PATTI SMITH - NEW YORK 1997 :: The (Almost) Complete Sessions at West 54th Street - Big O

 

Patti Smith - The Sony Music Studios 1997

PATTI SMITH
New York 1997 [Two Of Us Master Series Volume 100, 1CD]
The (Almost) Complete “Sessions At West 54th”. Sony Music Studios, New York City, NY; July 23, 1997. Very good audience recording.

Thanks to mjk5510 & Two Of Us for sharing the show at Dime.

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Known Faults:
- Beneath The Southern Cross - end cut

Between 1983 and 2002 there was not any tapers more active than the “Two Of Us”. For the better part of two decades they taped over 250 artists with an array being taped multiple times. If you collect Springsteen then you are already familiar with some of their work, “fmcleanboots” has posted a half dozen or so of their “Tunnel Of Love” tour shows but has decided to pass the baton. What you don’t know is their passion was not just for Springsteen but for music and that passion runs deep. It is astonishing how many artists they taped.

They followed tours taping club shows, theater shows, arena shows, big artists, mid-level artists and local artists. If they were following a tour and the tour had an off night they’d see who else was playing that night to tape. Always focused on enjoyment of the show as the priority, tickets were for the most part acquired outside of the venue as they worked to obtain the best possible seats, continually trading up until the correct seats were acquired.

The results of this were the captures are uniformly excellent but on occasion the start of the show was sacrificed as a trade-off for the seats. The heavy lifting was done by the Sony WM-D6C and an external Shure Mic before moving to DAT for the last couple of years. None of their masters have ever been circulated and have been safely stored for the past three to four decades in a climate controlled environment. Tapes transferred so far are in pristine condition.

Though we may do some mini releases of a series of shows in order for one portion of a tour for the most part shows will not be released in order, there are just too many of them. This will be a very exciting series and we hope along the way we upgrade existing circulating audio and offer up shows that do not have any circulating audio. We hope you enjoy the ride, this is definitely not a dark ride. 

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You guys will know by know I am so spoiled I don't normally post links to audience recordings as there are now so many fine quality soundboards or matrix recordings that I just don't bother but having listened to this, it is REALLY worth it and if you have the rest of the West 54th Street Sony Sessions then this is a treat not least because of Patti's chat between numbers which at times is hysterically funny! So relaxed and comfortable with her New York audience she plays games with the crowd. Great fun . . . . . . 

Enjoy!