Joe Ely
1998-03-25
Antone's, Austin, Texas

Joe Ely, guitar and vocals
Jesse Guitar Taylor, guitar
Lloyd Maines, steel guitar
Joel Guzman, accordion
Gary Herman, bass
Donald Lindley, drums

This night was *not* the source for Ely's "Live at Antone's"
CD; those songs were taken from a two-night stint on January
22 and 23, 1999. Ely mentions during this concert that the
band is about to leave for Europe, which his concert archive
documents taking place starting on April 2, 1998.

Received in trade, could be a rough second generation or
a third generation to my ear. Thanks to the length of this
set, there are lots of tape flips, and Dallas seems to
have taken place during a tape swap as only the first and
last couple of lines are on this. At some point during the
dubbing chain, someone at least applied fades to make the
tape swaps a bit easier to listen to. There's also a brief
dropout early in "For Your Love."

01 The Road Goes On Forever
02 Working for the Man
03 Gallo del Cielo
04 Ranches and Rivers
05 Behind the Bamboo Shade
06 Nacho Mama
07 A Thousand Miles from Home
08 Letter to Laredo
09 Roll Again
10 Queen of Heaven
11 Up on the Ridge
12 Me and Billy the Kid
13 My Eyes Got Lucky
14 Are You Listening Lucky?
15 Sister Soak the Beans
16 Boxcars
17 Road Hawg
18 (Dallas)
19 For Your Love
20 Oh Boy

Screaming band, high energy, but this was a time when Joe
could have used an editor on both his songs and his set
lists. (Looking at you, "Nacho Mama" and "Sister Soak
the Beans.") Still, it's always a treat to hear Jesse and
Lloyd trading licks, and while there's no Teye, Joel brings
the Latin flavor that was so important to Joe's sound at
this time. Max Baca of Los Super Seven also guests briefly
on the bajo sexto.

The band's hot enough -- in particular Jesse Taylor's solos
and duets with Lloyd -- that this is worth downloading, but
I'll admit that I hope this smokes out a better source that
can replace this. This is still a decent, listenable version
of a high-energy night, but if there are any better versions,
bring 'em out. (And if anyone with real audio editing skills
wants the raw WAV, I'll post it on WeTransfer so you can see
what you can do.)