Blues Pills
2016-04-27
Melkweg - Oude Zaal, Amsterdam, Netherlands
total time: 76:10

1. intro
2. High Class Woman
3. Ain't No Cange
4. Intro / Black Smoke
5. Little Sun
6. Outro
7. Bliss
8. Astralplane
9. Lady in Gold
10. Little Boy Preacher
11. No Hope Left for Me
12. Elements and Things
13. You Gotta Try
14. Somebody to Love
15. Devil Man


lineage: AUD (by Jerry(19)70) > Aiwa stereo mic > M-Audio Microtrack II (WAV 16/44.1) > Audacity (hard limit on applause, normalize, split into tracks, fade in start, fade out end) > FLAC (16/44.1)


I arrived at the Melkweg in time to see a sign telling me the band had been delayed and the gig would probably start an hour later than planned and I was told the opening act had been cancelled. Apparently they had been checked thoroughly at the English customs, then again at the French customs, and then had to suffer a severe traffic jam. At the beginning of the show they only mentioned a six hour traffic jam, so who knows. People will still pretty relaxed about waiting, although nearing the end I saw several people checking the train times at their phones.

The show itself was amazing. This was my first Blues Pills show and I didn't even know the albums I had (Devil Man 10" and Blues Pills 2LP) very well, but I had goosebumps within 5 seconds into the intro of the first song. A good gig is when I have goosebumps at least a couple of times, this gig I had goosebumps during 5 songs.

During the first half of the set I thought the lead guitar was a bit soft. I knew they didn't have a lot of time for a soundcheck, but the sound guy didn't change anything during the first couple of songs. After that it became slightly better. On the recording he's clearer in the mix so I guess my tinitus is playing tricks with me when being in the audience. Oh, and a loud audience it was! I had to put a severe limit on the applause sections to get a proper normalization result. You can hear on the recording that the lead guitar is not very loud, but the bass, that was so loud live, is not as prominent on the recording, so the mix just sounds better.

Not sure if it's a regular thing for the band or that it had to do with the fact that they were so late, but there was hardly any break bewteen the songs. They did play a full setlist (or so it seemed, the setlist was not written but printed), but all that in just 75 minutes.

Intro and Outro were separate entries on the setlist. The Intro was announced as being a specially written intro to Black Smoke. As the intro runs into Black Smoke I kept it as a single track index. Between Little Sun and Outro was a bit of silence (well, applause but no music) of about one beat so that one was easy to split.

Anyway, I hope to be able to see this band more often as I love their sound.
Enjoy!

Shared by Jerry(19)70, July 2016