Bruce Cockburn
Chautauqua Auditorium
Boulder, Colorado
August 17, 2006

Disc One

01. Open
02. Lovers In A Dangerous Time
03. Wondering Where The Lions Are
04. Jerusalem Poker
05. Life Short Call Now
06. Wait No More
07. Dust and Diesel
08. This Is Baghdad

Total Time: 47:32

Disc Two

01. Tell The Universe
02. Put It In Your Heart
03. Different When It Comes To You
04. Last Night Of The World
05. Waiting For A Miracle (+)
06. If A Tree Falls
07. Mystery
08. Night Train (encore)

Total Time: 44:17

Bruce Cockburn – vocals, acoustic and electric guitars
Julie Wolf – keyboards, vocals
Gary Craig – drums and percussion
(+) duet with Sarah Harmer

Lineage:

AT 831s (SP CMC 2 Cardioids) > Reactive Sounds SPA-2 Boost Box Pre-Amp > Sony MZ RH10 HI-MD Recorder > Linear PCM WAV files uploaded USB2 through Sony SonicStage > Minor editing Cool Edit 2000 > tracking, sector boundary alignment, conversion FLAC Frontend 4.1.1.

Original audience recording by Poor_Yorick located 4th row, stage left between center stage and stage left stack. Lavalier mics clipped to my lapel. Had to change mini-discs between Mystery and Night Train.

Thank you for not selling this music or reproducing and distributing it in a lossy format such as MP3. Always a plus to buy some official material.

Comments
Having eagerly awaited this show since early spring, we were not disappointed. Canadian fans will appreciate the fact that we enjoyed a very special evening of exclusively “Canadian content” – and the show was excellent! Fellow Canadian, Sarah Harmer and her band, opened for Bruce. During her set, she shared her personal experience growing up in Ontario and her motivation for writing “Escarpment Blues”. Preserve the internationally recognized biosphere, or quarry it to build roads?

It reminded me of my university days in Montreal when the much-discussed topic of the day was the massive James Bay Project and how the land that belonged to the Cree natives was being permanently altered for the benefit of the power-generating utilities and the energy-hungry U.S. The Cree were compensated, but the question was, at what price to the detriment of their culture?

Almost thirty-five years later, some things haven’t changed, I guess. On a positive note though, Cockburn was just starting out and writing great songs then, and of course, still is. How fortunate we were to see him this night.

Back to the music. Although I did not tape her show for technical reasons, Sarah came out during Bruce’s set and sang a duet on “Waiting For A Miracle”.

I think the harmonies sung by Julie and Bruce were just beautiful, particularly on “Lovers In A Dangerous Time”. Possibly my only missed expectation, and I stress it was minor, was that Bruce only played one song in his encore. I think the audience was prepared to have him continue, but shortly after he left the stage after “Night Train”, the house lights came up, the sound board music came on and I knew it was quitting time.

Chautauqua Auditorium was built in the 1920’s and restored in the 1970s. Nice as it is to see a show, the approximately 1300 seat theater does not have the acoustic properties of a modern philharmonic hall, so some sound is lost and the result can be a somewhat “muddy” mix. For Sarah’s set, this was unfortunately the case. Too bad, as she and her band were good. My wife and I thought Bruce’s set was clearer, and definitely louder as is routinely the case with the headliner. You can hear the treble sound of Gary shaking his pebble-box (name of the percussion instrument?) and the bass is strong, throughout. I was happy with the take I got and made minor modifications to finish the show.

Lastly, thanks to the gentleman behind us (I assume it was a guy) who contributed the loon calls you’ll hear in a few spots. Made me think of a plate of steamers, some corn-on-the-cob, and a glass of beer by the lake in good old New Hampshire. We have lots of nice things in Colorado, but alas, no steamer clams. Tonight, though, we had Bruce Cockburn, and that was enough! Enjoy.

There’s also a JPEG of one of our ticket stubs in the torrent.

PY