FRANK ZAPPA
May 19, 1973
Great McGonigle's Seaside Park (aka Carr's Beach)
Annapolis, MD

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The technical info was part of the torrent I got from Zappateers.
Thanks bengo-fury.

See way below for my personal story about the Great McGonigle's.
It was 1 mile from my house when I was a kid.
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93:54 min, Aud, B+/B
Aud (master)>CDR/?>wav (EAC, (no errors), CEP, retracked)>flac (Frontend with SBE correction) (363 MB)

Taped by: Grapeman
Transferred by: n/a
Ripped (& retracked) by: BengoFury (from a traded CDR)

THE SONGS:
RDNZL
Dog Meat
Fifty-Fifty
Montana
Dupree's Paradise (q: Tiny Bubbles)
Eat That Question
Yellow Snow Suite (cut @ 16:15)
Farther Oblivion

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THE PERSONNEL
== The Mothers Of Invention Feb - Sep 1973 ==
FZ, Jean Luc Ponty, Tom Fowler, Ralph Humphrey, Ruth Underwood, Ian Underwood,
George Duke, Bruce Fowler, Sal Marquez (late Mar - Jul), Kin Vassey (4/7/73-5/1/73).

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THE SOUND:
Not horrible, but not that great.
If the sound system was as slapdash as the venue it's a wonder you could distinguish any instrument.
So, saying that, it's worth a listen.

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Song properties of this tour:
* Dog Meat = Exercise #4, Dog Breath, Uncle Meat
* Yellow Snow Suite = Don't Eat The Yellow Snow, Nanook Rubs It,
St. Alphonzo's Pancake Breakfast, Father O'Blivion,
St. Alphonzo reprise, Mar-juh-rene, Father O'Blivion (R & B version)

Interestingly this show falls between a show in Uniondale NY (the 18th) and Providence, RI (the 20th). They'd have to drive 4 hours from NY to MD, then turn around and drive 8 hours to Providence. If they had gone from NY to RI it would have been a 4 hour drive. Why was it scheduled this way. Was the band in that desperate need of, what, cash? gigs? rehearsal? Your guess is as good as mine. Then it was on to Australia for a tour that has been much bootlegged over the years

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These are my personal reminisces about the venue and show...
ebubier

Oh my gosh.
I don't believe it!
A recording of this show exists?!?!?
Wow! This just gives me hope that just about everything was taped.

When I was 14 I went to this show, sort of.
It was on the other side of a small pond in the neighborhood where I lived.
I sat on our side of the pond and listened.
At a future show I waded through the swamp and crawled under the fence to hear, well, I don't remember who.
A day or two after the show there was an article in the local paper (which I have been unable to locate - though I've searched the archives at the Capitol) headlined something to the effect of, "Carr's Beach engulfed in cloud of marijuana smoke". Carr's Beach was the community where The Great McGonigle's Seaside Park was located.

NOBODY called this place "The Great McGonigle's"
It was known, as it had been for decades, as "Carr's Beach".

Let me tell you a little about this place.
It was basically a roof over a big concrete slab.
There were no walls.
The stage was very small and only about 4 feet high.
The Chesapeake Bay was about 100 yards away.
On the other side of the venue (about 10 feet from the fence surrounding the place) was Beale's Pond and the community of Annapolis Roads (where I lived).

From www.carrsbeach.com (go there for more info)
"Saturday nights grown-ups would go to the beach and see stars such as Ray Charles, Bill Doggett, Dinah Washington, Author Prysock, etc. Sunday afternoons was family fun. Thousands of people from as far away as Philly would come to the beach to swim and picnic. But at three o'clock it was show time and people would pack into the pavilion to see and dance to the Major R&B stars of the day. Stars such as Little Richard, James Brown, Lloyd Price, Etta James, The Shirelles, The Coasters, The Drifters. You name 'em, they played Carr's Beach." Some of the shows were broadcast on the local radio station WANN, hosted by Hoppy Adams. I wonder if any of them exists on tape?! Buddy Holly was booked to play there when his plane went down. It was called "The Carr's Beach Ballroom" so I doubt that it was the roof over concrete where 2 summer's of rock shows took place in the ealry 1970s, but it had to be within a stone's throw, cuz Carr's Beach was a small "resort".

There were only shows there for one, maybe two summers.
I remember seeing NRBQ, Russ Kirkpatrick and a few others.
Chuck Berry played there a while before Zappa.
I also remember seeing a guy standing next to a pole inside the with a big bag and a sign that said "Pot for sale", totally in the open, no cops, no hassles, very, VERY casual.
Before the season ended the place closed down because two girls got raped, at least that's the story that spread around the neighborhood.
Maybe security would have been a good thing after all.

I really don't remember much about the show itself.
I was 100 yards away from the stage, 14 years of age, and way too excited to be hearing Zappa live, and only 1 mile from my house. Heck, I walked there.
My parents said that they could here the music from the house.
I only knew a very little about his music, though he was famous to me at the time. Though my memory is hazy at best, that evening holds several life altering memories for me, the likes of which I won't go into here.

Later that summer I saw my first proper concert at the Baltimore Civic Center - Jethro Tull performing A Passion Play.
It was a heck of a summer.

A few years back I contacted the promoter asking for any info he might have about the show.
He sent me a scan of the ad.
I found an article announcing the show in the local paper (The Evening Capitol) that I have scanned in too.
Both of those are included in the torrent.

Enjoy,
eb