Rush - Agora Ballroom, Cleveland, OH 12/16/74
It’s a little weird to me that there are so many available Rush shows from 1974, but part of the reason why is the Agora Ballroom vaults, in fact this performance was a rebroadcast on Cleveland radio of the whole show and at least the second of two shows. Fortunately, at least for my ears, the late 1974 material starts to incorporate Fly By Night material and even if I never liked that version of “Anthem” they always knew how to deliver it live. The 70s Geddy Lee voice is almost castrati and while my younger self digged it, it’s a bit earshredding these days. Also, except for “Working Man” and a couple others, I can easily do without the first Rush album. But with all these things said, this is a pretty hot performance and it seems there’s no question that Rush liked the venue. A listen is about all I needed.
The Who - Concertgebouw, Amsterdam 9/29/69
About a month after their Woodstock performance the Who were quickly ramping up to one of their peaks (Live at Leeds would follow a half year later or so), delivering powerful versions of Tommy material and quite a few others. I’m not particularly one for rock operas and don’t rate Tommy or Quadrophenia all that high, but that’s never stopped me from digging live Tommy stuff (I think some of Townsend’s best guitar work was around this time) and just about everything the Who was doing at this period. This is definitely a great performance in itself, but I was a little confused over the fact that the quality dropped enormously somewhere during the second half, making me wonder if only a partial soundboard existed, with the rest being audience. Because that last part was a bit muddy to really glean anything from.
The Beatles - “Alt. Sgt Peppers”
The vast amount of extra-release Beatles material can be pretty confusing, there are just tons and tons of them and I can’t really tell whether one particular version may be of better quality or not. The title evinces an alternate recording of the classic Sgt Peppers album, and while that’s true, it’s also something of a radio show with Beatles related interviews interspersed among the material. As far as alternate versions go, most of these were so close as to be nearly identical to the album, meaning it was all very enjoyable, but the interviews were actually the high point. Also an item where a listen is probably enough to absorb it all.