Live...
devotion...
surrender
touring the album
"Love, Devotion, Surrender"
with
Devadip Carlos Santana- guitar
Mahavishnu John MCLaughlin- guitar
Larry Young- keyboards
Doug Rauch- bass
Armando Peraza- congas
Billy Cobham- drums
Maple Leaf Garden
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
August 29, 1973 (Wednesday)
performance quality: A- (there is a WIDELY differing opinion about this tour, but I loved it.)
recording quality: at least a B, if not B+, pretty nice recording for this time
source: 1st generation audience tape
(so I'm told, it sounds like a 1st gen. and a good one, clean sound.)
setlist: disc 1: 69:10
1: flame sky
2: a love supreme (John Coltrane)
3: jam including my favorite things excerpt (John Coltrane)
4: band introductions
disc 2 50:55 (would be about 70-75 min. if this recording was complete)
5: naima
6: the life divine
7: Snoopy's search (incl. drum solo, almost half hour version)
8: let us knock on the door of the Lords' house
(the real title is "Let us go into the house of the Lord",
but it takes a half an hour for that whole process
and this very capsulated version of under 3 min. is
not even enough to step in and take off your shoes...
this version was probably a half hour too, but the taper had a problem of some kind.
Based on the timing of it I guess he had a 2 hour master tape and ran out of tape in the encore.
Ooops. Not quite enough for this tour....
I bet a few people had that problem if they taped this show, or another of this tour.
The whole recording sounds pretty nice, the last song is just missing about 27 minutes.
comments:
there were a few strange things about this tour, and concert, but first a brief structural breakdown,
of how to build a concert band version of a Porsche. Someone must have been thinking kinda
like I did. I was getting into Santana bigtime. Caravanserai is still a favorite of mine
(studio & live), and I was already getting my first experience of what a drug-free coke addiction
must feel like, from something I can only describe as "Mahavishnu cravings".
Long before Nancy Reagan said "just say no" to drugs, John McLaughlin and Carlos Santana
tried a very different approach to the same goal as the popular, former U.S. 1st lady.
An anti-drug message band that specialized in scorching guitar, percussion and keyboard jamming. Hmmm..
The white coats are coming... It looked kinda scary sort of. Two guitarists dressed all in white with short hair.
This was not normal in 1973. A guy with hair to his waist was alot more normal back then.
But it was not at all a hostile feeling they emitted, much the contrary. (these guys aren't hostile. period.)
While others endulged in medication, Carlos and John changed just 1 letter of that priority to:
Meditation.
Sometimes changing just 1 letter changes alot in a word.
But this was something I'd never seen before (I saw it the night before this one in Boston.)
They took Santana's amazing percussion section, and Carlos, organ master Larry Young, bassist Doug Rauch
and threw in the (ORIGINAL) drummer and guitarist for the Mahavishnu Orchestra, just for good measure,
and called it Love, Devotion, Surrender...
That's it. When do tickets go on sale? I was so there.
They could have called it Smashface and the dirthog butchers and I would have been there.
Even to see a saxless (hornless!) band pay tribute to one of the greatest sax players ever.
(the Love Devotion Surrender tour is among other things, a tribute to John Coltrane, with no sax.
Most of these shows including this one include a part of "my favorite things," a Coltrane classic jazz piece.
I would say a fitting concept and song for this tour, even with no sax player, and maybe that's because you
cannot just "replace" John Coltrane, even with a great saxist like say, Sonny Rollins. That is a fact of life.)
When the words "John McLaughlin" and/or " Mahavishnu" were mentioned at this time, all other priorities
took a back seat in a LONG car for glasnostrd19, alot like letting the family labrador retriever get any idea
she was getting a ride in the car (she loved to ride in the car, unlike some pooches)...
Never more than in 72 and 73, when the cravings began.
Some crave sugar, some chocolate, some food, alcohol, drugs, love, lust, money or power.
I crave live Mahavishnu Orchestra music. (sometimes Return to Forever, when I need a diversion from this.)
30 years later the condition has mellowed some, once neurotically uncontrollable, now, just the occasional
need to hear some new Birds of Fire, or BNAE, or Inner Mounting Flame that doesn't sound lousy quality..
By this point the flame had become a bonfire. This is early on in this short tour, one of the 1st of
just 12 shows stretching into Chicago, Phoenix, Az. Berkeley Ca. Seattle, Wash. also a few others
and I think, (not sure) ending in Hawaii. That must have been something to see and hear.
Here my friends and fellow humanoids, we have this fine band playing this beautiful music in the
National Hockey League home of the Toronto Maple Leafs. This is what I'm told, from the taper who is very
accurate and thorough about dates/venues/related info. with shows he records, although he may be wrong
about this venue, this sounds too nice to be in Maple Leaf Garden. Maybe Convocation Hall or Massey Hall?
If he says MLG, that's probably where it was. Maybe Toronto interest was too high to allow one of those smaller venues.
Boston interest was also high, but they got a Music Hall show. Thank GOODNESS! Santana/McLaughlin at Boston Garden?
