Steve Martin with The Steep Canyon Rangers
Oct. 3, 2009
Banjo Stage, Hardly Strictly Bluegass Festival
Speedway Meadow, Golden Gate Park
San Francisco, CA

1. intro
2. (instrumental- title?) >
3. (instrumental- title?) >
4. (instrumental- title?)
5. Daddy Played The Banjo*
6. I Think My Masseusse Is Too Chatty
7. Late For School
8. Nowhere To Lay Low**
9. Be Still Moses**
10. Jubilation Day
11. (clawhammer medley)
12. Hide Behind The Rock
13. (instrumental- title?)
14. Tin Roof
15. Calico Train
16. Orange Blossom Special

* with Tim O'Brien
** Steep Canyon Rangers without Steve Martin

stealth audience recording by Easy Ed from the fourth row directly in front of a speaker stack (about 20-30 feet away)

Rode NT4 stereo microphone mounted to the top of a cowboy hat > Sony D8 DAT (with microphone preamps modified by Oade Brothers) @ 44.1kHz > Tascam DA-P1 DAT (playback) > coax digital out > Sek'd Prodif Plus soundcard > Sound Forge 7 (fade in and out, track markers) > .wav files > Trader's Little Helper > FLAC level 8 encoding (align on sector boundaries), ffp, md5 and torrent files

It was an extremely windy day, with winds of 20-30 mph and gusts of up to 50mph. Incredibly, the sound crew did not see fit to put wind screens on the mikes onstage, the ones the performers were playing and singing into, with the result that there was frequent wind noise coming from the mikes onstage over the PA. There is no wind noise from my mikes: I was using the manufacturer supplied windscreen plus tshirt fabric and a pillow case over the mike to prevent wind noise (successfully) - all the wind noise you hear is from the PA (it is frequent but not too loud).

The SF Chronicle estimated that 750,000 people attended this year's festival. The crowd was huge for the mainstage acts on Saturday - it took me quite a while to work my way up to the fourth row (thanks to Vernon, Robin, Bob, Dirk and "Mrs. Dirk" for sharing your space with me so I could make this recording and enjoy the show).