I'm very much in favour of buying recordings of gigs I've attended, should they become available at some date after the concert in question, with the single proviso that I actually enjoyed the performance. My first prog gig was Fruupp at Barrow Civic Hall in 1974 when mementos of gig attendance tended to be a tour programme or the ticket stub. I don’t think many groups were offering T-shirts at that time and taking photos at concerts was difficult before the advent of smartphones, something I don’t attempt if the band have a ‘no photos’ policy, but I had my old Olympus OM2N impounded by security staff when I tried to smuggle it into the venue to bag photos of Yes during the 80s. I’ve lost some of my cherished tickets, I’ve long since dissembled my earliest programme, from the Barclay James Harvest Time Honoured Ghosts tour to adorn a series of bedsit walls and I’ve worn out band tour T-shirts from all but the last five years; this means that a live release containing my cheering is the best reminder I have of a rock concert.
Fruupp 1974 tour advert - my only physical memento of my first prog gig
For many years I believed I’d been at the Yes concert from which Don’t Kill the Whale was used for the Yesshows album. Unfortunately not, because I was at the matinee performance that Saturday (28th October 1978) and the recording was from the evening show, later broadcast on BBC Radio 1’s Friday Rock Show, meaning the first album on which I make up part of the audience is disc 13 of Yes’ Union 30 Live box set, released in 2021 and subsequently sold off in small batches. In terms of chronological release date by album, I attended a Sylvian/Fripp performance at the Royal Albert Hall in December 1993, though despite still being in possession of the tour programme I can’t remember which of the two London dates I attended! The Damage CD, released the following year, actually contains recordings from the shows on 4th and 5th December. I was also at a concert making up a very small part of Pink Floyd’s Pulse, where disc 1 track 4 Learning to Fly was taken from their Earls Court show on 14th October 1994, so the first entire concert later released as a live album that I attended was Van der Graaf Generator’s Real Time CD, recorded at their 2005 Royal Festival Hall reunion concert and one of the best gigs I’ve ever witnessed. I’ve subsequently clocked up attendance at a few other concerts which went on to be released as live recordings, including some videos. Although I’ve been at shows included in King Crimson’s Audio Diary 2014-2018, my favourite Crimson performance was at the Lucca Summer Festival in July 2018 which was beamed out to the audience on two large screens at either side of the stage. I’d really love to see an official release of that recording on vinyl or Blu-ray.
Van der Graaf Generator's Real Time. Great album, great concert - I was there
For a short period around 15 years ago, punters had the opportunity to buy a copy of a live recording of a gig immediately after the event. My first encounter with this phenomenon was for a Yes concert at the Hammersmith Apollo on 17th November 2009 where the show was captured on a USB flash drive, the gold standard portable storage technology of the time, offered by a company called Concert Online. I thought the offer too good to miss and duly handed over £20 to one of the Concert Online representatives. I'm sure that in 2009 the computing power required to copy the music to flash drives for collection after the show will have put a strain on the energy supply to the entire west London area but having handed over my cash before the gig, I was able to pick up the item at the end. Presented in a small box with Yes European Tour 2009 branding, the whole performance is present, minus some of the between-song introductions, although to ensure there were no delays at the end of the concert the encores had to be downloaded the following day. I actually regard this item as quite special even though the plastic covering on the USB has perished and the ink making up the Yes logo has blurred over the past 15 years, partly because of the novelty but largely because it represents the only time I got to see Oliver Wakeman playing with the band. The 2009 Hammersmith gig matches the set on In The Present: Live From Lyon which was recorded two weeks later, allowing me to compare the two concert recordings; I believe the playing is better on the later release.
Get Tonight's Show On A USB Flash Drive - Yes, 17th November 2009
I wasn't attending regular gigs at the time so I'm unsure how long the technology had been in use or how long the practice lasted. I later found out from a trawl of the internet that it was only a few groups who utilised the facility, presumably brokered with Concert Online through someone representing the band, but I was at the Yes gig at Hammersmith exactly two years later and the service wasn’t on offer then. However, the second (and last) occasion I encountered a performance available to fans on some form of recorded medium immediately after the event, was for Caravan at the Shepherd's Bush Empire in October 2011 and the operation, run by Concert Live, took the format of three CDs where the third CD was prepped ready for burning downloads of the encores the next day.
Take Tonight's Gig Home On CD Straight After The Show - Caravan, 8th October 2011
This was the first time I’d gone to see Caravan. I’m a big fan of their early-mid 70s material but had been disappointed with a copy of their 1977 release Better By Far I’d bought for £0.99 on cassette and unable to keep track of their personnel changes, lost interest in their more recent material. In the end I was swayed by the event billing, the 40th anniversary of their undisputed 1971 classic In The Land Of Grey And Pink Although I’d been hoping to see more than one original member – Pye Hastings – Geoffrey Richardson had a very long association with the group and Jan Schelhaas’ original tenure lasted from 1975 to 1978 when the band decided to call a halt. Schelhaas resumed keyboard duties in 2002 following the departure of David Sinclair, during which time Caravan played the odd gig up to 2005 when live performances stopped because original drummer Richard Coughlan was prevented from live activity due to a form of rheumatoid arthritis. Coughlan was still a member of the band in 2011 (he died in 2013) but his place on the drum stool had been taken by Mark Walker in 2010 when Caravan returned to the live circuit. Bassist Jim Leverton had been associated with Caravan since the mid 90s.
Without referring to the CDs, my memory of the event is that they played too many new songs and that Pye Hasting's voice seemed badly affected by a cold - he was out of tune for almost the entire set - though the inclusion of Nine Feet Underground in its entirety just about made up for any disappointments with the choice of material and the vocals.
Caravan, Shepherd's Bush Empire, 8th October 2011
In truth, I probably wouldn't have bought the CDs had I been able to hear the performance before parting with my cash but I could never have suspected Hasting’s vocals to be so poor whatever the set list; it was the first time I’d got to see them so I thought that the live discs would be an excellent aide-memoire for the evening. Along with a number of people who have reviewed the album, which according to the band’s list of releases on the Progarchives site, appears to have been the only show from Caravan's 2011 European tour given the immediate live release treatment, I suspect the time constraints in producing the discs has affected the quality of the mix. The one good thing about the sound recording is that it doesn't include the chatter and clinking glass emanating from the bar at the back of the unreserved seating area which was part of my experience.
Whatever the sonic quality of the recordings, I’ve ended up with two rare pieces of memorabilia which have a personal resonance. It’s difficult to find much of an online trace of the 'take tonight's gig home straight after the show' industry but I’ve discovered that Alice Cooper and Thin Lizzy also had live recordings released in this manner. Are there other artists who subscribed to this model and why did it fizzle out? I suspect that Concert Live/Concert Online required acts with a loyal following and that venue size (and therefore likely take-up of the offer) was important to the business model and though no one seems to be doing this anymore, with current technology and a bit of regulation I’m convinced the principle could be transformed into a viable means of raising artist’s revenue regardless of their ranking in the pantheon of music, and may even work best for lesser known bands attempting to get noticed in a chaotic environment.
The story behind Concert Live who were responsible for the post-show CDs, including some mention of Concert Online who recorded, mixed and produced my Yes Hammersmith Apollo USB stick, told through one Alice Cooper fan’s personal recollection, the vague memories of other Alice Cooper fans and interaction with the company can be found here:
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