Dixie Chicks
New Meadowlands Stadium, E. Rutherford, NJ
June 10, 2010

01-Wide Open Spaces
02-Truth No. 2
03-Long Way Around
04-Landslide
05-Sin Wagon
06-Mississippi
07-Cowboy Take Me Away
08-Hey Soul Sister
09-Long Time Gone
10-Easy Silence
11-Not Ready to Make Nice
12-Ready to Run
13-Goodbye Earl


Sat on the field, right of center, about 200 feet from the stage. Core-Sound High End Binaurals to Sony PCM-D50 (48 kHZ, 24 bit), WavePad Sound Editor to chop and FLAC only.

This was the first outdoor show I've ever recorded, and I learned the hard way about wind noise.

Lately I've been double recording every show with Core Sound cardiods and Core Sound High End Binaurals, both clipped to my glasses pointed forward, running to dual Sony PCM-D50's (clipped to my belt with Noah Photo camera holsters- if you don't know about these check them out, they're great). Ever since I've got the cards I've usually just worked up that recording: I prefer the brighter, crisper high register and the minimum crowd noise the cards provide to the slightly muddier sound of my old Core Sound binaurals.

For this show the cardiod recording sounded very good, but at several points there was wind noise rumbling like thunder. It doesn't occur in every song, and it never completely overwhelms the music, but when it does happen it's pretty distracting. So for now I'm only posting the recording from the binaurals, on which the wind noise is essentially absent. This binaural recording actually sounds quite good, although there is quite a bit of crowd noise on it and it's pretty bass-ey. When I equalize it by ramping up the treble and rolling off the bass on my car stereo it sounds excellent: better than my old regular Core Sound cards anyway. Maybe pointing the binaurals forward gives the highs a little more definition. Incidentally, if anybody thinks they can fix the wind noise in the card recording, let me know, and I will supply it.


Now, about the show itself: I know all the reasons I'm supposed to hate the Dixie Chicks . . . How they have the souls of blue state liberal high culture trollops disguised in Red State boots and jeans, and I guess pickup trucks and stuff. And their crimes against Don Felder (or was that the Eagles?). Oh, right, their crimes against George Bush (I really don't miss George Bush, but I'm not enjoying Obama that much either.) And how they're just flat out Commie Bitches (I get this from sprglde999, who has a Ph.D. in Commie Bitchery from the Raisa Gorbachev Institute of Socialist and Home Economics, Annex, in the five college area, sharing classroom space with Smith College, and I'm taking his word for it. See Torrent #310302 for a portion of his dissertation.)

But the show I was at . . . Well, I didn't see any overt communism, but I recognize that New Meadowlands Stadium is a VAST venue and there might well have been some Commie flags and such somewhere, that I just missed. The crowd seemed pretty enthusiastic, and I'm sure lots of people were from NYC, which is, as everyone knows, full of communists (and Wall Street types: it's pretty much communists on the Upper West Side and Wall Street types everywhere else, except in Williamsburg where the Wall Street types are themselves Communists), but I can't say that's really conclusive proof of anything. What I saw was a pretty good band playing songs people liked, but they seemed sort of weary, and Natalie Maines had surprisingly little charisma. Maybe she was just sad because somebody (Joe Walsh?) had shaved her head in a bout of boozed up hazing at the KGB Bar the night before (hmm, interesting.) But anyhow, she came across as a summa cum laude grad of the Hillary Clinton charm school. I'm just afraid we've worn these ladies out. Let them alone for a while: I understand they've developed an interest in militant Islam, but god knows if it'll ever come to anything the way we're treating them.

Oh, and as far as these files go, would somebody please convert them to mp3 and sell them? I understand that's really lucrative. Just donate what you make to the fight against communism: remember, it's down, but it's not out!