Gordon at Massey Hall 1974!

[Same Old Loverman]

Since there's been no new releases from Gordon of unreleased concerts or songs I tend to get excited when I hear something new. Last year it was the PBS Chicago concert from 1973, then earlier this year the shows from 1974 and 75 in Charlotte. Now someone has been kind enough to post Gordon's 3/23/74 concert at Massey Hall on Sugarmegs.

What can I say, it's Gordon and it's awesome! I know this recording has been around for awhile but I've never had the opportunity to sink my ears into it- until now. As far as sound quality, I'd say it's pretty close to excellent. There's a few pops and crackles (probably from the cassette) but overall very enjoyable. This is also a great recording for appreciating Rick's bass playing, as it comes through very well.

I'll try not to ramble too much, but for me, a few of the highlites are: "Pleasures of the night", which I don't think I've ever heard before but really like. I was also really knocked out when he did "Ballad of Yarmouth Castle" which prior to this, I had only heard on "Sunday Concert." Nice to hear a different version, Gordon even mentions something about it probably being the last time they do it for awhile. This is followed by a true heartfelt rendition of "Stone Cold Sober" which apart from "Songbook" was never released. I've always wondered if he wrote this for Cathy Smith or if she was in the audience that night, there's a lot of emotion going on here, and I can't help but think he was thinking of her. He caps things off perfectly with "Looking at the Rain" and "Wherefore and Why." What an awesome concert, with a fantastic setlist.

I wonder if this was one of the shows that was proffesionally recorded for release, but deemed unacceptable due to a technical glitch. What a shame if it was. Thankfully someone snuck a tape recorder in and captured at least one of the shows. Somewhere I read (I think) that all the shows at Massey from 1969 were recorded, I wonder if they'll ever go back and release those? I would think there's a lot that they didn't use on the "Sunday Concert." Anyway, I'll be listening to this one for quite awhile!

[jj]

Looking at the Rain live, wow, thanks

[Dan O'Malley]

downloading now, thanks for letting us know!

[johnfowles]

Those punters like Peterbro who do not wish to have to try to separate the low quality all in one file they can download from sugarmegs in order to burn a CD shoud be aware that
The obvious Lighthead known as "wolfsbane" has uploaded a set of higher quality 192KBPS mp3s plus artwork in a rar file to rapidshare and he has a link on his weblog at:-
http://nathansclassicrockmoat.blogsp...onto-1974.html
afte his description he gives download links for three other bootlegs
"You might also like:
Gordon Lightfoot - St. Petersburg 2010
Gordon Lightfoot - Morrison 1975
Gordon Lightfoot - Santa Rosa 2006 "
And another obvious Lighthead known as "zeppo" has announced the fact on guitars101.com at:-
http://www.guitars101.com/forums/f90...lightfoot+1974
Either way the rapidshare link for Massey 1974 is:-
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=RCE00AESFilename:
The file name is GLT74.rar
File description: GLT74
File size: 135.3 MB
Once you have downloaded the rar format compressed archive file (similar to a zipfile) you
have to"unrar" it then use the resultant mp3s to burn your audio CD.
Those of you who have been paying attention to my postings
instead of making fun of themshould be able to remember how I introduced a great freeware program called JZIP
that can most easily unrar these rar files
I also recommended another freeware program (Express Burn) with which it is easily possible to burn a concert CD that is both gapless/continuous and track selectable,
Those whose memory and/or site searching skills are not up to the job can wait while I put a very few finishing touches to two more of my world class fully illustrated tutorials (based on what are already virtually complete intructions on corfid) and upload them I plan to be back with links in a very few days
But as far as this Massey 1974 bootleg goes those who have taken the trouble to read into Wayne's cornucopia should be well aware that this is almost certainly the result of a true "official" (i.e. originally not a bootleg at all) soundboard recording made with the intention of being issued as another live concert album but was aborted after much money had been spent due to the perfectionist Gord being disatisfied with the way it sounded due to a broken fingernail or so the story goes. I really wonder if anybody here can find the evidence of this trivial flaw on the bootleg recording
Also in this 1974 set is another fine rendition (one cannot have too many!!) of Seven Island Suite and three other "rarities" (Tennessee Stud, Partners and Divorce Country Style)

[Same Old Loverman]

Soundboard recording? Do you think so? I thought it sounded like an audience recording. You can almost feel the applause between numbers (and it's overwhelming at times) which means the recorder would have had to have been in the audience. I would think a soundboard recording would have more balance between the music and the crowd. I love how responsive the audience is to Gordon, waiting until each song is over to erupt in applause- especially toward the end where it starts to feel like a party! Interesting that Wayne's site claims that all four Massey Hall shows from 1974 were recorded. I didn't know that. If true, you wouldn't think that the same problem would have plagued all four recordings.

