Richard & Linda Thompson Band
Burlington VT
Hunt's Club
Thursday 20 May 1982
[FM ? soundboard ? recording]
(01:27:26)

side A (43:49)
A01. announcer (00:04.63)
A02. Man In Need (03:39.17)
A03. interim / tuning / comments (01:26.28)
A04. Walking On A Wire (05:40.57)
A05. interim / tuning (01:32.18)
A06. Lonely Hearts (05:06.15)
A07. interim / comments (01:05.38)
A08. Flogging Reel / Kerry Reel (02:56.55)
A09. Honky Tonk Blues (04:18.67)
A10. You’re Gonna Need Somebody (04:13.48)
A11. Pavanne (06:13.42)
A12. I'll Keep It With Mine [Bob Dylan] (07:06.09)
A13. interim / comments (00:25.61)

side B (43:36):
B01. Back Street Slide (04:45.02)
B02. interim (00:29.03)
B03. I'm A Dreamer (04:46.10)
B04. interim (00:34.00)
B05. Don't Renege On Our Love (04:37.51)
B06. interim / comments (00:49.53)
B07. Just The Motion (06:54.21)
B08. interim / band introductions / comments (01:52.50)
B09. Shoot Out The Lights (05:39.05)
B10. Sloth (13:08.48)*

*[levels smoothed at 12:07 to ease transition between sources]

Richard Thompson
Linda Thompson
Simon Nicol
Dave Mattacks
Pete Zorn

- - - -

digitizing notes [from J-dot; Dec 2016]:
All I can really say about this is that it sounds great, albeit with a layer or two of tape hiss that suggests it comes a couple of generations down from whatever the original source recording might have been. It’s clearly a soundboard recording, but something about it sounds as though it may have also been broadcast over the airwaves. This came to me in one of the boxes of tapes I received from my old pal "Ollie", but I’m afraid I don’t have any more information to offer.

The energy is amazing, especially considering the stress that must have been present during that tour, but if anything, a performance like this only serves to demonstrate just what troopers these folks were. Having been in bands with close friends and partners when I was much younger, I should think we could all stand a fraction of the grace (or whatever it took) to sound this brilliant during a period of what has often been described as a period of intense emotional turmoil. Seriously, this is an equally beautiful and chilling testament to the talent and spirit of everyone involved.

Oh yes - there was a somewhat jarring transition at the end of "Sloth", which I’ve done my best to smooth out a bit, without taking away any of the music, but eliminating the mechanized sounds from the original (?) deck which attempted to segue together two different tape sources. I can only guess what happened: either the sound person switched off the soundboard feeds and the last few moments are recorded from what sounds like stage or ambient mics, ***OR*** (more likely) the soundboard tape ran out, and the remainder of the song was provided by an alternate audience recording (with a slightly different pitch, which I did not attempt to correct digitally.) The result is that it sounds like a part of a measure may be absent here, but I think the ears can readjust pretty quickly.

- - - -

additional notes [from 01001010; posted to the DIME bt-list on 23 January 2017]:
My hubby [J-dot] recently digitized an old cassette he had been given many years ago, and I had planned to upload it in December 2016 during the "Freeloader" period, but there were just too many questions about it, and I thought I’d better wait until I could find out more about it.

J. got this years ago as a cassette tape, from one of his old tape-trading buddies, Ollie, who sent him a few boxes of cassettes. Ollie apparently got it from another tape trader some years earlier, so we’re all thinking it would precede CD bootlegs. J. only got around to digitizing it in December 2016, and it seems that Ollie doesn’t remember much about the source for most of those cassettes.

It's a great-sounding recording, from what sounds like a radio broadcast, but we haven't found any evidence of it being officially released in any form.

I posted about this on torrent #325346 [Richard And Linda Thompson - 1982-05-13 - Baltimore, MD - SBD]; but only one person - the uploader of that torrent - ever responded to that, and that didn’t seem like enough of a consensus to go forward with this.

I've also looked everywhere in the DIME-bot for any info about the show, to see if it can be allowed here, but can't find a thing about it ever having been on the DIME tracker - there's no record of it ever being uploaded on DIME.

We *did* look pretty carefully through this section of Richard Thompson's site
http://archive.richardthompson-music.com/song.asp:
but there was nothing conclusive.

For example:

• "I’ll Keep It With Mine is sourced from a cassette recorded from Simon Tassano's soundboard mix during the 1982 U.S. tour."
- but it doesn't say from which show!

• And, we can rule out anything from "Live Warrior", because the credits are for a different band, but even that album just says:
"Recorded in various cities across the USA and UK"

Based on what we *don't* see there, it would *seem* alright to upload the Burlington show, but since it didn't turn up in my search of the DIME-bot, I wondered if there was a reason for that?

It's hard to believe it just never was uploaded before, but that could be a possibility.

Does anyone here have any insights about this?

I thought about just giving it a try, and hoping for the best, but it still bothered me that there is so little information about this recording - something just doesn’t feel right about that.
Realistically, though, there is only so much research one can do where these things are concerned, but both J. and I like to think we're pretty thorough!

One thing that sticks out about this Burlington tape is that at the end of "Sloth", it sounds like the sound person switches off the soundboard feeds and the last few moments are recorded from what sounds like stage or ambient mics. It's kind of jarring for a moment, then you get used to it. Does that sound familiar to anyone?

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help!

- - - -

lineage:
[unknown generation] cassette [2-channel stereo] > Nakamichi DR-3 cassette deck [Azimuth adjustment applied to playback head] > Edirol R-04 [RCA/analog in; 24-bit/48kHz transfer (.wav)] > PC [via USB] > CD Wave Editor [Version 1.98; Windows Build Number: 0000.23F0] (sector boundary tracking) > Trader's Little Helper [Version 2.7.0; Build 172] (Level 8 .wav > .flac conversion)

- - - -

The "Ollie" Tapes.
Made available to the world through the collaborative resources of these people:
Recorded in 1982 by ????; generously provided by Ollie.
Digitized / formatted / technical notes in 2016; by J. Free [sonicarchives.com]
Uploaded in 2017; additional notes: 01001010

- - - -

Audio sample: Approx. 30 seconds each of: "Walking On A Wire" and "Sloth"

- - - -