Grin - Sunday, May 2, 1971, Sylvan Theatre, Washington D.C., Mayday Vietmam War Protest Rally

From same cassettes as previous two posts. Again, a straight dupe. Again, no fiddling with volume because of drastic fluctuations (soundforge has a "normalize" function that auto-sets volume levels, but it does so for each channel seperately, so I don't like to use it as it inherently changes balance settings too).

To the best of my reckoning, this is an audience tape, with the taper having some kind of intermittent cord connection problems. The PA soundman also appears to be having some mixing difficulty. There are some instantaneous mix changes that come from the PA, which might lead one to believe that this was a soundboard, but a careful listen will lead you to believe otherwise. This wasn't an ordinary show.

This was a historic, and tumultuous event as you can see at the bottom. Who knows what this crowd was experiencing, or hearing rumours of. Military troops were moving onto the grounds at the time. I think you can hear it in the band performance too. It appears to start mid-show...the taper probably hadn't anticipated the time it would take to get through many thousands of protesters and roadblocks, to get to the outdoor Sylvan Theatre area. The band sounds tentative, but the closing performance smokes, if you can handle the sound quality. I think the band wanted to finish and get the hell out of there. One channel virtually drops out for the last track. I suspect the taper is getting jostled around in a huge, packed crowd...and his mike cord is getting wiggled around. Don't think this was a pleasant day on the grass field...it was a massive protest rally, and the crowds must have anticipated some impending reaction from the military, under Nixon's orders. My guess that this is Sunday afternoon, May 2nd (not May 1st) is because of the difficulty the taper and mixer are having. That commotion probably didn't develop until the 2nd. Furthermore, the "coordinator rap" indicates that the officials "expect 100,000 protesters" trying to shut down the government. That shutdown would have been planned for Monday, a workday. The arrests would start Monday morning, the 3rd. I'm pretty confidant of this exact date.

A couple notes:
> On Moontears you can clearly hear backing vocals that are not Gordon or Lofgren. Is it Berberich, or an on-stage guest?
> This is your best chance to figure out the lyrics to Celebration. I'm now sure this is the correct title...it's not called "Thunderbird". The lyrics are about not having much money, but having a celebration, and drinking cheap Thunderbird wine.
> Given the taping problems, it might be worth a listen in mono.

Quite an interesting listen when you know the background, but full of volume variations, dropouts, etc.

Just four songs:

01 - Moon Tears
02 - Slippery Fingers
03 - Celebration
04 - End Unkind
05 - "coordinator of information" rap (that title is, as written, on my track list)

26 minutes total

**** No Grin live material has been officially released ****

Background from Wikepedia:
On Monday, May 3rd, 1971 one of the most disruptive actions of the Vietnam War era occurred in Washington, DC, when thousands of anti-war activists tried to shut down the Federal government in protest of the Vietnam War. The threat caused by the May Day Protests, forced the Nixon Administration to create a virtual state of siege in the Nation’s Capital. Thousands of Federal and National Guard troops, along with local police, suppressed the disorder and by the time it was over several days later, over 10,000 would be arrested. It would be the largest mass arrest in U.S. history.

for more, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Day_Protests_1971