Jackson Browne with Mark Goldenberg
"Magic at the Merrill"
Merrill Auditorium, Portland, ME, 2011-10-05
Grand Tier(1st balcony) Row E Seat 12
Dead center between the flown columns

Edirol R-09 internal mics from shirt pocket 24bit 48kHz no bass rolloff> USB> Audacity 32bit float for trimming> fade in/out> gentle applause peak reduction after"Bright Baby Blues> normalize to -3db> amplify 2db> track splits> TLH> FLAC Level 8

1st set- 59:49

01 Barricades Of Heaven
02 Mark Goldenberg Introduction
03 Giving That Heaven Away (with Mark Goldenberg)
04 Tuning/Story
05 Off Of Wonderland (with Mark Goldenberg)
06 Nothin' But Time (with Mark Goldenberg)
07 Farther On
08 For A Dancer
09 These Days
10 Buckdancer's Choice
11 Don't Let Us Get Sick (Zevon)
12 Rock Me On The Water

2nd set- 80:24

01 For Everyman
02 Looking East
03 Here
04 Our Lady Of The Well
05 Your Bright Baby Blues
06 Live Nude Cabaret
07 Fountain Of Sorrow
08 The Birds Of St. Marks
09 In The Shape Of A Heart
10 The Pretender (with Mark Goldenberg)
11 Running On Empty (with Mark Goldenberg)
12 Doctor My Eyes (with Mark Goldenberg)
13 Late For The Sky


Whenever Jackson Browne comes to the Merrill Auditorium is a memorable occasion and this night was no different except with respect to the fact that Jackson's guitarist Mark Goldenberg happened to be in town and that I captured this one for posterity. Huge thanks to my guests: my daughter, my father, and my good friend Dave Engel (and a respectfully reverent audience) for their restraint applauding and paucity of commentary that allowed me to get this evening for all of us. Recorded from dead-center of the the second to last row of the first balcony (what the Merrill calls the Grand Tier). The sound booth was just one row behind us and a bit forward of us was a condenser mic hanging from the ceiling pointed towards the stage so I'm wondering what Jackson's copy of this show sounds like compared to mine, eh?

I did shift the recorder in my pocket a couple of times to make sure the mics cleared the top of my pocket but it's not too noticeable so I didn't try too smooth any of that over. I did however do some subtle peak reduction to reduce the overall level of the area where I peaked the mics a bit applauding after "Bright Baby Blues" so I could get a more consistent normalization and amplification for the second set to make it more consistent with the first. The levels I got from the raw files were a bit low so after the peak correction on the second set I normalized to -3db then amplified 2db for each set. I haven't applied any EQ, I'll leave that to your personal taste. I find a gentle sine wave shaped curve that sucks out some of the low mids and adds to mid and treble gradually with bit of punch in the preamp works well with this show and really brings out the sound of the instruments and the room and reduces a bit of the boom that I got from the balcony. Although I wish it was recorded a bit hotter I do think the sound of the room and Jackson's interaction with the audience come through well in this recording.

I'll probably seed a 16bit/44.1k version but wanted to get this out for all the fans. So without further ado I present Jackson Browne "Magic At The Merrill" dedicated to my good friend Kelly, who couldn't attend. You missed a good one, Kel...

stonytokes