Yo La Tengo
12-11-2013
Greunspan
Hamburg

Sound Professionals SP-CMC 8 Cardioid > Sony RH 1 > Hi-MD (PCM mode) > Sonic Stage > wav > Audacity1.3 (level adjustments, trackmarking, some limiter for close applause) > TLH > flac 8

recorded 10 meters from stage, slightly left of centre

TRT: 143:35 min

- Set 1 (acoustic) -
01. intro
02. Ohm
03. Periodically Double or Triple
04. Demons
05. Is That Enough?
06. Saturday
07. The Point of It
08. Cornelia and Jane
09. I�ll Be Around
10. Big Day Coming (slow Painful version)

- Set 2 (electric) -
01. Stupid Things
02. Evanescent Psychic Pez Drop
03. > Super Kiwi *
04. > Stockholm Syndrome
05. The Last Days of Disco
06. Before We Fall
07. Deeper Into Movies
08. > From A Motel 6
09. > Ohm
10. Pass the Hatchet I Think I�m Goodkind

- encore -
11. Autumn Sweater
12. Time Fades Away (Neil Young)
13. Dreaming (Sun Ra)

* with ca. 1 min interruption while Georgia left the stage

Ira Kaplan - guitar, vocals, (keyboards)
Georgia Hubley - drums, vocals, (keyboards, guitar)
James McNew - bass, vocals, (guitars, keyboards, drums)

Yo La Tengo is a Kult Band, obvious from the number of horn rimmed glasses in the audience. And rare to see in Germany, in fact I've never managed to see them live - so the expectations were very hight and I was a little disappointed during the show (the first set a little too quiet for my taste, the second very loud and sometimes drifting into orgies of feedback burying the vocals).
Listening to it again I'm not. The concept of 2 very different sets is plausible with the different music they play and each set is beautiful in it's own way, highlight for me the encore with a ferocious cover of "Time Fades Away" the master himself would have been proud of.

Good recording conditions, the venue nicely filled but not sold out, good acoustics, good mix, respectful audience, little chatter, very few noises from the bar.
Twice during the last song of the quiet set I had exceeding levels due to some burst of feedback, but the biggest problem was the extreme difference between the 2 sets - had the levels rather hight during the first set - so this sounds relatively louder compared to the second then it was in reality. The high levels let of course to a very loud recording of the applause and cheering during the first set - to put everything in perspective I lowered the applause of the 1st set by 3 dB. During the loud and electric 2nd set there were some quiet songs as well - I raised the levels of these (tr 5 / 11 / 13) by 2 - 5 dB.

Canged the md during the encore break, the gap was ended by a cross fade, no music lost.