[johnfowles]

Originally Posted by Same Old Loverman

Soundboard recording? Do you think so? I thought it sounded like an audience recording. You can almost feel the applause between numbers (and it's overwhelming at times) which means the recorder would have had to have been in the audience. I would think a soundboard recording would have more balance between the music and the crowd.Interesting that Wayne's site claims that all four Massey Hall shows from 1974 were recorded. I didn't know that. If true, you wouldn't think that the same problem would have plagued all four recordings.

You know Soloman I think you are perfectly correct.
It had been a long time since I had listened to my 2CD set ( a welcome gift several years ago by a prominent lady member of corfid and I had meanwhile forgotten how much audience noise there is, expecially on the last track where there is a very loud,obtrusive, unnecessary and annoying clappalong.
No self respecting sound engineer would have allowed such an audience noise to have intruded onto a switchboard recording (and in 1974 it might have been Richard Harison,(he is on record for claiming to being on duty for the later 1976 Montreux recording)
This fact alone pretty well proves that it must be a run of the mill audience recording.
Knowing that at least one concert had been recorded as part of a planned album issue I had always assumed that this set was a bootleg that had been purloined from the switchboard recording.
I did some internet searching for "lightfoot Massey 1974"
one amazing result was a Canadian website for a Scarborough ON company allegedly still offering to sell copies of this bootleg.see their tripod home page at:-
http://mediadetox.tripod.com/index.htm
(a page omiously "Last Updated 11/10/98.")
click the classic artists link to open
http://mediadetox.tripod.com/classic.htm
Their blurb at the top of that page includes this statement
"All other audio titles listed are duplicated from the CD releases (or were recorded by us live, using a portable reel-to-reel machine)."
Scroll down to find a single GL entry:-
Gordon Lightfoot Live At Massey Hall 1974 Media Detox Records 2 CD-R's $28.00 $20.00
where the $20.00 is a discounted price if you were to buy 4 CDs from them
there is an order form containing this address
Mail Orders to: MEDIA DETOX 2671 Eglinton Ave East., Suite #131, Scarborough, Ontario, M1K 2S2 CANADA
Canada 411 and google could not verify the location of that establishment,indeed 411 was only interested in showing me spas and other detox parlours but google maps produced the amazing information that at the same address is allegedly a branch of Mail Boxes Etc
Truly amazing because those of you with memories that are larger than a bird's might recall that another branch of that organisation (or another with the exact same trading name) is nowadays the location of Gords Blue Plaque in London

I spent some time studying the Massey 1974 details page at:-
http://mediadetox.tripod.com/gllamh74.htm
where I read this claim:-
Gordon Lightfoot - Live At Massey Hall 1974 (2 CD-R's)
This recording was recorded by our veteran staff members at Massey Hall, In Toronto, Sun. March 24, 1974.
It was locked in our vaults until now.
You will NOT be able to find this recording anywhere except from this source (unless they stole it from us).
That bold statement was followed by the setlist of their CD set
which includes this comment
"Sundown (he flubs the begining and restarts the song)"
I have spent some time checking out the old CD set that I have to compare with the recently downloaded mp3 set from the Rapidshare rar file and it is definitely the same recording of the same concert (whoever made it) for example on both the CD and mp3 Gord stumbles (flubs) the opening of Sundown.
I also double checked the artwork I had previously obtained for my original set which was the same as included in the rar file collection
One oddity of my original set was that the two CDs each should (according to the back artwork) have comprised 12 tracks but the final two on CD 1 are actually on CD2 despite Gord clearly saying before CD1 track 12 (Old Dan's Records) " this is the last one in the set"
So in fact one CD has only 10 tracks and the other consequently has 14
I also also cross checked media detox's track list and it has the same 24 titles as on the CD case back artwork (see below) and in the info.txt file that was in the rar file,
For future use I proceeded to rename each mp3 and add ID3 tags (using the freeware program

from
http://www.mp3tag.de/en/
and was therefore rather surprised to reailse that
there were 25 mp3s on the rar
the extra track is The Pony Man in the CD2 set
which IS included in Wayne's setlist for the March 25th 1974 concert
see:-
http://www.lightfoot.ca/740325.htm

Originally Posted by johnfowles

due to the perfectionist Gord being disatisfied with the way it sounded due to a broken fingernail or so the story goes.

