Merle Haggard & Hot Rod Pacer
Tarrytown Music Hall, Tarrytown, NY
November 4, 2013

Shared as 16 bit 44.1 kHz FLACs

Hot Rod Pacer set:

01-Pretty Redneck Girls
02-Let it Keep on Rainin�
03-Road Out of Town
04-Margaritas
05-Better Change Lanes

Merle Haggard set:

06-Big City
07-Misery and Gin
08-Silver Wings
09-I Think I�ll Just Stay Here and Drink
10-That�s the Way Love Goes
11-T. B. Blues
12-Are the Good Times Really Over
13-Mama Tried
14-If We Make It Through December
15-Ramblin� Fever
16-Twinkle, Twinkle Lucky Star
17-Footlights
18-Thirty Again
19-If I Could Only Fly
20-Mama�s Prayer
21-Working Man�s Blues
22-The Fugitive
23-Pancho and Lefty
24-The Bottle Let Me Down
25-Working in Tennessee
26-Okie From Muskogee


Lineage: Stealth recorded and minimally produced by mrsaureus, being shared for the first time. Sitting right of center 9th row, using Core-Sound High End Binaurals (DPA-4060 capsules) to Sony PCM-M10 (48 kHZ, 24 bit), WavePad Sound Editor to chop and convert to 44.1 kHz, 16 bit FLAC. 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.


There�s no expiration date on rock and roll, and it�s been a good year for old coots, what with Kris Kristofferson, Robert Hunter, and now Merle Haggard making the rounds. There are lots of reasons why I love to see old dudes still playing music, not the least of which is that I can see that territory up ahead myself now, if I use really good binoculars, and, while there�s been a lot of development, the condos are tasteful and there�s a Trader Joe�s. And this has been a good year for old dudes: Robert Gordon full of wooly mischief, Kris Kristofferson fraying a little around the edges but still a magnificent lion in winter, and Merle seems to be taking the Keith Richards path, by which you gradually turn into a beef jerky simulacrum while still looking great and seeming otherwise undiminished.

Another thing I like is old dudes surrounded by family, and Merle joins KK, Dickey Betts, and Van Morrison by playing with family onstage: wife on background vocals and son Ben a crackerjack on lead guitar. You can do a lot worse than work in the family business.

When Hot Rod Pacer came out my first thought was that Jimmie Dale Gilmore had teamed up with the cowboy from the Village People. After such inflated expectations, you might reasonably expect disappointment, but I think they were a good choice for opener. This is more or less end-of-days Nashville high gloss campy-indie-cool music, from which you might assume it doesn�t have much in common with Merle, but there is a lot of attention to song-craft, which reaches back around for the hand shake. Circle of life. Check it out.