Levon Helm
Tarrytown Music Hall, Tarrytown, NY
March 24, 2012

01- This Wheel�s On Fire
02-Love Played a Game
03-Chauffer
04-It Takes a Lot to Laugh, ItaTtC
05-It�s Too Late
06- Grow Too Old
07-Ain�t That Good News
08-The Road That Leads Home to You
09-Got Me a Woman
10-Litlle Birds
11-Meet De Boys on the Battlefront
12-Battle Is Over
13-Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning
14-Lonesome Soozie
15-When I Go Away
16-Band Intros
17-The Weight
18-Gloryland

Lineage: Stealth recorded and minimally produced by mrsaureus, and being shared for the first time. Sitting center floor thirty feet back from the stage using Core-Sound High End Binaurals (DPA-4060 capsules) to Sony PCM-M10 (48 kHZ, 24 bit), WavePad Sound Editor to chop and FLAC only (Gloryland was performed a capella and the volume of that track is augmented). This is an audience recording that aims to document the experience of being in the crowd at the show, and features occasionally loud but appropriate crowd noise.



At first I was really disappointed when my son Pete told me he wouldn't be able to go with me to see Levon Helm at the Wellmont on April 6, because he had a test, but then I sold the tickets on Stubhub and bought tickets to the Tarrytown show on March 24 instead.��Life is full of�contingency,�and so it was that�Pete and I saw what I believe to be the second to last show Levon ever played.� His website shows a Midnight ramble one week later on March 31, and that's it.�
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I don�t see much need to add yet another small fan to the hurricane of hagiography that has blown Levon's spirit off to VH1�Valhalla, but I will say that what I saw in Tarrytown that Saturday night was an inspiring example of a life well lived.� Here was a man who'd been ten years on throat cancer death row, and must have had some sense that his appeals were about to be exhausted, but nevertheless gave a fearless, joyful performance to a rapt and adoring crowd.� The show had a strong valedictory spirit, but was never maudlin, and the charged performances of "Lamps",� "When I Go Away" and a final, elegiac "Gloryland" were matter-of-fact reporting from the battlefront.
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A few�weeks�later when I heard he'd died, I didn't feel too sad, because it seemed to me that Levon had spent his last years in a cocoon of sustaining human connection�rare indeed in our fractious world.� He got to perform in a band with his daughter Amy, and also Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams, who, besides being consummate musicians, simply radiate sanity and kindness,�which are�things not to be taken for granted anywhere, especially in the music biz.��His�home�became�a virtual pilgrimage site both for A-list musicians and throngs of adoring fans, and night after night he got to hear crowds of strangers sincerely shouting that they loved him. Anything overdone is suspect, and nowadays everything is overdone as a matter of course, but let�s just go with it:��St. Levon of Woodstock is the barest exaggeration.�
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Levon's fractured relationship with Robbie Robertson, the result of an old dispute impossible to parse, seems to have been the one thing wrong in a life so otherwise filled with grace.� Regardless of who did what, a long held grudge and a broken bond with a brother is a heavy bag to carry off to Gloryland. I'm glad to know that Robbie visited Levon before he died, and I hope that generous spirits on both sides were able to snip that last mundane tether, and let Levon�s spirit rise free.

And it was a great show. Just listen to it.