ATOMIC ROOSTER
1972-02-12
"Pop Carnival"
Grugahalle
Essen, West Germany


Also appearing: BEGGAR'S OPERA, PRETTY THINGS, DEEP PURPLE, LINDA LEWIS, CURTIS MALDOON, PRINCIPAL EDWARDS MAGIC THEATRE, OSIBISA and 2 or 3 other bands.


INCOMPLETE UNCIRCULATED AUDIENCE MASTER RECORDING

Recorded on: Grundig Portable Cassette Recorder w/Condenser Microphone

ANALOG MASTER CASSETTE(BASF Type I)>CDR>EAC>WAV>TLH>FLAC>DIME

Recorded By;"durian1"

Transferred & Uploaded by: "Lucifer Burns"


Setlist

1. Tune Up & Introduction
2. BREAKTHROUGH
3. SAVE ME
4. A SPOONFUL OF BROMIDE HELPS THE PULSE RATE GO DOWN
5. BLACK SNAKE
6. ?
7. TOMORROW NIGHT
8. (cuts in)GERSHATZER incl.Keybaord Solo/I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends/Drum Solo


Musicians;

CHRIS FARLOWE - Vocals
VINCENT CRANE - Keyboards
STEVE BOLTON - Guitar
RIC PARNELL - Drums



"I don't know if I mentioned this before but with the exception of the Beggar's Opera, this Atomic Rooster and the (before it got stolen from me)
Deep Purple tapes I had never actually listened to these tapes beyond to quickly check how they sounded the week after making them.
Most of my live tapes only got played partially one time after each show (if at all), so they remain in pretty decent condition.
The Beggar's Opera I listened to the most at about 4 or 5 times total back in the day (probably the most I ever listened to any single live tape I ever recorded) and the Atomic Rooster here 2 or 3 times.
I was trying to decide how much I liked them or not (never been the world's biggest Chris Farlowe fan) when it came time for my weekly Saturday outing to the Altstadt in Duesseldorf where I could get one or two records.
And I was debating their Made In England (with the cloth cover) as a potential purchase within the next few weeks (I did eventually buy it btw).

Listening to the Pretty Things tape therefore brought back a lot of memories about this show.
As mentioned previously the sound at the entire festival was not very good.
And for the Pretties in particular it was piss poor.
Now I remember they were constantly having problems with the P.A.
When the announcer comes on for the Pretties the first thing he says is "Finally" (followed by the announcement how 3 days earlier in Hannover they blew the minds of 3000 people etc).
While I stated in one of the other torrent comments that I was good about "shutting the fuck up", at this show my mother would keep talking to me (and with my mother it is best to respond or else she will repeat what she said over and over and louder and louder like a robot with a fried circuit.
So at this festival there is some yapping going on) during the second track at the solo you actually can here me and my mother going back and forth about the sound ("Why are you even recording this and wasting tape - it's nothing but noise?" "Because I like their album".
Later, during the first of many of what appeared to be drum solos "What the hell are they doing now?" "I think it's supposed to be a drum solo". "This would be a nice song if the sound was not so ghastly". "It'd be a nice song if you'd shut up for 5 minutes".
"What did you say?" "I said it'd be a nice song if they turned the bass down" etc).

Songs would start and stop (as one can here) so this or that could be fixed.
Usually by somebody coming onstage with a hammer and hammering away at something or another.
Hence the sudden jamming, drum solos etc.
The audience at this show wanted to rock in the early evening, not listen to very distorted balladry.
FYI: in Germany slow handclapping meant "Get the fuck on with it asshole" and whistling "You really do suck. Please. Stop. Now".
And you can hear a lot of the problems as well as the audience's impatience during the Pretties set.
You can hear some of the technical problems they were having during the Beggar's Opera set as well, were the sound is ok in the beginning but get's progresively worse as their set goes on.

There were longish gaps between bands because of this.
By the time Atomic Rooster came on things were back to sounding similar as they did during the beginning of Beggar's Opera set.
I had never actually HEARD Atomic Rooster before but had heard of them.
I was a big Emerson Lake & Palmer fan, I loved the Crazy World Of Arthur Brown's album so those connections were familiar to me and I had read about their reputation as a great live band in New Musical Express and Melody Maker.
I was looking forward to hearing them. What I was not prepared for was Chris Farlowe. Don't get me wrong: I loved me some Colosseum. I bought a copy of Valentyne Suite for the cover alone and managed to wear that album out (along with the live double) within about a year of purchasing them.
I did not LOVE Farlowe in that band, but I did not hate him either. Within that context his voice worked quite well. With Atomic Rooster, on the other hand, I was not convinced. To this day I remain unconvinced that this was a great coupling lol. I liked the band just fine.
But I found his voice rather irritating within the context of this kind of music.
Especially his Woo-woo-woo bit's.

Maybe it's just me but I think the man sounds better in a band with horns in it.

Anyways... like I said earlier: I ran kind of hot and cold on Atomic Rooster that night but I did like them enough to eventually buy their current Made In England album a few weeks later and start a lifetime of v-e-r-y slowly buying all of their albums one by one.

With regards to the incompleteness of this set: What is missing here is the 30 to 45 seconds (at the very most) that it took me to flip the tape, rewind to the beginning of side two and the blank leader to pass."

~ durian1


ENJOY THE MUSIC!