Moody Blues
Madison Square Garden
New York, NY
October 23, 1972
Late Show?

Recording Gear: Unknown mono recorder

JEMS Transfer: Scotch 120 Minute Master Cassette > Nakamichi RX-505 azimuth-adjusted playback > Sound Devices USBPre2 > Audacity 3.1 capture > iZotope RX10 Advanced and Ozone 9 > FLAC

01 tuning
02 The Story in Your Eyes
03 Tortoise and The Hare
04 Tuesday Afternoon
05 Our Guessing Game
06 When You're a Free Man
07 The Land of Make-Believe
08 After You Came
09 One More Time to Live
10 Melancholy Man
11 Are You Sitting Comfortably?
12 The Dream
13 Have You Heard? (Part 1)
14 The Voyage
15 Have You Heard? (Part 2)
16 Nights in White Satin
17 Legend of a Mind
18 Question
19 Ride My See-Saw

Known Faults: Start cut to "The Dream"

There must be a name for the condition where you have many more of a thing than you can possibly need for the rest of your life but you keep on acquiring. When presented with the opportunity to add a small cache of uncirculated audience recordings circa 1971-73, JEMS simply couldn't say no.

Master cassette tapes from this era are not common. The format was still in its early stage and far fewer folks were even attempting to covertly record concerts in 1971 and 1972 compared to just a couple of years later.

The cassettes that were passed along to JEMS were all made by the same NY/NJ-area taper and this Moody Blues show felt like a good place to start. The band did two shows there on October 23, which was something of a career milestone at the time, one which the band has reflected on in later interviews. We can't confirm if this is the afternoon or evening performance, but our gut says it is the late show.

The recording itself bears all the hallmarks of an early, non-professional cassette recorder, with narrow fidelity and limited body. That being said it otherwise clear, steady, undistorted and has a notable lack of close audience noise or hiss. For an under-documented era and early cassette technology, its not half bad. Samples provided.

The MSG recording also captures the Moody Blues at what is arguably their commercial peak. The band's album Seventh Sojourn had just been released and became their first US No. 1. The Moodys were also riding the success of the single "Nights In White Satin," originally released in 1967, but re-released in the summer of 1972 and eventually climbing to No. 2 on the Billboard pop chart. It's no wonder they were able to play two shows at MSG.

Thanks as always to our key JEMS collaborators including Professor Goody who made sure the pitch was adjusted and mjk5510 who handled post production and setlist creation.

More soft-rocking, early '70s masters are coming soon.

BK for JEMS

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