GENTLE GIANT
Montreal, Canada
Centre Sportif de L'Universite De Montreal
1973-03-24 (March 24, 1973)

Necessite was the opening act

Audience mono recording, lineage unknown
Sound quality: A- and B+ (re-seeder's rating)

DEREK SHULMAN - lead vocals, bass, saxophone
RAY SHULMAN - bass, violin, percussion, trumpet
KERRY MINNEAR - keyboards, cello, vibes, percussion
GARY GREEN - guitars
JOHN WEATHERS - drums

01. Prologue
02. Alucard
03. Funny Ways
04. Knots
05. The Advent of Panurge
06. Nothing at All / drums [part 1]
07. drums / Nothing at All [part 2]
08. Plain Truth
09. Mister Class and Quality? / Peel the Paint

Total time: 1:10:59

lineage: unknown analog source>CDR>CDR>dBPowerAMP>FLAC>You
This is a very good sounding audience recording considering it's from 1973!

Hi all,

Been collecting recordings of Gentle Giant for many years and it seems that this one has never surfaced here on Dime. Consider this my gift for the holidays to all you GG fans out there!

Please be kind and upload at least what you have taken it so that others here may enjoy the wealth of this great community known as DimeaDozen!

Be well..be kind, FlowerKing

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THE NOTES ABOVE ARE ADAPTED FROM THE ORIGINAL TORRENT (MOSTLY NOT WRITTEN BY ME)

Seeded on DIME by flowerking on 2006-12-25
Reseeded on DIME by iggy1 on 2026-01-28
- No audio changes made to FLAC files
- Tagged and renamed files
- Created new FFPs to reflect new file names
- Added information to info file
- Added photos from Gentle Giant Tour History http://ggconcerts.on-reflection.org/part3.htm

A surprisingly good audience recording from 1973. Apparently, this is the only complete recording of a headlining show from the band�s 1973 Canadian tour.

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From Gentle Giant Tour History http://ggconcerts.on-reflection.org/part3.htm:

Necessite was again the opening act. Local press reports differ as to attendance, ranging from a �crammed in� crowd of 6,000, to a full house of 5,000, and down to only around 2,000.

There has been considerable speculation and debate concerning fan memories of this particular gig. Several in attendance swear that a real-life giant was used to introduce GG at this show, with more attendees coming forth to support this claim all the time. Other fans adamantly deny such an odd thing ever happened. Fortunately, promoter Alain Simard has recently confirmed what actually happened. There was indeed a bearded Gentle Giant look-alike who came on stage to introduce the band. His name was Jean Sarault, a gentleman who sometimes worked with openers Necessite, a group managed by Simard. Although not technically a giant, he was tall and weighed close to 300 pounds. He was dressed in medieval clothing borrowed from the 1973 theatrical production of The Castle of Light which was produced by Simard and used Necessite�s music. During his introduction, Sarault had a dove perched on his finger, again borrowed from Necessite who were known to occasionally use a live dove during their set. This unusual introduction was a one-time event, as members of GG have repeatedly denied such a gimmick was a regular part of their concerts.

A review of this show in the Montreal Star mentioned nothing unusual. This same review did, however, give GG a scathing review, calling their music �pure trash� and offering up the high quality of the sound system as the only positive aspect of the performance. A complete tape exists of Giant's set on this night, the only known complete tape from the band's Canadian headlining gigs from March 1973.

During his vibraphone solo in Funny Ways, Kerry quotes a bit of the folk song, Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho. This was a general admission concert with no assigned seating and, prior to the show, venue employees had to board up the window near the front entrance with plywood so as to stop fans from breaking through the glass. Paper flyers were handed out at the doors and, once inside the hall, huge numbers of impatient fans made paper airplanes out of these flyers while waiting for the show to begin.

Images for all shows as well as full size images for this show.

Images for this show: