Peter Frampton
Seattle Center Arena
Seattle, WA
April 30, 1976
JEMS Full-Track Tandberg Mono Master

Recording Gear: Sony ECM-22P Microphone > Tandberg Model 11 Portable Reel to Reel

JEMS 2018 Transfer: Master reel > Tandberg Model 11 > Sound Devices USBPre 2 capture (24/96) > iZotope RX and Ozone > MBIT+ convert to 16/44.1 > Audacity > TLH > FLAC

01 Intro
02 All I Wanna Be (Is By Your Side)
03 Baby, I Love Your Way
04 Something's Happening
05 Doobie Wah
06 Lines on My Face
07 Show Me the Way
08 I Wanna Go to the Sun
09 (I'll Give You) Money
10 It's a Plain Shame
11 Do You Feel Like We Do > Instrumental
12 Shine On (Humble Pie) >
13 White Sugar
14 Jumpin' Jack Flash (The Rolling Stones) > Instrumental

Peter Frampton � lead vocals, lead guitar
Bob Mayo � rhythm guitar, piano, electric piano, organ, vocals
Stanley Sheldon � bass guitar, vocals
John Siomos � drums

Known Faults:
None

Tale of the Tapes and the Tandberg

With Jared�s passing in October 2016, the complete JEMS Archive was moved south from his home up north. That move, sad impetus aside, presented the daunting opportunity to go through and organize the collection. With the help of amazing friends and experts (among them Slowburn, SS, RD and slipkid68), JEMS tapes are now accessible in ways they have never been before. SG was also on hand to help and fill in our taping history as he always does.

When the task was done and loaded into the truck, one box in particular captured my attention: master reels recorded by SG on his Tandberg portable reel to reel. We�ve posted some 30 or more of these on DIME over the years, but this box contained master reels that had never been digitized before and, in some instances, had seemingly never been traded or circulated.

Over a year later, most of the tapes from that particular box have been posted plus a few others we found on hard drives. Just last month I sorted through the reels collection yet again and identified another ten Tandberg masters that have never been transferred.

If you don�t know about the Tandberg, it was a remarkable piece of gear in its day, not only capable of recording at 3-3/4 and 7-1/2 IPS, but in full-track mono. I won�t do the math, but compared to a cassette, the surface area of tape capturing the music is orders of magnitude higher, which is why so many of SG�s Tandberg masters from the likes of David Bowie, Elton John, Led Zeppelin and Bruce Springsteen are considered by some as audience-recording classics. The Tandberg required 10(!) D-cel batteries to operate, is roughly the size of a compact typewriter and weighs around ten pounds. Imagine sneaking that into a show and your respect for what SG accomplished only grows.

Happily, the original Tandberg deck is still fully functioning, so these new transfers capture full-track mono playback on the original tape recorder to maximize quality.

Frampton Comes Alive in Seattle

This is the thirteenth in a series of Tandberg master reels digitized for the first time. If you want to find the others, search JEMS or Tandberg using �Search title and torrent filename only.� It is also the first of a pair of Peter Frampton masters to come.

1976 was Frampton�s year. Frampton Comes Alive was released on January 6. According to Wikipedia, the album hit No. 1 on the Billboard album chart on April 10, which means that when he rolled into Seattle, Peter Frampton was sitting on top of the world.

It seems a bit odd to tour in support of a live album, but that�s exactly what he was doing, a fact referenced at one point in the show. The album transported Frampton into a major superstar, but on this night he was still ascending. The show took place at the Seattle Center Arena, which holds between 5-6,000; a year later Frampton came back to headline the Kingdome in front of more than 50,000 (the second recording to come).

To my ears this Frampton tape is another super capture by Stan, with clarity, closeness and instrument separation. The audience sounds very far away, so I presume he put the mic in the seat risers as he so often did. I don't think I could make a tape this good today.

I�m not a huge Frampton fan, but the playing here is undeniably excellent. If you love the period, this new Seattle recording should be welcome.

Our hat goes off again to Stan for his remarkable work in the �70s, �80s and beyond capturing these shows in the first place, and to Jared, may his legacy live on as he rests in peace. Thanks as well to frogster, for his continued support and encouragement to get the tapes out of the vaults and into your ears. All comments welcomed.

BK for JEMS

JEMS once again strikes with another beautiful Tandberg recording.

Like BK noted above, 1976 was Frampton's year, "Frampton Comes Alive" was reaching the No. 1 on the Billboard album chart and everyone was talking about him, he was at the top of the world.

What we're going to share this time is something truly special, considering that (per DIME's Bot List) not a single recording of this tour has been posted, making this one the first to being put in circulation.

And what a way to do that with nothing else, but this recording.

Sonically, the recording is great considering the era and we could, once again, label it as the standard "Tandberg quality," a recording with distant audience noise but with the recording being close enough to give you, with clarity and brightness, the perfect sound.

The setlist, according to various websites, is the standard one for the tour and very similar to Frampton Comes Alive, with even Frampton suggesting that what they were trying to do is replicate the live album they were promoting.

But make no mistake, this is a great recording and the performance is promising with great highlights such as a cover of Humble Pie's classic "Shine On" and a really long instrumental after a cover of Rolling Stones' "Jumpin' Jack Flash" to close the show.

As always, thanks to Stan for another beautiful Tandberg recording and to JEMS and BK for their continued effort in provide me with the master files and specially for his support and trust, there are many good things to come from the vaults.

frogster