| J-Card Comment | HW13
Felt Forum, New York. 22nd November 1973
Tracklist:
Disc 1:
1. Watcher of the Skies
2. Brittania story
3. Dancing with the Moonlit Knight
4. Romeo story
5. Cinema Show
6. I Know What I Like
7. Five Rivers story
8. Firth of Fifth
Disc 2:
1. Henry story
2. The Musical Box
3. Horizons
4. More Fool Me
5. The Battle of Epping Forest
6. Old Michael story
7. Suppers Ready
8. The Knife
Sound editor's notes from Andrew Skeoch
The show
This is the 'Thanksgiving Day' show - well known both for the number of bootleg incarnations it has received over the years, and for Gabriel appearing on stage in feathers. Well, we assume that he was wearing some kind of feathery attire by his banter; "what on earth are you doing sitting in the Felt Forum looking at a strange spectacle with feathers on Thanksgiving Day." We wouldn't put it past him of course...
This was the third time Genesis had visited the states, but their first US Selling England tour which culminated in 6 legendary shows at the Roxy in LA just before Christmas. From the account of their new manager at the time, Tony Stratton Smith, it seems as though the band were in a state of organisational chaos behind the scenes, but sublime on stage. They returned the next year of course for a longer tour, covering many of the same cities, though often at different venues.
This mono audience recording documents almost the entire concert, the highlight of which is an encore of The Knife. The band must have been in high spirits, as they usually chose not to play any encores after what they saw as their ultimate closer - Suppers Ready. The only significant omission on the tape is the last few bars of Epping Forest.
This recording has been known to Genesis fans for a long time, appearing during the late 70s as a double vinyl set on the ubiquitous TAKRL label as 'A Death in Anytown'. The sound quality was not remarkable (typically), but what was notable about this release was the re-arangement of the running order of the first part of the concert; Watcher, Firth, Musical Box, Moonlit Knight, Cinema Show-IKWIL... presumably to accomodate to the playing sides of an LP. There was a low generation tape made at this time which, reputation has it, was the master source for this LP. It was then copied and traded as such, and a descendent of this tape was the source for Highland's CD 'Romeo Show' release, thus perpetuating the wrong running order.
The sources
Because this show has been known and traded for so many decades, tracking down a close-to-master source has been an interesting exercise. Thankfully, I have had several cassettes and CDRs sent to me to compare, but the most interesting of these come down to;
Low generation cassette, 'NY1': This is a tape from the 70s, offered to me by a long time trader from New York, and which was reputedly used as the master tape for 'Death in Anytown'. It is edited in the modified running order, and initially sounded very good, bright and clear. However closer listening revealed two main problems. Firstly, it sounds as though the brightness of the recording has been obtained by filtering, my guess is that it was run through one of those graphic equalisers that were so popular in the 70s (remember them?). The frequency spectrum is bright to the point of distortion around 2-8KHz, and then dies completely above that, while the bass is very weak throughout. The second matter is dropouts - the whole tape has a bubbly, rough quality that is unpleasant to listen to. Lastly, due to the re-editing, there are sections between tracks missing, sometimes just a second, but up to 20secs.
Low generation cassette, 'NY2': In the right running order and complete, but down a few generations (4th?), and quite hissy, so hence not a real contender.
Low generation CDR, '2gCD': This is a very good source, and has been traded among dedicated collectors as the best that has come to light to date. It is believed to come from cassette tapes that were made from a reel-to-reel copy of the master, so that would make it a 2nd generation source. This source is complete, in the right running order, and has bright trebles and full bass. The only thing against this one is that the hiss is very prominent, due to the eq boost necessary to bring out the top end. I understand this is the source that has been used to remaster for BURP 06. It would have been my prefered source (and thus made me doubt the worth of approaching another remaster of this show when a good one was already circulating), until...
