (5:32)
(3) All Day and All Of The Night (4:32)
(4) Here Comes The Flood (6:05)
(5) Modern Love (4:55)
(6) Band introductions (1:25)
(7) Down The Dolce Vita (8:43)
(8) Encore break/DJ comments (2:11)
(9) Back in NYC (5:44)
(10) Applause (1:25)
(11) DJ outro (0:36)
* 1st 35 seconds patched from alternate broadcast source
** 54 seconds mid-song patched from alternate broadcast source
Info and md5 signature file are included. Sorry, no artwork. Please don't circulate this with the artwork of any of the multiple existing versions of this performance.
Note: There are no fades applied to this recording, so the disc splits above are merely a suggestion. You can split between CDs (assuming you burn to CD) anywhere you wish.
Comments:
In mid-February 2014, "metro_cubo" shared a variety of sources of this famous Peter Gabriel show, several of which are still on the tracker as of this writing (March 2014). This inspired the JEMS team to pull out and digitize an uncirculated master reel from their (apparently bottomless) archives, and they asked me to see what I could do with it. I was happy to contribute what I could; this radio broadcast was widely bootlegged in the 1980s and among the first bootleg LPs I ever bought. The quality doesn't really hold up to the standards of modern FM broadcasts, but I have an attachment to it because I played it to death while I was growing up, and it remains one of my favorite solo Peter Gabriel shows.
The back-story, for those who don't know it -- this show took place roughly a month into Peter's first solo tour; he played two nights (4/9-4/10) at the Roxy in Los Angeles, with two performances each night. This recording captures the early show on the second night, carried live on various radio stations around the United States. According to the DJ chatter, this marks the first attempt at a live nationwide simulcast of a concert performance. You'll hear during the encore break (d2t8) a partial listing of the stations who carried the performance as it happened; it must have been quite a breakthrough to do this in real-time in the 1970s.
Given how closely Peter was associated with Genesis, it's interesting that even on his first tour he chose to focus almost entirely on material from his only solo album, with only one track ("Back in NYC") from his Genesis catalog. The 80-minute set was filled out with covers (Marvin Gaye's "Ain't That Peculiar" and the Kinks' "All Day and All Of The Night") and even an unreleased track ("A Song Without Words," which later became "Indigo"). Listening to this show makes one appreciate what a strong album his debut release was -- there is literally not a weak song in the set.
The performance, like every other show I've heard from this tour, was fantastic, augmented with a top-notch band that featured Robert Fripp (performing under the pseudonym "Dusty Rhodes," who according to legend remained entirely behind a curtain for the whole show). If you don't have any of the multiple releases of this concert (or for that matter, anything from this tour), it's worth the download.
In terms of the recording, it is very good given the era -- but not perfect. The vocals distort a bit during the louder portions, and the mix is kind of shaky in points. Furthermore, there was a fair amount of hiss in this recording (and probably evident in the broadcast itself, given that this source is a master reel that has probably not been played much). The tweaks I made in Audio Cleaning Lab removed the majority of the hiss and surprisingly brought out nuances in the guitars and keyboard; the vocals are still too low for my liking, but overall this is a very enjoyable recording of a great concert.
As noted above, there were two dropouts on this reel which have been patched from an alternate KMET broadcast source that is still on the tracker. I provided a sample of one of them ("Waiting For The Big One") which shows the improvement in quality for this source compared to the version already in circulation.
I'm sure there are dozens of versions of this broadcast in circulation; I can't say by any means that this is "definitive," but am confident that this will compare favorably with most.
Many thanks to JEMS for making this one available to the masses. Mp3 samples are included in the comments.
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