PRETENDERS

Wednesday, 27 January 1982

SMU Campus Gymnasium
Francis Tripp Athletic Center
Southeastern Massachusetts University
285 Old Westport Road
North Dartmouth, Massachusetts 02747
USA


FLAC master, 27 January 2018, by elegymart:
Analog audience recording (stereo): unknown mics/recorder > analog audio cassette master > unknown analog generations > analog audio cassette > Maxell 1998-2001 US XLII 90 (CrO2) analog audio cassette > Sony TC-WE435 (azimuth adjustment) > Roland R05 (24/96) > Cool Edit Pro 2.0 (audio cleanup, convert to 16/44) > SHNtool (fixed SBE) > CD Wave (track splits) > TLH (WAV > FLAC8).
Created this text file.


Total running time [76:45]
------------------------------------------
01 The Wait [0:41]
02 The Adultress [4:15]
03 Message of Love [3:34]
04 Louie Louie [3:44]
05 Talk of the Town [3:37]
06 The English Roses [4:50]
07 Stop Your Sobbing [3:57]
08 Kid [4:03]
09 Private Life [7:04]
10 Bird of Paradise [4:50]
11 Day After Day [5:28]
12 Bad Boys Get Spanked [3:45]
13 Up the Neck [6:44]
14 Precious [6:22]
-- encore 1 --
15 I Write the Songs (snippet) [0:47]
16 Brass in Pocket [3:22]
17 Mystery Achievement (w/ band introductions) [6:47]
-- encore 2 --
18 Wild Thing [1:41]
19 Whatcha Gonna Do About It? [1:09]


Band line-up:
Chrissie Hynde - lead vocals, rhythm guitar
James Honeyman-Scott - lead guitar, backing vocals
Pete Farndon - bass guitar, backing vocals
Martin Chambers - drums, backing vocals


Notes:

Here's a fairly amateur recording of the Pretenders playing at a 3,000-seat gymnasium at SMU before it became part of UMass Dartmouth. The taper gets off to a late start, only catching the tail end of the first song of the show.

It could be the result of poor search skills, but it appears there's only ever been one other 1982 Pretenders show to surface here, from the Ritz about two weeks before this one took place. If you're looking for a keeper, stick with that one since it's a radio broadcast.

There isn't much to recommend here other than the rarity of a live audience document from the original line-up from 1982, and even that's a bit uncertain. The Pretenders did an extensive tour from January to March 1982 that took them from the East Coast of the US and Canada, then California, Japan, New Zealand, and Australia. There's one corroborated date for the Pretenders playing at SMU on 3 November 1981, so would they have come back to play here again about three months later?

The taping spot here sounds as if it's from the bleachers all the way at the opposite end of the gym from where the stage is located. There were dropouts galore begining on "Louie Louie," which continued all throughout but at its worst during "Talk of the Town," "The English Roses," and "Birds of Paradise." These all stemmed possibly from a loose mic cord, incompetent use of the recorder and erratic handling of the recording levels, mishandling the recorder and scraping against the mic, or other technical issues. Most of the dropouts have been eradicated, but one has been left in "The English Roses" because some faint audio can still be heard in that section. Now just imagine that dropout multiplied by a hundred or so, and that'll give you some idea of what this sounded like prior to the many hours of audio clean-up.

Chrissie sings a few lines of Barry Manilow when the band comes back out for their first encore. The double header of the Troggs/Small Faces encore which was typical at the time would normally segue, but here there's a chop between the two. There was also a pre-existing fade on the latter.

If you've got other Pretenders shows from the original line-up that haven't been here, 1982 or otherwise, they probably sound better than this and you should share.

Over the years on dime, EZT, the Archival Group, and through all the various and assorted other trading groups online preceding that, and the CDR, DAT, and analog cassette traders which came before, I've gathered a moderate collection of items to share. I've helped with transfers (the Cactus and related uploads from over a decade ago here, and currently a bite out of the massive Stonecutter Archives), contributed setlists and corrections to many a torrent -- all the sort of things that don't raise one's share ratio. I've shared some of my masters back in the old snail mail days, but it's high time to give back more here from where I've received so much. I had meant to do a roll-out with something grand and possibly a series (Elegymart #1, #2, etc.), but that's been done countless times before.

At this point not only have we've all aged along with dime's existence, but our media and the equipment that can play it back has as well. So rather than any fanfare or concern over share ratio, consider this upload another step in a more diligent attempt to beat the time and to circulate the collection.

Enjoy,
elegymart