Joni Mitchell
New Victoria Theatre, London, England, 24 Apr 1974 -- tracks NOT broadcast on BBC2 TV

As mentioned on the comments page of "Spring Songs", this complements the audio of the BBC2 TV broadcast, which can still be found here http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=123403. My memory played me false when I said this was an audience tape -- clearly it isn't, and my guess is that this was also recorded by the BBC. The concert was simultaneously broadcast on BBC2 TV and BBC Radio 1 FM in stereo (no stereo TV broadcasts in those days!), and it seems likely that more of the concert was put out on the radio than on the TV (this often happened). There's what sounds like radio interference here and there (12 sec into "Just Like This Train", for example), so it's more likely that this went out on Radio 1 than that somebody nicked it from the BBC's archives. Unfortunately, like the other torrent, this is mono; either the taper didn't have the equipment for receiving in stereo or the signal was too weak -- we'll never know. There's always the possibility that a stereo recording of the whole lot will eventually turn up, which would be nice, but in the meantime at least we have an early 1974 Joni concert virtually complete in pretty decent to very decent quality.

Thanks to the JMDL hub for this; files are exactly as I received them.

probably FM > cassette of unknown generation > WAV > Split in CDWave > flac level 8 in TLH

01 Free Man in Paris
02 You Turn Me On, I'm a Radio
03 The Same Situation
04 Just Like This Train
05 Rainy Night House
06 Big Yellow Taxi
07 People's Parties
08 Blue
09 Help Me
10 The Last Time I Saw Richard
11 Twisted (23 sec snippet!)

--the source tape continued with three more songs, "For the Roses", "Both Sides Now" and "Raised On Robbery", but as these are all the better quality TV tape I haven't included them here.

with The L.A. Express:
Tom Scott, flute & saxes
Robben Ford, guitar
Roger Kellaway (NOT Larry Nash), keyboards
Max Benett, bass
John Guerin, drums

The Divine Miss M
Michael Watts [Melody Maker]
April 27, 1974

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Entertainment, as the critic Ned Rorem has pointed out, confirms rather than challenges. One might comment that there are entertainers and there are blue-blood artists but that the two don't often coincide in popular music.

When they do -- and the temporal clause should be stressed -- you've good reason to believe you're in the presence of something special and rarefied: genius as opposed to talent.

As far as I know, nobody has ever asked for their money back at a Joni Mitchell concert, and that's a fair enough endorsement of good entertainment for you.

At the same time you'd be a pretty boneheaded mutt not to feel challenged by her presence and the splendid mystery of her music.

There's nothing equivocal about shivers bristling on the spine as she hovers into view upon the state and that effortless, crystal voice begins to play upon the sensibilities.

Joni Mitchell is disturbing in a very real way because after watching and listening to her for a while you start thinking she's not just a woman, she's WOMAN, embodying all male desires and expectations.

Small wonder then that a legion of very well-known men have been sufficiently drawn by the siren's call to jump in headfirst after her. So this is the meaning of worship? Like the White Goddess of mythology she beckons, elusive, virginal and not a little awe-inspiring. It must be a trifle terrifying to know you appear that perfect.

Crap, she'd probably reply, because after all she's human and with a well-developed sense of humour, too.

Idolatry is fun but it gets a little wearing after the initial enslavement. Her biggest problem in recent years, one might argue, has been to convince us that she's not Lady Madonna, children at her feet, and not for that matter a latter-day Joan Baez for the pure of heart.

Still, the mystique persists, and it's not just confined to male fantasies and communicants. Without her ever having made much outright comment on it, ardent feminists inevitably tend to see her as the patron saint of Lib, finding all the justification they need in the barely oblique autobiography of her albums.

Therein lie exposed all her innermost thoughts and feelings, her psychic and sexual wrestlings with the male species that she's at pains never to divulge in any journalistic context. A true paradox.

For her part she retires to some private world, there to view the outside happenings with a deep and discerning detachment. She laughs a lot -- girlishly, even -- but I should think, from the few occasions I've seen her away from the public platform, she's careful to keep her guard up.

For a woman so obviously sensitised by her experiences it must be necessary; flippant posturing and brassy panache are not weapons in her armoury. Ms. Midler and Ms. Streisand find no echoes.

Dory Previn can turn it into tragi-comedy, play Woody Allen from the safety of the psycho-analyst's couch, but Joni always makes us feel her soul is on the line. It's all rather confusing for a mere mortal male: the protective instinct met head on by her sensual authoritativeness.

But quite evidently, something has changed of late, for her concert appearances such as Saturday's at London's New Victoria theatre, are now much less solemnly artistic than in the past.

She no longer even resembles the old coffee-house folksinger, with long blonde hair brushing shoulders and eyebrows; it's curled and finessed, and her cheeks glow with make-up.