Andy T might want to chime in here because he posted about Gord's fingernail problem on the newgroup at:-
http://groups.google.co.uk/group/alt...5575e8dc246400
also on
http://groups.google.co.uk/group/alt...b7a3e8330580ff
Andy said
"> it was reported that Gord had "broken a
>nail" and as a result was unhappy with his performance on the guitar
Yeah, he was wearing a false nail for those shows, and reportedly he was
annoyed by some difference it made in how he played. For those of us who have
heard the bootleg of one of the same shows he recorded, we can't hear anything
wrong."
Derek (tele)Kidd in that thread added this tidbit of detail "the Lee Press-On nail"
OK I think ['ll should quit now while I am ahead but before I do have one further pungent observation
Wayne lists the Massey 1974 season as March 22/23/24/25
but only provides the one setlist which as I mentioned above he attributed to March 25
Those four dates in 1974 according to the handy ready reckoner at http://www.kernow.notlong.com were on Friday/ Saturday/Sunday/Monday
the complication is that whoever created the back CD case artwork plumped for the 23rd

also And as I reproduced above media detox claimed
"This recording was recorded by our veteran staff members at Massey Hall, In Toronto, Sun. March 24, 1974"
the best clue to the actual date I can come up with is might be in an offhand comment by Gord in which he referred to "the weekend" which is something he would have been more likely to have said on the Thursday or Friday methinks!
Whatever I would bet good money (UKPounds) that the chances of Gord's setlist being identical for not two but three nights running are zero,
and the final mystery is where did Wayne get his setlist from ?
Noting that his list is the only one which (presumably correctly) includes The Pony Man
OK now that is off my chest the coast is clear to complete my two über tutorials in the morning, I'll be back

[Jim Nasium]

Just downloaded and unrared this concert, an interesting version of Cold on the Shoulder, a work in progress. Gordon in his prime.

[vlmagee]

Originally Posted by johnfowles

f
and the final mystery is where did Wayne get his setlist from ?
Noting that his list is the only one which (presumably correctly) includes The Pony Man
OK now that is off my chest the coast is clear to complete my two über tutorials in the morning, I'll be back

The CD set was sold online for about 6 months back about 10 years ago. The Pony Man is incomplete and - as I recall - it's part of the same track as the song that follows. Whoever posted this concert now just dropped the incomplete song. Wayne got the information either from having that CD set, or from something posted by someone else, probably me. As I recall, I posted the set list, with the comment about The Pony Man, at the newsgroup. I think I may have been the first person to discover it online, although at this point I can't swear to that.

It is an audience recording, done on reel-to-reel. Obviously, a reel-to-reel tape recorder could not be smuggled in or hidden while in use, so clearly whoever recorded the concert had the "help" of someone from Massey.

[Louise]

Just checked my old diary for the year 1974. I was 15 years old and I attended the Massey concert (it was my second time seeing Gord and I was in absolute heaven). BUT I attended the concert on March 21st ..... so the dates on Wayne's site are not quite right. The 21st was the opening night that year, not the 22nd. I didn't record the full set list in my diary, but some songs he sang on the 21st that are not on the March 23rd recording were "The List", "Cotton Jenny", "Same Old Obsession", "Carefree Highway," "10 Degrees and Getting Colder," and "On Susan's Floor." I also mentioned that he did two concerts on the 24th (Sunday) that year -- a matinee and an evening performance.

Louise

[Jim Nasium]

Have just listened to this concert, was cherry picking last time, the audience were really enjoying this concert, I just wish I was there. Enjoyed the "False Step" at beginning of CRRT. The man is human after all. "Divorce Country Style" reminds me of Jerry Reed's "She Got The Goldmine, I Got The Shaft"

[Jesse Joe]

Originally Posted by Louise

Just checked my old diary for the year 1974. I was 15 years old and I attended the Massey concert (it was my second time seeing Gord and I was in absolute heaven). BUT I attended the concert on March 21st ..... so the dates on Wayne's site are not quite right. The 21st was the opening night that year, not the 22nd. I didn't record the full set list in my diary, but some songs he sang on the 21st that are not on the March 23rd recording were "The List", "Cotton Jenny", "Same Old Obsession", "Carefree Highway," "10 Degrees and Getting Colder," and "On Susan's Floor." I also mentioned that he did two concerts on the 24th (Sunday) that year -- a matinee and an evening performance.

Louise

Hi Louise,

Nice to see you pop in here from time to time wish you would do it more often. Are you enjoying your summer, have you been to the IAAF Stadium to catch a bit of those games last week ?

'WOW' seeing Gordon Lightfoot @ 15 years of age in 1974 @ Massey Hall... I too would have been in absolute heaven.

