ELLIOTT SMITH TRAMPS II - NEW YORK 1998 | ALBUMS THAT SHOULD EXIST

Elliott Smith - Tramps, New York City, 10-4-1998

A few days ago, I posted an album of singer-songwriter Elliott Smith playing at Tramps, a club in New York City, in 1998. This also is an album of Smith playing at Tramps in 1998. But the two concerts are very different, even though they're only about six months apart. The key difference is that first one I posted is a solo acoustic concert whereas this one is with a full band. But also, all but four of the songs are different. So if you're an Elliott Smith fan, I suggest you listen to both.

One similarity between the two shows is that they both have great sound quality, even though they're unreleased. Clearly, someone running the club was making soundboard recordings and keeping them. These two Smith shows haven't gotten around much, but I'm hoping to change that. High sound quality is especially important for band performances, and I don't think you'll find any recordings of Smith's concerts with a band that sound better than this one.

The only problem with this recording was the first song, "Christian Brothers." About the first minute was missing. I found another recording from a concert about a week later, and used that to fill in that missing minute. That's from an audience bootleg, so the sound quality isn't as good. But it's pretty good as audience boots go. 

Regarding the set list, between the Tramps show earlier in the year and this one, Smith's studio album "XO" was released. He'd played a few songs from that in the earlier show, but he played a lot more in this one. In case you're curious, the four songs played in both shows are: "Alameda," "Division Day," "No Name No. 4," and "Waltz No. 2 [XO]." That concert had one cover of a famous song, and this one does also: "When I Paint My Masterpiece" by Bob Dylan. I guess because this was a full-band concert, Smith wanted to keep things moving and thus had almost no banter whatsoever between songs.

This album is 53 minutes long.

01 Christian Brothers [Edit] (Elliott Smith)
02 Waltz No. 2 [XO] (Elliott Smith)
03 Stupidity Tries (Elliott Smith)
04 talk (Elliott Smith)
05 Bottle Up and Explode (Elliott Smith)
06 Baby Britain (Elliott Smith)
07 Sweet Adeline (Elliott Smith)
08 Alameda (Elliott Smith)
09 Bled White (Elliott Smith)
10 Happiness (Elliott Smith)
11 Everybody Cares, Everybody Understands (Elliott Smith)
12 Ballad of Big Nothing (Elliott Smith)
13 Independence Day (Elliott Smith)
14 Good to Go (Elliott Smith)
15 No Name No. 4 (Elliott Smith)
16 I Didn't Understand (Elliott Smith)
17 Division Day (Elliott Smith)
18 talk (Elliott Smith)
19 When I Paint My Masterpiece (Elliott Smith)

Elliott Smith TRAMPS II - New York City 1998

More from Paul over at Albums That Should Exist and frankly I am still listening avidly to the last posting he shared on there so was particularly looking forward to this one too!