The Jayhawks
The Showbox
Seattle, WA
June 8, 2000
JEMS Master Soundboard Recording

Recording Gear: soundboard > Denon DTR-80P

Transfer By Mike Ziegler: Master DAT 44/1/16> Tascam DA-20 MKII > PreSonus FireStudio Project > Adobe Audition 3.0 > FLAC frontend 1.7.1 > iZotope RX 9 and Ozone 10 mastering > .flac

01 Smile
02 I'd Run Away
03 Queen Of The World
04 What Led Me Too This Town
05 Waiting For The Sun
06 Take Me With You When You Go
07 Big Star
08 Two Hearts
09 Somewhere In Ohio
10 Bottomless Cup
11 The Man Who Loved Life
12 A Break In The Clouds
13 Blue
14 I'm Gonna Make You Love Me
15 Sound Of Lies
16 Ain't No End
17 Sister Cry
18 Until You Came Along
19 Bad Time

The Jayhawks remain one of the more under appreciated bands of the last 30 years but not by JEMS, who recorded the group many times in various incarnations. In 2000, they rolled into Seattle supporting their excellent album Smile, produced by none other than Bob "Pink Floyd The Wall" Ezrin.

We were able to plug into the mixing board at the Showbox that night to capture the Jayhawks' full set, which offers up a big chunk of Smile and a strong selection of songs spanning their 1997 masterpiece Sound of Lies back through their major label debut, Hollywood Town Hall and its indie precursor Blue Earth, plus "Until You Came Along" from side project Golden Smog.

This recording has been in circulation for many years, but what's different here is we've taken the original DAT transfer done by our pal Mike Ziegler and attempted to correct the master recording's distinct lack of bass.

Given the size of the Showbox and the bass amp used on stage, it seems very little of the instrument was pushed through the PA, something that's always been a minor source of frustration in this otherwise excellent capture. Using Music Rebalance in iZotope's RX software, we were able to recover some of that missing bass (which was present but very low in the mix) and restore it in balance with the rest of the instrumentation. To our ears, this version is a marked improvement and a better listening experience. Samples provided.

Thanks to Mike Ziegler for making the original DAT transfer, and to mjk5510 for handling post production. The Jayhawks are still out there playing great shows. Go check 'em out.

BK for JEMS