I saw this morning on T&T that Casino NB is bringing in April Wine, have you been there yet ?

~Cheers~

www.casinonb.ca

[Louise]

Hi there, Jesse-Joe! Nice of you to respond!

No, I haven't yet been to the casino. I drive by it every so often on the Trans Canada and I'm still amazed by the size of the thing. I hadn't heard about April Wine. Are you planning on going? I did hear that Bill Cosby was coming. ..?
L.

[Same Old Loverman]

I agree, it's great when people keep diaries or journals (it's amazing what you forget) as our memories are sometimes not as clear or as accurate as we'd like to think they are (or as a friend of mine likes to say-'the good ole days weren't always so good'). Diaries along with a little bit of detective work (I think Sir John and Jesse Joe are especialy good at this) can help answer a lot of questions. There's some cool pictures floating around of Gordon "in concert" and backstage at Massey (I believe taken by Joseph Sia) and I believe they may have been taken from this series of shows.

According to one website "Sundown" (the album) wasn't released until April of 1974 (although Wayne's site says January '74). Even so, Gordon performs "High and Dry," "Seven Island Suite," "Too Late for Praying" and of course "Sundown." All the songs are received with enthusiasm by the audience, especially Sundown (I'm guessing they were already playing that one on the radio?). Interesting that he didn't play "Carefree Highway."

Someone mentioned "Cold on the Shoulder" as a work in progress and I agree, what I also found interesting is that the song wouldn't be released until the following year (I guess perorming it live was a good way to work out the kinks)! Another work in progress is "Stone Cold Sober" which I believe has an extra verse not found on the "Songbook" version.

Thanks to the tapes of Gordon in Seattle on May 16th 1974 (I mistakingly refered to the location as Charlotte in my earlier post) diaries, photos and remembrances from fellow Cornfidians, we can shed more light onto what was certainly an exciting (if not exhausting- look at the tour dates on Wayne's site) year in Gordon's career.

[RM]

Originally Posted by Same Old Loverman

According to one website "Sundown" (the album) wasn't released until April of 1974 (although Wayne's site says January '74).

I believe Wayne's site is correct. February 8th, 1974, Men's Gym, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Arizona. I was there. He announced that he had "a new product out". The crowd erupted with applause because Sundown had already caught fire. Everybody I knew had it.

[Louise]

The diary comes through again (to add to RM's recollection). I have an entry on Jan. 26th, 1974 that mentions hearing the tune "Sundown" on the radio and the disc jockey announcing that it was the title song of Gord's "brand new album". I got the album for my birthday in February.
Louise

[charlene]

perhaps the release dates were a bit different here in Canada than they were in the U.S. ??
He seems to have always taken many new tunes out for a run on the concert circuit before recording them.

[Same Old Loverman]

The April release date came from Wikipedia (probably not the most reliable source for information) but I did wonder about what Char said. Either way I think it's great that Louise documented that, and that RM remembers Gordon saying that he had "new product" out.

[Louise]

Just re-read "Same Old Loverman"'s first post again -- he mentioned surprise that Gord didn't do "Carefree Highway" at the '74 concert. But he DID do it the night I saw him (which was two nights before the recording). And I recollected in my diary (sorry -- I'm sure everyone is getting really tired of the diary details!) that he also did the song in '73 at Massey, but he had just written it and didn't know it by heart yet. So he placed a music stand in front of him with the words and/or music on it! When he played it in '74, he joked that he could now do it without the music stand.
Louise

[RM]

Originally Posted by Louise

And I recollected in my diary (sorry -- I'm sure everyone is getting really tired of the diary details!

Not at all.

[Jesse Joe]

Originally Posted by Louise

Hi there, Jesse-Joe! Nice of you to respond!

No, I haven't yet been to the casino. I drive by it every so often on the Trans Canada and I'm still amazed by the size of the thing. I hadn't heard about April Wine. Are you planning on going? I did hear that Bill Cosby was coming. ..?
L.

Yes indeed Bill Cosby is coming, dont know about going to the April Wine show, I saw them in the 70's, when they were @ their best. Would like to see Gord Downie tho !