2nd generation cassette 'KL': With great thanks to Ken Langford, who organised for this tape to be transfered and sent me. The tape is owned by Troler Wes, and the A-D transfer by Park. This new tape was offered as a first generation, but I suspect the taper made a reel-to-reel duplicating copy to trade with in the 70s, and so I think it is safer to suugest it is most likely also a 2nd generation. On first listening I was a bit disappointed by this promising new source, it sounded muffled and thick, although the bass is full and rich. It is however complete and in the correct running order, and is an authentic copy of the original recording. Further listening reveals it to be rich and smooth, lacking the bright fizziness and bubbly textures of other sources, and also the dropouts that I had come to believe were intrinsic to the master source of this recording, as one hears them on all copies. This leads me to conclude it may come from a different lineage to other sources, and I have chosen it as the basis of this remaster.
And so, to the contents of the recording... Cassette copies, at least those in the correct running order, likely duplicate the master tapes by being 45 min each on C90 tapes. The recording begins by dropping into the first chord of Watcher. There is a break just before the beginning of Firth of Fifth (the tape picks up so close to the first chord that it is not clear whether Tony's piano intro is missing or was not played, but I think the latter), and another between the final bars of Epping Forest and the intro to Supper's Ready. The recording seems to end with only a few seconds of audience applause after Knife.
The restoration
This has been the biggest restoration job for a Hogweed release yet....
To begin I corrected the pitching, which descends very slightly throughout the recording. Watcher was about a quarter-tone sharp, but by Suppers Ready it was a quarter tone flat. Unusual, as fading batteries during the concert would have caused the tone to rise.
Next a general frequency equalisation to bring out the upper mids and highs, tone down the strong lower midrange, and balance the bass. Each of the three sides of this source are quite different in tonal character. Side 1 is quite bright, clear and rich. Side 2 is bright and bassy, but lacking midrange and presence, and has a noticable sibilant distortion in the treble which seems to be of mechanical origin. Side 3 is thin, lacking the fullness of bass on the first 2 sides, and is not quite as extended in the top end either, but is otherwise clear, presenceful and undistorted. I've done my best to bring all three parts to one common tonal balance.
As the hiss on this recording is so prominent, I have chosen to make the music more transparent by utilising a small amount of noise reduction. I have only denoised the hiss by 5Db, down to about 3KHz, so the mids and lows are unaffected and remain warm and natural. I have undertaken this with considerable care - there were over 300 edits to complete the noise reduction process alone, some of them short enough to get just a few of Phil's cymbal taps clean!
It is worth noting that as well as music, there are a number of serious problems hidden by the hiss on this recording, and in bringing out the music, I have often had to work around such artifacts as flairs of hiss and distortion. Loud midrange - Gabriel in full voice, Hackett soloing - would cause a flair of noise in the top end previously masked by hiss. Each of these had to be seperately denoised at a higher threshold than the average hiss levels, and there were a LOT of them!
I have then cleaned up the bass, which to my ears has made a huge improvement on the listenability of this show. Firstly there was a variable 60Hz hum throughout this recording. During the louder passages it is unnoticable, but in the quieter sections it clashed with the tonality of the music, so I have removed it there. Rumble below 100Hz was also present during many of the quieter intros and musical passages, and I have dropped that off where audable. Lastly there were many loud bumps and clicks from various sources, not only mic bumps at the concert, but electrical interference pops later - maybe someone turned on the toaster while the master tape was being copied, as these pops are on all versions.
The volume dynamics of the recording are quite good, despite the recorder having auto record levels. Where these have caused noticable volume anomalies (intro Cinema Show, Musical Box, More Fool Me), or where the microphone has not picked up the music as well as usual, I have restored them to what seems appropriate. There were a few moments when bass overload distortion was prominent (first bass drum of Watcher, another few during IKWIL), and I've managed to replace these distorts with cleaner 'thumps' from Phil.
I have edited the recording with a few minor 'fix ups' - not authentic to the tape perhaps, but to restore a listening continuity to the concert. The first chord of Watcher has been patched with the third, and a little audience ambience to lead us into the recording. The first note of Horizons was cut, and once again I've found a similar note a few bars later and spliced it in. The most significant patch is the final one minute of Epping Forest, edited in from the Medford concert given a few days earlier on the 17th. I feel that all these edits are minimal, and that hearing the concert as it may have been is more relevant than knowing when the taper stopped and started.
Lastly, I've added some early reflections to open up the spacialisation of the recording, and a very small amount of reverb to match the hall ambience, both nice if you're listening on headphones.
Enjoy! |
