FREE
Carnegie Hall
New York City, NY, USA
25 January, 1971
"FREE PLAY CARNEGIE"
> A Goody Speed/Pitch-adjusted Remaster via Docdondy. <
> A hitherto uncirculated, 2nd gen. analog copy show. <
Audio quality is about vg(+)/3 out of 6, IMHO (mp3 sample in comments)
Comes with fresh contemporary B & W cover artwork (PDF and jpg files).
Lineage: Unknown taper and equipment > 2nd gen. copy out of Larry "Florida Kid's" archive > FLAC > Goody
Goody's additional lineage:
Audition (Pitch Bender, various amounts; Mastering EQ) > iZotope RX10 Advanced (Azimuth adjusted; flutter repaired) > TLH (FLAC Level 8; Align sector boundaries; .ffp) > foobar2000 (tags)
Line-up:
Paul Rodgers (vocals)
Paul Kossoff (guitar)
Andy Fraser (bass, keyboards)
Simon Kirke (drums)
Set List:
01. Introduction 0:27
02. By My Friend 6:11
03. The Stealer 4:31
04. Ride On A Pony 4:27
05. Don't Say You Love Me 5:40
06. All Right Now 5:14
07. Fire And Water 4:13
08. Heavy Load 5:23
09. The Highway Song 5:19
10. My Brother Jake 2:58
11. Soon I Will Be Gone 3:20
12. Woman 3:58
13. I'm A Mover 3:34
14. Mr. Big 7:32
15. The Hunter 5:51
16. Crossroads 6:17
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Runtime: 74:57 min.
Would any FREEnatic believe an entirely uncirculated FREE show would ever turn up after almost 55 years of its recording? And not just another, probably incomplete, shoddy quality show taped at some nondescript den, but Free's only show at THAT Carnegie Hall! My long-time trading mate and personal "low generation god", SERIOUS collector since the 70's, Larry "Florida Kid" Clark, just came up with this tape and was so super-kind and generously shared it. He revealed that he had had this Free tape for close to 40 years and had forgotten that he even had it and had no idea from whom he got it. Signs and wonders, eh? Thanks a bazillion, Kiddo.
Free embarked on their first headlining US tour in Jan./Feb. 1971 to back their then new album "Highway". Alas, both the album and its lead single "The Stealer" bombed in the UK as well as in the US, and there has been endless, and of course fruitless, speculation among us FREEionados why in the world the band dropped out of favour in a blink of an eye. However, when they toured to back that album, they were still full of confidence, hoping to crack the US and there were no alarming signs yet regarding Koss' future drug addiction - though Hendrix's death midway through the "Highway" recording sessions took him particularly hard.
The band were probably at the height of their popularity, so there are at least four recorded shows along this particular tour "out there": The deservedly heavily circulated, ex quality b'cast 20/1/1971 Santa Monica Civic Auditorium show, the so-so incomplete tape from the 22/1/1971 Chicago Syndrome show, the pretty mediocre 29/1/1971 Dania, Pirate World tape - and now finally THIS here, a maybe not pristine quality but very listenable and memorable, full show.
NOT FOR SALE
Trading, swapping, sharing & enjoying only!
PLEASE - DO NOT spread a version of this upload if you stumbled upon it (i.e. "remastering", doctoring, tinkering ), and DO NOT spread this show in lossy formats either, OK? OK???? Thanks!
My most sincere thanks go to Prof. Goody for agreeing to work on this show in an instant, and finishing his awesome job in what felt like just another minute. Your (as always) most meticulous efforts, and the (as always) outstanding results are mucho appreciato, you bet!
Thanks also to my loooong-time, generous and rather knowledgeable trading mates Bob Elliott and Greg Vick (who, BTW, runs the *highly* recommended Tour History website @ https://tourarchive.weebly.com/).
Goody would like to thank Th:-)mas for his most kind words and for initiating the process, and all those others named above as well.
It's been an honor and pleasure to shine this rare gem and get it out into circulation for all fans to enjoy in better quality than it's previously been found. It needed a tune up in more ways than one, and also benefited greatly with regard to wow and flutter repair, which makes these older tapes sound much less warbly when there's flutter. The speed/pitch is back where it belongs again as well and the audio quality is improved overall, with more detail, especially in the vocals, cymbals, and guitar tone.
Uploaded to the R & R Universe in August 2025 for all FREEnatix to ...well, FREEjoyce.
Th:-)mas (Docdondy) with Audio Wizardo Goody.
Images for all shows as well as full size images for this show.
Images for this show:
