Pat Benatar
Borealis Pavilion @ Alaska State Fair, Palmer AK (USA)
September 4, 2016

Lineage: Sonic Studios DSM6-P mics > Tascam DR-2D > VLC media player > DAT line in > Kenwood A-522 amplifier > Kenwood GE-622 graphic equalizer > DAT line out > line in on Tascam DR-2D > CD Waveditor (track) > flac8
Taper: Steve "ballsdeep" Hagar
Tracker: smores

setlist:
1. All Fired Up
2. We Live For Love
3. Shadows Of The Night
4. Invincible
5. Promises In The Dark
6. In These Times
7. When Doves Cry [Prince]
8. We Belong
9. Hell Is For Children
10. You Better Run [The Young Rascals]
11. Hit Me With Your Best Shot
12. Love Is A Battlefield
13. -encore break > -
14. Let's Stay Together
15. Heartbreaker > Ring Of Fire [Johnny Cash]/Don't Slander Me/Heartbreaker/Purple Haze/Seven Nation Army/The Godfather Theme

taper show notes: this show was a treat in more ways than one. first off, Pat and Neil were supposed to play our State Fair in 2015. sadly, Neil suffered an eye injury about 3 weeks before that planned show where he literally 'lost sight in one eye in a span of 10 minutes (!!!, mentioned onstage during this gig), and they had to re-schedule. 90% of cancellations in Alaska....the artist never even schedules a make-up date. this time, however, it was announced in late March that the makeup date of Sept 4 was a "go", and tickets went on sale. the 'floor' seats (roughly 1200, it's a small outdoor amphitheater, with a lawn that holds just over 3000) were sold out in late July. no idea if it actually sold out, but the place was packed. it had drizzled earlier in the day, so of COURSE I sat in the wet spot (Pat made me damp, hahaha). normally, I have a kind soul at the Fair who trades me a media pass (all access to the show venue) in exchange for my recordings. and this pass is good for all areas, however, for a seated show, if the seats are all sold out, then the lawn it is. knowing this, and wanting a good recording, I bought a single seat in the *non*-drinking side (wise choice, unless you're into drunken gutshot-cat Benetar sing-alongs, but more on that later) this seat initially had me quite apprehensive, as 2 computer-geek hipster dudes in their early 50's were having an intense, *loud* conversation about Dire Straits and Mark Knopfler (which I should have left on at the beginning, as it was so utterly stupid), and they did carry on quite a bit for the first couple songs, but fortunately, when the music is playing, it overrides their banal musings. who the hell goes to a Benetar show to talk about wanting their MTV? (oh yeh, Pat mentions an anniversary about that as well). and the show itself? you know how sometimes when you press record and then get home (though home was 300+ miles away, an auxilliary jack in a rental car does wonders) and you feel like you 'stole' something? this is one of those times.
a nice, rich, balanced outdoor sound. a classy-as-fuck truly-glad-to-be-in-Alaska Ms. Benetar laying down some spot-on vocals, and a band that was tight as all hell. they reminded me of another fave show from this venue, George Thorogood from 2012. a great selection of songs, the requisite Prince cover, *lots* of funny banter from her husband Neil (aka Spider), some nice 'modern music' teases (don't wanna ruin them all), all in all it was near-perfect experience. she looked great, and sounded even better. and the crowd ate it all up right from her palm. I have played that Thorogood show hundreds of times, many in the morning when I was out of coffee. this show will be added to that collection!

this would have been uploaded sooner, but the OCD'r in me wanted to have enough time to EQ the show, mainly to:
a. shape the bass where it wasn't quite so dominant on the recording
b. raise the high end just a bit due to distance from the stage
c. most importantly, individually pull down a couple hundred handclaps and a few screams (vs. using a declicker), allowing the music to be boosted to a higher level on the final "normalization". overall, I think I succeeded rather well. let your ears be the judge

big mucho grande grass-E-as to smores for the upload of this fantastic show, and you never know what you may hear (2 nearly-complete Jewel shows from Anchorage '97, maybe?) next.......

--ballsdeep out!!!

This show is another "ballsdeep" master. He was kind enough to give some of his masters to be shared in this forum. If you have old masters or low generation cassettes PLEASE contact me or anyone that is willing to work on them to get them out to the collecting community. Thanks.