Her manager, Elliott Roberts, laughs as you remark upon this. "Well," he says, "she's a woman!" Undeniably, but the effect is somehow less ethereal. And then there's a band around her for the first time, Tom Scott's L.A. Express, filling the emptiness and silence between the grand piano, the acoustic guitar and Appalachian harp.

Joni actually rocking out with some funky chicken, Joni closing the show with Annie Ross's little exercise in lingual humour, "Twisted." Joni cracking wry jokes. Joni elaborating long stories to her audience as preludes to her songs, and even -- for her pains -- coming in for the affectionate rebuke of "speed freak" from some guy out there in the crowd.

Joni, finally, somewhat more in evidence as the entertainer, as well as the artist, and suddenly the sharp realisation for this listener of the gap in time and emotion between a song's composition and its public performance, and in particular the extent of her professional skill in pulling out that original emotion. Yes, she was as great as ever, but her performance was doubly interesting for the way the new situation threw light on her artistic functioning.

In "The Same Situation" she muffed the second stanza, stopped and laughed broadly, then explained via the piano how she was confusing the particular passage with a new melody she was working on; eventually she went back to the song and performed it with such conviction and sincerity that it might have been the freshest thing she'd written.

She preceded "People's Parties" by a wickedly intelligent and humourous rap about the incident from which it sprang, complete with dissertation on the significance of Nixon's facial expressions. And then she illuminated a song about her mistrust of materialism, together with critics and the music industry, with a completely evocative tale about ascetic existence in British Columbia and the humanistic qualities of the arbutus tree that grows there!

These virtual self-parables and the evident disregard for the private mask made her more accessible than she's ever seemed. Contrast this attitude with the incommunicado stance of Dylan, the male artist whose stature she most closely approaches, and one can't help but feel her performances gain from it.

On the other hand, perhaps, by featuring a band, she never built up and sustained the deepest intimacy of atmosphere that she's often achieved before with just an acoustic and a piano. But it was time for her to devise a new mode of presentation, and in the L.A. Express she couldn't have found finer instruments.

If anything they helped to concentrate attention on the arranging side of her talents. For instance, that usually delicate song "Woodstock" was here translated into a piece of funk, with snapping snare work from John Guerin and the deep, churning Fender of Max Bennett. It didn't quite suit the lyrics, but what WERE you to do with a four-year old hippie anthem?

The LA. Express perform a similar kind of function for Joni as the Section did for James Taylor: they're both an independent unit and a backup band.

But the Section don't have quite the same degree of intensity and virtuosity. As the L.A. Express went through a short warm-up set for Joni it gradually began to dawn upon us that they weren't just B-movie filler material for the great extravaganza. Not that the presence of Robben Ford, the guitarist last seen here with Jimmy Witherspoon, would suggest that. Though the context didn't allow for much in the way of real soloing, his gifts were always apparent in deft touches and complements, and his enthusiasm -- his body jiggling around and long hair flapping -- was infectious.

Roger Kellaway on electric piano had one roaring solo on "Raised on Robbery," and Tom Scott played a variety of parts on saxes, flute and clarinet -- a lovely, wistful sign-off on "For Free" -- but the essence of their role was its selflessness, just as their inclinations were obviously towards jazz. And for Joni's music they were perfect, gilding the lily at exactly the right junctures and taking the edge off the occasional austerity of her live performance.

Now, too, Joni seems able to laugh at herself more -- at the public image of her. In "For Free" she could slip in a sly reference to not just one or two but "16 gentlemen" lovers, an indication of her self-confidence and maturity. Again, the gentle humour of her public self, the optimism of her onstage presence, contrasted with the disquiet and virtual despair of her records. Ultimately, you're forced to admit, she remains a cool and beautiful enigma, all the more so with a new style of performance that stresses her easiness of manner.

For Saturday's performance did, indeed, confirm and challenge one's feelings about her, and at the risk of being accused of critical overkill, I'd say she's just about the most fascinating and involving artist of the times. She's found a uniquely personal way of transcending the rock idiom whilst retaining the rock audience. What's more she's undisputedly an artist of the future, who's yet to hit anything like a peak. She's got everything she needs, she's an artist . . . she don't look back.

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From Folk Waif to Rock & Roll Lady
Rob Mackie [Sounds]
April 27, 1974

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Joni Mitchell's first appearance in Britain with a band was a triumph.

Joni's last appearance here was for a Festival Hall show where the sound came through as if it was being transmitted on short wave radio from Mars by a Martian eating a giant bowl of Rice Krispies.

Understandably she'd come across as a nervous, rather fragile lady embarrassed by the spaces between songs -- as breakable as a guitar string that's been strung a little too tautly.

The difference couldn't have been more complete. At The New Victoria Theatre on Saturday night, the sound was excellent, and, as on Joni's last two albums, the gaps that used to be left to your imagination are now filled with a superlatively appropriate band who do the job a lot better than my imagination. I have to admit it.

