Air Supply
Seattle Center Coliseum
Seattle, WA
October 3, 1977
JEMS Full-Track Tandberg Mono Master

Recording Gear: Sony ECM-22P Microphone > Tandberg Model 11 Portable Reel to Reel

JEMS Transfer: Master reel > Tandberg Model 11 > Wavelab 24/96 mono .wav capture > iZotope MBIT+ resample to 16/44.1 > iZotope RX 5 and Ozone 5 mastering > Audacity > TLH > Flac

01 Intro
02 The End of The Line > Feel The Breeze
03 Ready For You
04 Love and Other Bruises
05 What a Life
06 Empty Pages >
07 Do It Again
08 That's How The Whole Thing Started


The band:

Russell Hitchcock - Lead Vocals
Jeremy Paul - Bass, Vocals
Graham Russell - Guitar/Vocals
Rex Goh - Guitar
Joey Carbone - Keyboards
Nigel Macara - Drums


Known Faults:
None

Tale of the Tapes and the Tandberg

With Jared�s passing in October 2016, the complete JEMS Archive was moved south from his home up north. That move, sad impetus aside, presented an opportunity, however daunting, to go through and organize the collection. With the help of some amazing friends and experts (among them Slowburn, SS, RD and slipkid68), JEMS tapes are now accessible in ways they have never been before. SG was also on hand to help and fill in our taping history as he always does.

When the task was done and loaded into the truck, one box in particular captured my attention: master reels recorded by SG on his Tandberg portable reel to reel. We�ve posted some 25 or more of these on DIME over the years, but there were several that had yet to be transferred, and still more that Jared had transferred in the last five years but had seemingly never circulated or uploaded.

If you don�t know about the Tandberg, it was a remarkable piece of gear in its day, not only capable of recording at 3-3/4 and 7-1/2 IPS, but in full-track mono. I won�t do the math, but compared to a cassette, the surface area of tape capturing the music is orders of magnitude higher, which is why so many of SG�s Tandberg masters from the likes of David Bowie, Elton John, Led Zeppelin and Bruce Springsteen are considered by some as audience-recording classics. The Tandberg required 10(!) D-cel batteries to operate, is roughly the size of a compact typewriter and weighs more than ten pounds. Imagine sneaking that into a show and your respect for what SG accomplished only grows.

This is the seventh in a series of Tandberg master reels digitized for the first time. Happily, the original Tandberg deck is still fully functioning, so these transfers offer full-track mono playback on the original tape recorder to maximize quality.

I�m not going to claim to be a fan of Air Supply. In fact, I only stumbled into this recording when I was going through some of the transfers Jared had committed to hard drives before he passed. The file was marked Rod Stewart, who was the headliner that night (we�ll be posting that in the coming weeks), with no mention of Air Supply. But when I started to audition the file, I realized the opening act had been captured too. Not only was it Air Supply, but as they announce from the stage, this was their very first US gig. How about that?

And while I don�t care a lick about Air Supply, I have a hunch some of you do, especially circa 1977. That�s what JEMS is here for, to give you the live music we captured.

Like most of SG�s Tandberg tapes from the Coliseum, this is very clear but a bit boomier than some, with a clear �big arena� sound. Still, for a �77 audience tape it is nothing to sneeze at. Samples provided.

The recording opens with an announcement from the promoter explaining why the concert had been postponed one day and thanking the fans for their patience. Those were the days.

Remember, the small file size of this one is because it is mono and a short opening set.

We shared the recording with frogster who sent some additional insights on the performance:

"My godness, we are listening to something historic here. It's not only an early Air Supply recording, but their first US gig ever. They had to make an impression in America and based in this (short but sweet) recording, they did.
The band is at the top of their game! You just need to listen to the vocals in "That's How The Whole Thing Started" and feel shivers down of your spine. A perfect show and a perfect debut in the United States.
About the recording, this one is really clear for the era, sometimes the sound is too loud and overwhelms the microphone a little bit but that's normal and understandable if we take in consideration that this recording is from 1977, nothing too severe to consider it a fault.
Also, kinda ironic that their first song was "The End of the Line" when you'd expect this to be a song to close the show. I'm sure this recording will be a surprise for the Air Supply's fans out there and a new document to the collection of some dedicated ones."


Huge thanks to SG for another amazing Tandberg recording, to Jared for taking the time and care to transfer the master tape, and to Frogster for stepping up to take this one over the finish line.

BK for JEMS