Chicago
War Memorial Auditorium
Buffalo, NY
August 1972 (see commentary below about the date)
Audience recording
This terrific slice of vintage Chicago came to my mailbox due to the extreme generosity of fellow DIME member, JackStraw42. Many thanks again, my friend!
A word about the show's date: The date for this show may be August 12, August 13 or August 31, 1972. I've seen all 3 dates listed for the 1972 Buffalo show. (db.etree.org lists this show as August 12, 1972, yet jackstraw42 tells me the date given to him on the discs was August 13, 1972.) Since I'm not really sure which source is right, let's just safely date this baby as "August 1972" and leave it at that.
Next, some words about the order of the setlist...db.etree.org has the following setlist shown for the "8/12/72" show:
Disc 1
01. Dialogue Pts. I and II
02. Poem For The People
03. State Of The Union
04. A Hit By Varese
05. A Song For Richard And His Friends
06. All Is Well
07. Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?
08. 25 Or 6 To 4
09. Questions 67 & 68
10. 25 Or 6 To 4
Disc 2
01. Beginnings
02. Now That You've Gone
03. Lowdown
04. Goodbye
05. South California Purples
06. Saturday In The Park
07. Ballet For A Girl In Buchannon
08. I'm A Man / Drum solo
09. Free
However, the discs I received from JackStraw42 had the songs in a slightly different order, which sort of adds some confusion to the mix. I believe the correct setlist should be as follows (which is how I've named the FLAC files in this torrent):
Disc 1
01. Beginnings
02. Now That You've Gone
03. Lowdown
04. Goodbye
05. South California Purples
06. Saturday In The Park
07. Ballet For A Girl In Buchannon
08. Dialogue Pts. I and II
Disc 2
01. Poem For The People
02. State Of The Union
03. A Hit By Varese
04. A Song For Richard And His Friends
05. All Is Well
06. Piano intro > Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?
07. 25 Or 6 To 4
08. Questions 67 & 68
09. 25 Or 6 To 4 (reprise)
10. I'm A Man > drum solo
11. Free
Reasons for my conclusion:
1. At the end of "Now That You've Gone", the band says they'll be playing "2 sets with an intermission" that evening, and that they'll be playing "lots of things from the new album": I think both of these comments would be made near the beginning of the show (i.e., the second song in my setlist) as opposed to the middle of the show (the twelfth song in the etree setlist)
2. If you can believe "Now That You've Gone" was actually the second song played that evening, the song immediately preceeding it ("Beginnings") would be the opening song, which seems appropriate not only given the song's title, but because Chicago has used it to open many of their shows over the years. Compare that to the first song in the etree setlist ("Dialogue Parts I and II"), which seems like a more curious (but possible, of course) choice to open the show.
3. At the end of "Ballet For A Girl In Buchannon", the band mentions they'll "be right back": This either signals the end of the first set or the end of the show before any encores. Since the band mentioned they'd be playing 2 sets that night, I believe it's more likely that "Ballet For A Girl In Buchannon" ended the first set on that night. Also, announcing you'll "be right back" before an encore seems a little unlikely (not to mention tacky) to me.
4. My setlist basically takes etree's "Disc 1" and uses that for the second set of the night, and tacks on "I'm A Man > drum solo" and "Free" as the likely encores. My attempt at the correct setlist places the red-hot version of "25 Or 6 To 4" (which segues into "Questions 67 & 68" before concluding with a reprise) at the close of the second set, right before the encores. Not only does it make sense to me to see "25 Or 6 To 4" at the end of the setlist; it also makes perfect sense to have the probable encore begin with "I'm A Man". And the band thanks everyone at the end of "Free", so that song does seem to be the final song played that night.
I'll leave it up to you if you want to use/believe my setlist or the etree setlist, but unfortunately I'm unable to fit the entire second set (with encores) on one disc because it exceeds 80 minutes. This limitation forced me to include "Dialogue Pts. I and II", the first song of the (likely) second set, at the end of the first disc.
Caveat emptor: Is the sound quality for this AUDIENCE recording a little rough at times? You bet it is. But then again, please keep in mind:
1. This recording IS from 1972, after all (over 34 years ago!),
2. The legendary TERRY KATH is still in the band (although I realize some folks--like my buddy anglerdog--think Terry "disappeared" after the CTA album), which leads to:
3. There are some BLISTERING performances in this show
4. This show features a quite a nice handful of vintage Chicago songs that have long-ago bitten the dust from the band's setlists, and
5. You're getting this bad boy **FOR FREE**!!!
If you like/appreciate this torrent, won't you please take a moment to post a comment? You may also want to send a PM to JackStraw42 since it was his generosity that allowed me to share this show with all of you.
Lineage: AUD > (who knows?) > CDR > MediaMonkey > WAV > CD Wave editor (slight gap removals and fades) > FLAC Frontend > FLAC
Generously donated to the DIME community by JackStraw42
Uploaded on DIME by TheCommish Jan. 6, 2007
REMASTERING NOTES: I removes some of the hiss and EQd out the overabundant midrange on this a bit. Also there was a "squeal" on the last 3 songs of set 2 that I used a very narrow band parametric EQ to drop out. I boosted the volume 4db afterwards.
-}{eywood