Miss Mitchell seems to have changed in much the same way as her music, to judge from her stage persona. Striding onstage in a loose-fitting top, jeans, centre-parting and rather more make-up than she used to wear, Joni looks a little larder and tougher, and a whole lot freer. Confident for sure. Folk waif into rock and roll lady, happy to let things roll along.

This time, she was enjoying herself instead of trying to pass some kind of test.

Since Bob Dylan took to stages to meet the folkie purists' hostility with The Band about eight years ago, solo acoustic performers have been turning themselves into bands as soon as they could afford to. Joni's one of the last to get around to it, but now that she's made the step, it's hard to see how she could have waited so long: Joni's voice is so much stronger for the backdrop. It's like a puppy can have a lot of fun playing with you and chasing the ball or the stick, but when you see him frisking with another puppy, it's a whole different ball-game. Joni's voice stands up now like a proud confident instrument in the knowledge that there's a whole pack of other instruments to bounce off.

Right off, she was trading off Robben Ford's guitar quite beautifully in the second number, "You Turn Me On, I'm A Radio," lilting and whooping without a sign of strain.

Robben Ford was the guitarist who amazed a lot of people when he was playing in Jimmy Witherspoon's band supporting Eric Burdon in the armpit of the Marquee. If that band proved his technique and ability to dominate a band, Saturday's concert proved he's equally capable of hanging back and throwing in just the right phrase at the right time.

Ford apart, this was the band that provided the main part of the accompaniment on "Court And Spark": leader Tom Scott on various woodwinds and reeds, and once even a triangle; with Melanie's arranger/keyboard man Roger Kellaway (also a new addition), Max Bennett on Fender bass and John Guerin on drums.

The band played their own set first, which provided much flexing of instrumental muscles, but not a great amount of corporate inspiration, at least until a Coltrane composition which gave Scott, Kellaway and Ford their heads.

But the entrance of Joni with her amplified acoustic guitar seemed to provide everyone with a place and a purpose, and they played superbly throughout the night, leading off aptly with "This Flight Tonight." Then to "Radio," with the band providing a good blare at the right moments, and the lighting hitting bright red to point up the fact.

Then with little ado, it was right into "Court And Spark" with "Free Man In Paris" and "The Same Situation," archetypal Joni lines here -- "Tethered to a ringing telephone in a room full of mirrors/A pretty girl in your bathroom, checking out her sex appeal." Like Dory Previn, Joni always has those lemon-haired ladies just next door, birds of prey, and her situations always ring true.

Listening to her albums over all those years since I picked up the first one by ferreting through a rack years ago, when she was just an oddity on Frank Sinatra's label, has its ups and downs. It's a little like living next door in the canyon -- one day she's round smiling with a bottle of champagne and the next she looks just awful and you have to put the black coffee on the stove and sometimes she's a little too close for comfort and wants a little too much advice. But it's always worth it, and the amazing thing is that every one of those golden eggs in the nest is actually better, deeper, more lasting than the last one. I don't think anyone else has managed that over the same period of time.

She gets a little lost in the middle of "The Same Situation" -- the only time during the whole concert -- but it worries her not at all. She doodles a little on the piano, shouts to the band, "OK, on your spots," and we're off again -- like a lot of the numbers, it starts off solo and gets gradually embellished.

"I used to count lover like railroad cars, I counted them on my side/Lately I don't count on nothing, I just let things slide," she sings, and maybe it's giving her time to get the music even that much better.

The older songs are approached with a slightly cool reappraisal in the new light of the band and of other experiences, slightly muted jazz-accented funk. At times, L.A. Express sound a lot like the sound the Section put together for Carole King. When she sings "Both Sides Now," she sings "I look at life that way, sometimes still!", as if she's surprised that the song still has any relevance.

She does "Woodstock" and "Big Yellow Taxi" as well as the newer material and it's a long concert, never too long. Nobody can complain that their favourite's been left out, and still there's time for two long meandering introductory rambles to a couple of the songs. "Speedfreak!", someone in the audience shouts (there's always one of those). "No, I'm just a naturally compulsive talker," she says, carrying on in slight bafflement.

Joni comes back after the interval in a long blue dress and plays a few songs solo before being rejoined by the band. And the standard stays at an incredibly high level right through. Especially notable was a chilling version of her incredible "Cold Blue Steel." Singing with the deep siren voices of addiction, and wiggling gracefully behind her guitar at the same time, she made the song even more unsettling than it was on "For The Roses." There are times when the lady's lyrics seem like they'd been dragged protesting right out of your subconscious.

A frantic "Raised On Robbery" was a natural closer. "The Last Time I Saw Richard" and "Twisted" ("I finally understood what jazz was all about playing with these guys") provided a pleasing encore.

A great night. I could tell you I saw Rod Stewart in the foyer and all that gossip column stuff, but it really was irrelevant. What mattered was seeing Joni Mitchell, caught and sparkling like a well fed cigarette-lighter. No sweat, no fuss: just an effortlessly great concert.