1972-11-02 [probable date]
University of Dayton [probable venue]
Dayton, Ohio, USA
Low gen. audience recording [probably 2nd gen.]
I asked around and this recording seems to be uncirculated since it's not listed in Christopher Hjort's book "So You Want To Be A Rock 'N' Roll Star: The Byrds Day-By-Day 1965 - 1973". My cassettes were labeled November 1972 and from the talk on the tape it's before election day. According to that book The Byrds played in Tampa Florida on November 1st and in Asbury Park on November 3rd and then were in the studio from the 4th to the 18th. Election day of 1972 was on the 7th which means that this show must have been on November 2nd, assuming that the info on the tape labels and in that book are accurate. So I'm calling it November 2nd until any better info turns up. The recording is definitely from Ohio because Roger says at one point: "Skip's from here - he's from Columbus".
The quality is fairly decent audience for the era and changes in sound quality a few times. The strangest part is that it goes from mono to much better stereo, but still an audience recording, for a few songs: You Ain't Going Nowhere, Well Come Back Home and This Wheel's On Fire. And as Well Come Back Home fades as they apparently start to play My Back Pages, which is on this tape earlier in the set. That would mean that this is actually a compilation of 2 sets. But in any case, I went back to check the original cassettes again and this exactly what is on those two 60 minute cassettes in this order with long overlaps so everything that was copied from the source is as intact as it was on the source. Since I recorded this almost 40 years ago, that's all I know at this point. I first thought that the three better quality songs were from a different show, but that talk by Roger about Skip being from Ohio is between Ain't Going Nowhere and Well Come Back Home. So I'm leaving this as it is and if anyone can figure out any better what's here, all of us will appreciate it. I'll provide a bunch of samples so you can get an idea of the versions of the songs and sound quality.
A lot of microphone handling noises, dropouts and level changes were repaired seamlessly but some minor flaws remain. The deck was paused quite a few times during the show and some spots were repairable while a couple during So You Want To Be A Rock & Roll Star were left the way they were because they were not repairable. The recording was also speeded up by more than a semitone with some variations over the course of the show. I hear the tapers talking about battery issues at one point between songs so that might have something to do with the speed problems also. I attempted to get it all as close as possible and all songs sound like they are in the correct keys now. Please check the samples to decide how the quality sounds to you and of course, if anyone has a better copy or more accurate info - please post it!
disc 1 - 49:57:
101 [03:54] Lover of The Bayou [cuts in as the song starts]
102 [03:36] Bugler
103 [03:38] America's Great National Pastime
104 [03:42] Chimes of Freedom
105 [00:26] Roger talks
106 [02:26] I Wanna Grow Up To Be A Politician
107 [00:16] My Back Pages [false start]
108 [03:22] The Water is Wide
109 [02:24] My Back Pages >
110 [04:14] Baby What You Want Me to Do [with a drum solo that was edited out on my source tape]
111 [00:56] Roger talks
112 [02:49] Mr. Tambourine Man
113 [02:45] Take A Whiff On Me
114 [02:58] You Ain't Going Nowhere
115 [00:54] Roger talks about Skip being from Ohio
116 [07:12] Well Come Back Home
117 [04:25] This Wheel's On Fire
disc 2 - 35:15:
201 [03:27] Roll In My Sweet Baby's Arms [cuts in as the song starts]
202 [04:24] So You Want To Be A Rock & Roll Star
203 [03:24] Mr. Spaceman
204 [05:21] Chestnut Mare
205 [17:23] Eight Miles High >
206 [01:16] Hold It [instrumental outro] [fades as the song ends]
lineage: two low gen. Dolby B encoded Sony CR-60 cassettes (chrome tapes recorded circa 1973) > Advent cassette recorder.
transfer: Nakamichi Dragon (Dolby B decoded) > Pro Tools (flaws cleaned up, speed adjustments, normalization and tracking - no EQ or DNR) > AIFF > xACT (Flac level 8 files with sector boundaries verified).
Enjoy and SHARE!