Jethro Tull - 1984-09-13 - Madrid, ES (FM/FLAC)

(FM broadcast FLAC)

Jethro Tull,
Pabellon Deportivo del Real Madrid,
Madrid,
Spain,
13 September 1984

Lineage:
unknown generation tape -> Audacity -> Flac 8 with xAct -> SF10 (editing, phase offset corrected, balance between channels adjusted, removed a couple of extraneous noises, speed corrected) -> wav -> flac

Original broadcast recorded by: ?
Tape collected, transferred and first seeded by: Lake Ogleton
File rescue and images provided by: dunringill
Edited by: JacoZappa

Ian Anderson: flute, acoustic guitar, lead vocals
Martin Barre: electric and acoustic guitar, synth
David Pegg: bass guitar
Peter-John Vettese: keyboards, synth, percussion
Doane Perry: drums, electronic drums

01 Intro Tape [00:37]
02 Locomotive Breath (instr.) [01:39]
03 Hunting Girl [05:32]
04 Under Wraps #1 [04:46]
05 Later, That Same Evening [03:58]
06 Nobody's Car [05:18] (cut at 1:37, music missing)
07 Apogee [05:22]
08 Thick As A Brick [06:47] (splice at 0:03, overlap removed, no content missing)
09 Level Pegging [01:59]
10 Skating Away On The Thin Ice Of The New Day [01:56] (tape flip, cuts in, music missing)
11 Pussy Willow [04:44]
12 Clasp [04:10] (flaw, 0:07)
13 Living In The Past [04:16]
14 Serenade To A Cuckoo [05:05]
15 Fat Man [06:21] (cut at 4:17, music missing)
16 Keyboard Instrumental (incl. Fly By Night) [08:42]
17 Fly By Night [04:00]
18 Made In England [05:20]
19 European Legacy [03:23]
20 Black Sunday [06:18] (splice at 0:24, overlap removed, no content missing)
21 Aqualung [07:07] (tape flip, cuts out, music missing)
22 Locomotive Breah [06:29]
23 encore break [01:58]
24 Too Old To Rock N' Roll: Too Young To Die [05:23] (cuts out, music missing)

- Total time: 111:20

Here's an interesting Tull show that hasn't been seen on the internet much. This is a high energy mean spirited performance from the "Under Wraps" tour. One of the reasons I like this band a lot is that even when they were touring less than stellar material they managed to put on an excellent show. I'm not and never was a big fan of the "Under Wraps" album but the songs performed here benefit immensely from the stage treatment: for one thing, Martin Barre is very prominent, aggressive and great in the mix and the songs are played with a real drummer, albeit sometimes using electronic drums. However, Perry plays "Apogee" with the proper drum set and the result are great. It also helps that they played none of the songs on that album that I consider really offensive.

This was the last tour before Anderson lost his classic voice but he started to have problems here too sounding a bit more nasal than usual. He is mostly great on the newer material but on the old songs you can hear it was the beginning of the end. The setlist is pretty good, well balanced between the new and the old stuff with some instrumental things thrown in the mix and a very different than usual edit of "Thick as a Brick".

This concert was broadcast live by Radio Madrid and, although sound quality is very good, it is plagued by a few problems. Some are of technical nature: sometimes there's radio crackle and static and the mix is strange with what seem to be out of phase artifacts in order to emphasize the stereo image. It would still sound pretty pleasant if it wasn't for the two DJs talking over bits. This is something that was done by the radio stations to prevent bootlegging: I have a Frank Zappa concert from Barcelone six days later which has the same problem and probably the same DJs. Still, if you speak Spanish, you'll realize these guys say a lot of dumb crap. Some highlights:

- "Hunting Girl" is the opening track of "Under Wraps";
- Martin Barre was a childhood friend of Ian Anderson and they formed Tull together;
- The keyboard player is David Pegg;
- One of the DJs says this is the best show he has seen with the radio station (mejor). The other DJ thinks he said the worst (pejor) and says he agrees because they are playing too much new stuff and the best he had seen was a Rod Stewart one because he played all the classics.

Still, when the dynamic duo lets us hear the music sound quality is very nice and pleasant. Also, to be fair, the beginning of the broadcast is the most plagued section and as they go on talk less and less, although in the most inappropriate places. Oh, well...

The source of this version is a seed by Lake Ogleton from a few years ago. I don't know when this first appeared on dime but dunringill was kind enough to send me the files so thanks to both. Compared to the original files I did some adjustments: I fixed some phase offset problems and balance between the channels, eliminated a couple of thumps, removed overlaps, retracked it and speed corrected it a little bit because the original seed ran slightly too fast. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find the final 2-3 minutes of the show (including "Different Germany (instr.)" and "Thick as a Brick (reprise)") which were broadcast but are not here because of the tape running out. Still, I like the results and I think it sounds pretty nice. The original seed reported the venue as Cuidad Portiva del Real Madrid which is what it's listed on the ministry of information website but the DJs, the tickets and the posters of this show all say it was at Pabellon Deportivo del Read Madrid. Lake Ogleton also wrote on the original info file that his tape was marked as "Pabellon de Deportes".