Neil Young w/ Booker T and the MG's
Sports Arena
San Diego, California
September 12, 1993
KeithM Master via JEMS

Recording Gear: Sony ECM-939 Stereo Microphone > Sony Walkman D6C

JEMS 2016 Transfer: master cassettes > Nakamichi CR-7A azimuth-adjusted playback > Sound Devices USBPre2 > Audacity 2.0 (24/96 capture to .wav) > iZotope RX6 and Ozone 6 mastering > iZotope MBIT+ resample and dither to 16/44.1 > Audacity > TLH > FLAC

01 Mr. Soul
02 The Loner
03 Souther Man
04 Helpless
05 Like A Hurricane
06 Rockin' In The Free World
07 Love To Burn
08 Only Love Can Break Your Heart
09 Harvest Moon
10 The Needle And The Damage Done
11 Powderfinger
12 Live To Ride
13 Down By The River
14 (Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay
15 All Along The Watchtower


Neil Young - vocals, guitar, harmonica, piano
Booker T. Jones - organ, synthesizer, vocals
Steve Cropper - guitar
Donald Duck Dunn - bass
Jim Keltner - drums
Astrid Young - backup vocals
Annie Stocking - backup vocals


Welcome once again to another installment of our series featuring recordings made by San Diego -and LA- area taper KeithM.

When I was told about this series, I was uncertain about what kind of artists were featured. To my surprise, the variety of artists has been quite broad, featuring recordings of Peter Gabriel, Crowded House, U2, Moody Blues and, in this specific installment, Neil Young.

For those who are Neil Young devotees, this time we present to you an uncirculated recording from his stop at the San Diego Sports Arena on this special tour with Booker T and the MGs.

As many of you may know, one of the things that distinguish Keith M recordings is their excellent quality, surround sound and clarity. This time, however, while the quality and sound are up to the usual standard, the clarity is not the best, but this isn't Keith's fault at all.

When I was listening to this recording, I couldn't believe it was from an arena, because despite the obvious distance Keith must have been from the PA (and thus, the vocals sound is understandably distant), he did an excellent job capturing the performance.

One of the downfalls in this recording (for some people at least) is the fact that in the quieter songs you can listen to people shouting a lot (especially in Harvest Moon) so consider yourself properly "warned" about those issues. Neil fans are notoriously loud.

Another minor issue (although just in few parts) is that the sound sometimes overwhelms the microphone (an example of this happens towards the end of �All Along The Watchtower�), where the lows are totally discernible but once the sound gets high and hot, the microphone has a hard time dealing with it, resulting in some distortion. KeithM has told JEMS he liked to run his recordings hot.

Those issues noted, the recording is quite good and for sure an historic document of a great artist.

Huge thanks to KeithM for graciously lending JEMS his masters. There are many more good things to come from him.

I also thank the JEMS team for the opportunity they have given to me, allowing me to present to all of you many of the recordings of the archive.

frogster.