Title: 1981-06-07 Birmingham - Big Al Version

Label: N/A
Catalog #: N/A
Format: 3cd
Source: Audience
Bruce Base: http://www.brucebase.org.uk/gig1981.htm#103
Story Teller: http://www.brucebase.org.uk/stories/070681.htm
Total Time: 2 hours 51 minutes 50 seconds
Date: 7th June 1981
Location: Birmingham, UK

Transfer/Trade and Generation Info: Tape Transfer

TDK D90 and TDK D120 cassettes via "Big Al's Quality Live Recordings" from a UK Record Fair in the early to mid 1980s. It may even have been from a Fair held at the NEC. Unfortunately this was the only show I got from Big Al and wish I had got more.

Playback via Yamaha KX480 tape deck with Dolby Off and play trim at neutral. Recorded using Audacity, exported as flac files and tracks split using CD Wave.

Files tested and checked for errors and SBEs using TLH.

I had great concern from the start about establishing whether this source was already available and this was not helped by the 2 different titles this show has been already been released under. The only source of this show I have located in the collecting community is the one loaded to ABMS for the River Flood and also at Jungleland (earlmv version) which is known as "Birmingham Darling". Based on the content of a file upload which was still recently available in the middle of the BTX MP3 request thread I now know that the earlmv source is also used for the release known as "Here She Comes". On that basis I am assuming that if the source for this Big Al version is out in the community then probably not many people have it and that it is worth sharing.

Included are 3 tracks transferred from another tape which are from the earlmv source for comparison purposes. There are many significant differences with audience chatter and background noise which are clearly audible on these tracks as well as most others. These can be used to easily verify that this is a different version and not a different generation of the same source. These 3 tracks were all provided as "extras" on another set of tapes and on these there is a low level rumble which I suspect may have been mixed out from the earlmv version.

The crowd around the taper is much more talkative and excitable on this version but thankfully not that bad during the music but they do get annoying at times. One of them does relegate Bruce to backing vocals during parts of Sherry Darling. The chatter has its own entertainment value with someone thinking the intro to The Promised Land was Thunder Road and then getting the mickey taken when Thunder Road is actually played. Bruce's pronunciation of Birmingham receives some scrutiny during the Detroit Medley.

Tape changes at The Promised Land into Trapped, at Cadillac Ranch into Sherry Darling and Rosalita into Jungleland. The transitions are not that clean. I intentionally left a gap between Cadillac Ranch and Sherry Darling though someone skilled may be able to splice these for a proper transition. I have no issue with someone with edit/mixing skills making improvements and I dont know how to contact Big Al to find out if he would mind either! I have not yet acquired the editing/mixing know how to have a go and this has already been significantly delayed from when I hoped to make it available.

There is a minor channel balance issue part way through Prove It All Night which may be fixable. For personal listening I prefer to play the 1st cassette with dolby on but was advised that dolby off was the recommended way to go. The second C120 tape does benefit from dolby off and possibly could still do with a minor lift to the treble. The tone for the second tape is different and I have not tried to correct for this even by adjusting play trim. The use of a C120 cassette was very unusual and has probably led to some very minor issues with pitch stability on tracks like Jungleland. Despite the minor issues I think the quality of this recording is still well above average for the cassette recording era.

I have mainly lifted the names below from the earlmv version but it is better to have Jungleland on disc 3 which is what I have done for testing the disc burning. Note that on "Here She Comes" Jungleland also appears on disc 3 so the artwork would work but I did not feel it was legitimate to borrow the artwork for what is a different source.

The total track time is 11 minutes longer than the time given for the earlmv source but the infofile for that version was not amended for the speed correction. The use of a C120 cassette by Big Al meant that no compromises were needed to fit onto the tapes so there are no serious cuts other than for two of three tape ends and these only really impact the applause. It appears this source runs just over 2 minutes faster in total than the earlmv version loaded to Jungleland so speeds are comparable.

Disc 1:
101. Prove It All Night (5.14)
102. Out In The Street (5.08)
103. Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out (4.38)
104. Darkness On The Edge Of Town (5.29)
105. Factory (2.05)
106. Independence Day (9.15)
107. Two Hearts (2.56)
108. Who'll Stop The Rain? (3.34)
109. The Promised Land (6.02)
110. Trapped (5.15)
111. This Land Is Your Land (6.19)
112. The River (6.08)
113. Badlands (5.57)
114. Thunder Road (6.40)

Disc 2:
201. Hungry Heart (4.40)
202. You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch) (3.33)
203. Cadillac Ranch (4.41)
204. Sherry Darling (4.52)
205. Jole Blon (3.26)
206. Fire (3.28)
207. Here She Comes / I Wanna Marry You (9.11)
208. Drive All Night (11.58)
209. Ramrod (4.46)
210. Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) (13.22)

Note Jungleland moved to disc 3

Disc 3:
301. Jungleland (10.17)
302. Applause (1.32)
303. Born To Run (w/ Pete Townshend) (5.08)
304. Detroit Medley / Shake / Sweet Soul Music (w/ Pete Townshend) (16.16)

Extras from alternate source (same as earlmv)
alt 110 - Trapped
alt 111 - This Land Is Your Land (snippet)
alt 208 - Drive All Night

Many thanks to the various people who originally contributed to the River Flood and I hope this is considered a worthy addition to the catalogue of River shows.

Also thank you to the two people who provided me with advice this summer. The way things turned out left me perplexed but I am still greatful for their input.

Due to circumstances and despite being a novice with tape transfers I have had to move this forward on my own. This is the first show I have tried to transfer. In addition I have had to get to grips with the world of torrents from scratch to release this so apologies in advance if I have messed up in any way.