John McLaughlin & the Free Spirits - Live at Charles Hotel Ballroom, Cambridge, Mass. U.S.A., March 1, 1996, (2 shows)

This was my second time around seeing Free Spirits, and I had the exact same recorder and mikes as the 94 show, hoping for a similar result. It was a very hot time, and a somewhat similar result, but the deck was not behaving quite so well, for a portion of this recording. I'm not sure how much of it is noticably affecting the recording quality, on much of it I don't notice any problem at all. It wasn't batteries, since the deck was  running on AC power, both shows recorded from the same spot, fair amount of applause noise in these shows, between songs and in some of the many peak points of the shows. They were burning their way through most of this, and in those parts I do not notice any significant recording problems. No problems at all with the concert, especially Dennis Chambers. This may be  his hottest show that I've heard and the crowd was into it, thus more crowd noise than the 94. Another John McL. show for a packed house in Boston area, just over the Charles River on the Cambridge side. This may be the most  enthusiastic crowd response I've heard John get in an electric show in this  area since you-know-who (the original Maha. Orch.) and he was up to the
challenge. I have very good memories of this performance, and the recording, which is much closer to the line of center stage than the 94 one (that was off a little to the left side of stage) so sound is better balanced, but more hands and voices between mikes and stage. Not nearly enough to overwhelm the experience of one of my favorite Free Spirits concerts. The fidelity is pretty comparable to the 94 one I have up with this (seperate torrent) and you could make a 4 disc set out of both of them if you wish. That one was a real good concert, this one even better, IMHO. There are a couple of spliced (cut in middle and put together as 1 whole) tracks in this recording but only
a few seconds missing each time for tape flips. Lots of very long ones in these shows, and I only had 90's. Not sure even 100's would have avoided all cuts, but would have helped some. This is probably within about half a minute of the full 2 shows. It's like one long show, and it's over 3 hours of Free Spirits, all for you and all for free as Free Spirits should be (sometimes), with spring blessings from glasnostrd19. (taper)

John McLaughlin & the Free Spirits
Live at Charles Hotel Ballroom
Cambridge, Mass. U.S.A.
March 1, 1996, (2 shows)

Source: master audience tapes

Good sound quality!

Musicians:

John McLaughlin- electric guitar
Joey DeFrancesco- Hammond B-3 organ, trumpet
Dennis Chambers- drums


2 Sets (sorry, no tracklist)

Total runtime: 184:04

1st show: 82:57
2nd show: 101:07


Format: FLAC

Enjoy!


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