Neil Young/VA,USA 1973 & more

Along with the Rolling Stones’ masterpiece “GOIN’ BACK TO THE ROOTS AMERICAN TOUR – JULY 1972,” which has been released in its best CD version, another Contra Band Music masterpiece is Neil Young’s “COMING HOME.” “A BIT MORE”. There is a close relationship between these and the Stones’ “GOIN’ BACK~”. First of all, it uses audience recordings captured at Scope Arena in Norfolk. What’s more, both artists’ releases feature unique photos taken against black backgrounds. Finally, the label also features a photo of the artist. As veteran enthusiasts may know, Contra Band releases have slick covers with a simple design and labels that are either plain or have a company mark printed on them, so only the items listed above are released with elaborate designs. It was really rare. Despite this, the reason why the release ended with only items from two artists is presumed to be because there were almost no live performances by major artists at the same venue at the time. In addition, as you can see if you listen to the Stones’ “GOIN’ BACK TO THE ROOTS AMERICAN TOUR – JULY 1972”, it is a good point that both titles have excellent sound quality. “COMING HOME” was a best-selling masterpiece of an audience album that was recorded with excellent quality that even surpassed that, making use of his experience with the Stones the previous year. Anyway, the strange performance and the on-balance where Neil’s voice can be heard close is still shocking even in 2020. And yet, the voices of the surrounding audience were barely picked up. As expected, there are people who have uploaded parts of this LP as a “soundboard” on YouTube. Moreover, since the 1973 live tour after the release of the masterpiece “Harvest” was captured in the best sound quality, there is no way it would not sell. As if to prove that, even their rival at the time, TMOQ, released a copy of “COMING HOME.” Perhaps encouraged by this favorable reception, Contra Band released a literal sequel, “A BIT MORE,” which is a collection of songs that were not included in “COMING HOME.” However, a strange phenomenon occurs here. It was supposed to be a sequel to “COMING HOME,” but the sound quality was reportedly lower than that. As a result, it never became a hit, and worst of all, it didn’t even become a hot topic. However, at that time, this was the only LP that allowed you to listen to the songs from the latter half of the live performance, including “Alabama”, in decent sound, and it was true that it was well-received among enthusiasts. As was the case with “GOIN’ BACK TO THE ROOTS AMERICAN TOUR – JULY 1972,” the audience recordings used for “COMING HOME” and “A BIT MORE” could not be distributed on tape and were probably not recorded. I think the person who did it ended up turning it into an LP. In the first place, the scope performance itself on January 29, 1973 can still only be heard on these LPs. Of course, “COMING HOME” is of outstanding quality, and a CD based on the LP was released, but there is no CD that allows you to listen to the entire Scope performance including “A BIT MORE”. It was. On the other hand, there was a file on the internet that combined these two discs, but in order to make the scratch noise of vintage LPs as inconspicuous as possible, equalization was added that narrowed the overall range. It certainly had the advantage of being easy to listen to without noise, but it was also true that the power and freshness of the amazing sound image of “COMING HOME” was spoiled because of that. Therefore, this time, we carefully made CDs from the original LPs of “COMING HOME” and “A BIT MORE”. Although the former had a unique sound with rough edges, it was the first time that the strange closeness of the sound image and wonderful freshness were captured on CD. On the other hand, the latter, which had a narrower sound range, has been equalized to reduce the difference in sound quality from the former as much as possible. The sound quality of the “A BIT MORE” part is certainly lower, but if “COMING HOME” is an FM broadcast due to this processing, it will have the texture of an AM broadcast, but it will still be a sound board. I have been reborn in a state where I can continue to hear the closeness of the sounds. Furthermore, the order of the songs for “A BIT MORE” was different, and there was even a website (=Sugar Mountain HP) that posted the order of the songs from the two albums as the set list for the day. When making the CD, we rearranged it properly to the set list of the day. In addition, the “A BIT MORE” part had the disadvantage that the pitch was low throughout, but this point was naturally adjusted. And the big appeal of “COMING HOME” and “A BIT MORE” is that they capture the stage by the “Harvest” participating members at the beginning of the tour with great sound quality. After this, drummer Kenny Batley left and the tour changed to “TIME FADES AWAY” with an increased number of new songs, but at first it was more like a “Harvest” tour. Finally, last year, the show one week after Scope was released as “TUSACLOOSA”. As expected, maniacs all over the world were excited to discover the day when there was no official, even audience recording, but it is true that the recording time of less than 50 minutes was unsatisfactory. However, this one reproduces the “Harvest” show at the beginning of the tour with almost complete recording and high sound quality. Among them, the famous songs “Old Man” and “Heart Of Gold” are played, and the atmosphere of “Harvest” is reproduced even more than “TUSACLOOSA”, which gives me goosebumps. And the “A BIT MORE” LP included the MC “war is over” at the beginning of side A. This was the moment when Neil spoke to the audience at the end of the concert at Madison Square Garden on January 23rd, when he was told that the Vietnam War had ended. It was a historic moment when the end of the war was announced at a rock concert, an event that was often mentioned on the American internet, but this is also a fragment that can only be heard on “A BIT MORE”. , is actually very valuable. As if to illustrate this, on the internet it was said that Neil said, “The war is over, peace has come” (this was also reported in the newspapers at the time), but in reality, “war is over.” ” I just said. Despite this, the audience was very happy, and you could feel the emotion (despite the poor sound quality) that the war that had become a quagmire had finally come to an end. The pitch of such an important scene was quite fast in the original LP, but this time it was adjusted to that extent and placed at the end of the disc because the sound source was on a different day than the scope. Finally, the incorrect notation “JANUARY 28-29” on the “COMING HOME” slick has been fixed. The perfect CD version of the masterpiece LP created from the 1973 tour is finally here! Scope Arena, Norfolk, Virginia, USA 29th January 1973 TRULY PERFECT SOUND (76:28) 1. On The Way Home (Coming Home) 2. Here We Are In The Years (Coming Home) 3. After The Gold Rush (Coming Home ) 4. Out On The Weekend (Coming Home) 5. Harvest (Coming Home) 6. Old Man(Coming Home) 7. Heart Of Gold (Coming Home) 8. The Loner (A Bit More) 9. Time Fades Away ( Coming Home) 10. Look Out Joe (Coming Home) 11. Alabama (A Bit More) 12. New Mama (A Bit More) 13. Don’t Be Denied (A Bit More) 14. Cinnamon Girl (A Bit More) 15. Southern Man (A Bit More) 16. Are You Ready For The Country? (A Bit More) Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York, USA 23rd January 1973 17. “War Is Over” (A Bit More) Neil Young – Vocals, Guitar, Keyboards, Harmonica Ben Keith – Pedal Steel, Steel Guitar, Vocals Jack Nitzsche – Piano Tim Drummond – Bass Kenny Buttrey – Drums