The Band, Eric Clapton / NY, USA 07.06.1974 Remastered

From the recent discovery of live recordings from The Band’s 1974 career, a superb audience recording of their July 6th Buffalo show has been released. What’s more, this precious recording includes a surprise appearance by Eric Clapton! After the great success of their tour with Bob Dylan from January to February, The Band didn’t seem to be making any significant moves to create a new album. Instead, they embarked on a tour in July, but mostly as opening acts for other artists in stadiums. For them, it was simply a way to keep their musicianship sharp. However, their opening acts included Eric Clapton and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, and the audience thoroughly enjoyed the luxurious opening acts. It was essentially an “opening act tour,” but the July 6th Buffalo show was performed before Clapton’s performance. This release captures that performance with an audience recording. The opening of this opening tour traditionally began with Garth Hudson’s saxophone instrumental “Hard Times (The Slop),” but midway through the performance, the sound image suddenly becomes much closer and surprisingly easy to listen to. This is an audience recording capturing a 1974 stadium concert, and the quality is remarkable. In fact, this recording has been circulating among traders for some time, but this time we have managed to capture the best possible version, the first generation. The original recording had significant pitch inaccuracies and hiss noise, so both issues were thoroughly adjusted for the CD release. In particular, the pitch inaccuracies have been completely eliminated. In the past, only “Chest Fever,” featuring Clapton, was included on his CD “KING AND THE BAND,” but the difference in sound quality compared to that is striking. During the 1974 opening tour, Richard Manuel’s condition was unstable due to his unhealthy lifestyle. In the recently unearthed soundboard recording from St. Paul on September 1st, he was barely singing from the start of the show, and there was even a performance during the August opening for CSN&Y that went ahead without Richard. On this particular day, however, Richard was in good form, probably because it was right at the beginning of the opening tour. Above all, you can clearly feel the energy in the group’s performance. Also, the St. Paul soundboard recording has a generally fuzzy sound, making it difficult to hear, so the audience recording is probably more enjoyable as it captures the laid-back sound that is characteristic of The Band. There is a photograph taken from the side of the stage that day, which captures Clapton, wearing a Western shirt, borrowing Robbie’s Telecaster and going up on stage, and that’s how Clapton’s surprise appearance came about, with “Chest Fever.” Clapton plays a solo at the 4-minute mark, and from there, he passes the solo back and forth to Robbie. This recording captures the moment when the baton is passed to the main act, Clapton (although Clapton’s performance that day was one of extreme intoxication…). A superb audience recording from The Band’s opening tour in the summer of 1974, an item for which there are very few other items, has been released. And to top it all off, it’s a great performance with Clapton joining in! There is a bit of hiss noise to begin with, but the natural and clear sound quality is wonderful. Rich Stadium, Buffalo, NY, USA 6th July 1974 TRULY AMAZING/PERFECT SOUND (from Original Masters) (59:36) 01. Hard Times (The Slop) 02. Just Another Whistle Stop 03. Stage Fright *There is tape degradation in the first half of this song. No problem after that 04. The Weight 05. The Shape I’m In 06. Night They Drove Old Dixie Down 07. Across The Great Divide 08. Endless Highway 09. Up On Cripple Creek 10. Unfaithful Servant 11. Smoke Signal 12. Genetic Method 13. Chest Fever (with Eric Clapton) Robbie Robertson – vocals, guitar Rick Danko – vocals, bass guitar Levon Helm – vocals, drums Garth Hudson – vocals, keyboards Richard Manuel – vocals, piano