Gentle Giant, Flint, I.M.A. Auditorium, Michigan - 1974-11-06 - aud (52m)

Lineup: Derek Shulman, Ray Shulman, Kerry Minnear, Gary Green, John Weathers

1) Soundcheck (variations on The Runaway/Jam/Cogs in Cogs) (5:03) *
2) The Runaway/Experience (10:54) **
3) Funny Ways (8:31)
4) Excerpts from Octopus (12:46)
5) Plain Truth (14:43) ***

* cuts at 1:00, 1:46, 3:20.
** "For those people who have come out tonight here in Flint, it's nice to be here... For those people who don't want to listen to what we are going to do, don't throw things, it's rather rude"
*** cut at 4:37.

Source: audience master tape > cdr > cdr (EAC) > wav > soundforge 10 (volume adjusted, flaws corrected) > SBE fix (TLH) > flac

I received this on a trade from a friend of the taper, a man named Steve who has sadly since passed away.
It was transferred to CDR directly from Steve's original master tape, and it's a good capture of Gentle Giant in their finest.
"The Power and The Glory" album was just released, but, strangely, the band was not performing any song from that record, and began playing those only by the end of the month, during their European tour. Maybe they hadn't practiced those enough?
Steve also got a small portion of the soundcheck, during which a jam and a portion of "Cogs in Cogs" were performed. That track was not included in the final setlist.
The band was opening for Foghat, a pairing which was described by Kerry Minnear as not ideal and, apparently, the audience reaction towards Gentle Giant was not very warm.
According to Jack Skelly's website, there were two other songs usually included in their usual setlist that were not performed here ("Nothing at All" and "In A Glass House"), likely because Gentle Giant was not the headliner.
The majority of the tape sounds very pleasant, apart from some occasional distortion.
This is a rarely heard show. The tape flip is during "Plain Truth". The soundcheck is composed by three fragments, not one uninterrupted section.

This is what Jack Skelly has to say about this show on his Gentle Giant Tour History website:

"Nov. 6 Flint, Michigan I.M.A. Auditorium opened for Foghat, in comments made the day before with a young fan, Kerry expressed concerns that this pairing would not be ideal and he was proved right. Giant was heavily booed at this gig by the relatively small number of people who even bothered to watch them. when first addressing the crowd, Derek asked that they stop throwing things at the stage. in response to the poor audience behavior, Ray is said to have made "rude" sounds with his bass, directed towards the audience. a tape of the show exists as does a bit of the soundcheck. during this soundcheck, the band can be heard in a bluesy jam, as well as running through an instrumental version of Cogs In Cogs"

The flac files were checked for sbe's and with flac tester. Fingerprints added. Enjoy!