Uh Uh. That would have sounded horrible in there. Apparently they agreed. McLaughlin has never played Boston Garden!
Certainly not for lack of interest. McLaughlin Craving condition was not that uncommon in Boston. (lots of guitarists).
This recording sounds quite nice, as does the music it recorded. I think this tour would pick up some
intensity as it went on, this is probably a "mellow show" (for this tour, not any other), still a very nice one.
(If McLaughlin and Santana and this band are capable of mellow. Maybe that's not the right word.)
The previous night I saw in Boston was about as mellow as a 4th of July fireworks display on the Esplanade.
Another strange thing about this tour, is alot of folks didn't like it very much, the album didn't sell well.
Shoulda released a live one instead. Then maybe it would have sold more.
I bought the LDS album, bought it on 8 track cartridge, later on CD, so John made out real good on me.
Still wore the album and 8 track out. Same for BNAE and BOF. Never any others.(3 new copies bought of 1 release)
that's mahamania. doctor says this ailment has no cure... because it's not an ailment at all!
I know at least 1 doctor with same condition- and he never even saw Maha. live! (he got it passed from me)
I saw them SIX TIMES. How many times do I get to share those incredible experiences? One half. Actually less than that.
That 3/11/73 Maha. show I posted. I may have seen that show, not sure.
The October show I have coming soon, didn't see that one. (they played 2 shows in Boston every time
except summer 73 with the original band, I think I saw the other one that time.).
the less than one one half, is because it's halfavishnu Orchestra, as is this, and not quite a whole show.
there was an unrecorded encore of this concert (Let us go into the House of the Lord.) All that was taped
of that is a paltry 3 minutes, which I have thus renamed " let us knock on the door of the Lord's House."
because there is absolutely NO WAY to "go into the House of the Lord", Santana/McLaughlin style, for 2:40.
the rest of this Toronto concert appears to be here. Pity any taper who went to this and didn't know "let
us..." (like most of these songs) runs close to half an hour....
since both these shows run about 2 hours each (Toronto and Boston which will be in a seperate post)
some have believed one or both are complete, but these shows ran about 150 minutes each, maybe a bit longer.
So anyone without fresh batteries for the show and plenty of tape was out of luck taping this tour bigtime.
If you like alot of long guitar jams, you came to the right download.
this was imho the guitar concert tour of 1973, maybe ever. How can you beat John and Carlos together?
If you don't, better skip this one cuz you'll be sorely disappointed.
My Boston one to come has that encore, but is missing a similar length segment (about 30 minutes)
in the middle of the show.
This tour was a convergence, of ferocious (in very nice way) spiritual peak of Santana and McLaughlin
music in 1973. Santana was fresh off maybe his greatest tour yet, sounding great, and of course the
Mahavishnu Orchestra had hit their peak stride with "Between Nothingness and Eternity.
I haven't heard the whole tour, but the folks in Toronto were not doi8sappointed at all,
and they had no reason to be. It's not the Boston show (you will hear most of that later folks,
but it's a glasnostrd19 upload and I always seem to do my ups backwards.) I had a request for a
digitizing of this concert from possibly a co-taper of it, and I'm not about to turn that request down,
this may be my best Santana/McLaughlin aud, even though Boston comes from master, someone
in Toronto did a real nice job with this, very likely the same source as my Toronto Maha. 73 shows came from.
Sounds like it may be with the same recorder and mikes as those were made with, and that was one of my most
popular posts. (with good reason too. It sounds good.)
Long before there was a rise of "evangelist/conservative values" bands playing in churches and other houses
of religious worship, in much of the U.S.A.
there was Carlos Santana and John McLaughlin with their brand of "religious oriented" rock music.
needless to say, the religious music movement had never seen/heard before or since, anything quite like this.
the religion here was inspired by the Sri Chimnoy movement. I don't know much about that, but if it's
John McLaughlin's spiritual and guitar craft school, that ought to attract alot of positive attention.
Apparently that did not last long for them, but while it lasted, it was some 12 stop tour.
This is I believe the only one of the 12 outside the U.S.A. So don't feel too bad you Canadians.
The rest of the world got ZIP for this tour. ZERO Santana/McL. concerts. That's a big reason for this post.
I bet alot of this world didn't even hear about this tour happening at all, like they were trapped in North Korea.
Spiritual deprival is very bonos audios and alot elsos, glasnostrd19 will not stand for this sin to continue any longer.
Santana/McLaughlin is needed on the dime, and this is the 1st of 2 I have to offer.
Boston is the other one, coming soon, but not right away...
much live davmar77 I like variety in my uploads.
I also find John McLaughlin and Carlos Santana more believable than Jerry Falwell or any of his buddies.
(about almost anything).

this tour was not exactly the same set each night (several common songs, all good ones) so we hope to hear a
couple more from this tour too, surely someone else recorded one of these fine shows? (like Hawaii???)

Do not sell this recording.
Trade freely and losslessly.
Keep John and Carlos clean
and eMPty3- free!
Obama/Cobham 2008.
Now that's not just talking turkey!