[johnfowles]

I have just rediscovered this old thread and thought it worth reviving

[johnfowles]

Since I posted the last message I have checked out the links contained in an earlier posting I made in his thread for downloading a set of files for this 1974 Massey bootleg
All are now dead and there is no currently seeded torrent available but I have rechecked the streaming uploads on sugarmegs and am pleasantly surprised because I had previously derided these as being far too low in quality judging by their audio sampling rate.
If you search for our hero on:-
http://tela.sugarmegs.org/
you will find an eclectic listing of some 32 odd items (which includes a few obvious duplications)
mostly they are complete concert bootlegs.
including the Massey 1974 listed twice

Each has setlist and listen links and right clickable download links for the complete concert as a single file in either wma or mp3 format
For example I had previously only downloaded the 1974 Massey as a wma and the file, alhough it sounded OK, was a mere 28.7MB for a running time of 1 hour 39 minutes and the sampling rate was derisively only about 40 KBPS as this analsys by mediainfo reveals

I have now downloaded the two 1974 listings as mp3s
the first mp3 is the same 1:39 and is a file of 92.6MB
and as the calculator on
http://www.sounddevices.com/calculator/
reports:-
Storage Space Required - 92.8MB
This is the approximate amount of disk space s of 2 track requires at 128 kbps / 16 bits.
the mediainfo analysis confirmed that the rate at 131KBPS is of that order

I then downloaded the second offering which turned out to be a larger file (98.1MB)
because it is longer at 1:47:02 due to it starting with an inserted 8:32 long bonus track:-
The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson on NBC in 1965
"Johnny introduces Lightfoot as a rising star on the folk scene. Lightfoot performs Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues and Early Morning Rain"
Mediainfo analysed it as 128KBPS

and 128 is a very common base rate for mp3 file sharing
I have just played through the 1974 concert
and found myself thinking how topical the Yarmouth Castle ballad is after the South Korean ferry debacle
"And the captain in his lifeboat is a-leavin'"
and I have to say that the sound quality of thesè 128KBPS mp3s is really pretty good (the usual recommendation for quality good enough for CD burning is 192 KBPS and many file sets were sampled at 256 or even the very highest 320, but then I did once burn one CD from 64 KBPS mp3s and it sounds to me quite acceptable.
The only problem with downloading mp3s from sugarmegs is that they are one continuous single file and longer than the maximum capacity of a blank CD so at the minimum the single file would require splitting into two CD chunks then it would be easy to burn two CDs that were both contnuous/gapless.
However you might prefer to split all songs into individual files then burn using Express Burn with the gap set to zero which will produce a CD that plays like a continuous one but allows each track to be selected
Either way splitting the complete file is easily done by opening it in the easy to use Audacity editing program

[charlene]

saw this today: http://mafon.biz/play/6-let-it-ride-...406s3m413.html

[johnfowles]

Originally Posted by charlene

saw this today: http://mafon.biz/play/6-let-it-ride-...406s3m413.html

That should have been a nice find Char but the clowns responsible have ruined it by allowing their stoopid downloader (without installing which you can do nothing) to be infected see my two AVG screenshots attached

[davidgledhill]

I was an usher in March 74 and 75 at Massey Hall for the Lightfoot concerts. Every so often, in the dark, you would see someone with a handheld mike and a large package on their lap etc. It goes without saying that the quality of that recording would be non-commercial - given all the clapping- and the hassle factor of going after while the concert was on was not really worth it.
Below is my previously published correspondence with Elliot Mazer who recorded the concerts which were not released due the the famous broken fingernail.
I have my doubts that there was any collusion with illegal recording and employees of Massey Hall.
As ushers we had free roam of the place - exploring all nooks and crannies.
There have not been a slew of great bootleg concert tapes released from Massey Hall during that era.
If you had gone to the trouble of putting illicit professional recording equipment in place for one concert - why not keep it in place and just keep the tapes running.
There were great rock/folk/jazz concerts there up to a dozen times a month.
It was the greatest job in the world - and I actually got paid for it.



Dear Elliot,

I was a young usher at Massey Hall in Toronto during the time you were
overseeing the recordings of Gordon Lightfoot for a planned live album
that was never released - I think maybe it was 1974 March. I met you
up on stage between concerts and I remember you showing us, a bunch of
ushers, the sound recording equipment. Thanks for taking the time.

Unfortunately, the recordings were never released due to Lightfoot
having a broken fingernail. With all the technology available today it
must be possible to clean up the slight marring of sound a fingernail
would have created.

There is talk of Lightfoot releasing his live recordings since 2000
but I am just wondering ,considering he was in his prime back then
whatever happened to the tapes? What was your opinion of them?

Neil Young released his Massey Hall concert to great aclaim - do you
think Gordon will ever do the same?

thanks in advance
David Gledhill

his reply

Dear David,
Thank you for this note.

You are correct. Gordie was not pleased with his performances.

I don't think technology could repair the problems with those recordings.

There are many wonderful moments but I must agree with Gordon.

I have not heard anything about these tapes in years.

cheers

Elliot