Legion of Mary at the Arie Crown Theatre, Chicago, April 18, 1975

LN jg1975-04-18.lom.all.composite-proctor-droncit.124466.flac1644

Thought I'd spin this one on its 45 anniversary yesterday. The only moment of the show that made me sit up some was the meltiness at the end of La-La, which could have gone anywhere and ended up going nowhere. After mostly getting through the show yesterday, I thought to myself "It's no wonder Garcia pulled the plug on this band within three months". But it's amazing how little of interest can happen in any given 15 minute song. Chicago Trib reviewer Lynn van Matre, who saw the Dead and Garcia many, many times, was thinking along similar lines: "Laid back and enjoyable, ... though ...it went on far too long."

Let me blaspheme even further: all of the Ronnie Tutt aggregations, the Legion of Mary from December '74 to July '75, then the Jerry Garcia Bands through summer '77, suffer from languid pacing. I am not blaming Tutt so much as Jerry. I get wanting to get into a deep groove, but at some point I need a little more zing.

Maybe I am just grouchy, what with Covid and all. Thanks, Obama.

The band got $5k for this gig plus $1,250 for sound and lights, which was a little low for the tour. Show did not sell out, and the band didn't even get any of its percentage topper (60% of gross over $20k). They moved 2,700 of 2,916 top-price ($6.50) tickets, and only 277 of the 1,403 cheaper seats ($5.50)., for 2,977 sold on capacity of 4,319. Jerry would return to Chicago in November with first Jerry Garcia Band, featuring Nicky Hopkins on piano, playing the Auditorium Theatre (capacity about 4,000), nearly selling out and earning $6,000 guarantee plus $1,500 for sound and lights.

Legion of Mary

Arie Crown Theatre

2301 Lake Shore Drive

Chicago IL 60616

April 18, 1975 (Friday) - 8:30 PM

aud + sbd proctor-droncit composite shnid-124466

--set I (7 tracks, 79:48)--

101. Let It Rock [11:50] [2:09]

102. La-La [13:46] [1:52]

103. Feel Like Dynamite [9:32] [1:35]

104. Last Train // To Poor Valley [8:#20] [1:08]

105. Tough Mama [8:13] [0:40]

106. Sitting In Limbo [14:48] [1:50]

107. (I'm A) Road Runner// [4:06#]

--set II (7 tracks, 93:05)--

201. Tore Up [12:54] [0:42] %

202. You Can Leave Your Hat On [13:07] [0:08] %

203. Mississippi Moon [8:50] [0:09] % [1:14]

204. I'll Take A Melody [10:28]

205. //Harder They Come [18:02] %

206. Boogie On Reggae Women [13:24] [0:29] %

207. Talkin' About You [13:26] (1) [0:12]

! ACT1: Legion of Mary

! lineup: Jerry Garcia - el-g, vocals;

! lineup: Merl Saunders - keyboards;

! lineup: Martin Fierro - flute (102, 203, maybe others), saxophone, percussion;

! lineup: John Kahn - el-bass;

! lineup: Ron Tutt - drums.

JGMF:

! Recording: symbols: % = recording discontinuity; / = clipped song; // = cut song; ... = fade in/out; # = truncated timing; [ ] = recorded event time. The recorded event time immediately after the song or item name is an attempt at getting the "real" time of the event. So, a timing of [x:xx] right after a song title is an attempt to say how long the song really was, as represented on this recording.

! JGC: jerrygarcia.com/show/1975-04-18

! db: https://etreedb.org/shn/4482 (start set II, sbd, shnf, deprecated); https://etreedb.org/shn/138626 (start set II, flacf); https://etreedb.org/shn/124315 (set II sbd composite); https://etreedb.org/shn/124466 (this fileset).

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/zYiTXGFDfc42

! JGBP: https://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2011/09/arie-crown-theater-2301-s-lake-shore.html.

! listing: Chicago Tribune, April 18, 1975, section 3, p. 4. This says tickets are $6.50 and $7.50, but that's not right.

! expost: Van Matre 1975. "Laid back and enjoyable, ... though like the Dead's shows it went on far too long." Lynn Van Matre reviewed the Dead and Garcia dozens of times, and was always pretty even-handed.

! historical: Tickets $5.50 and $6.50. Band $5,000 guarantee plus 60% on gross over $20,000, plus $1,250 for lights and sound. Since gross was just over $19 grand, no percentage topper. Looks like they were relatively underpaid for this gig. Show did not sell out, moving 2,700 of 2,916 top-price tickets, and only 277 of the 1,403 cheaper seats. So, 2,977 sold on capacity of 4,319. (A different reckoning has 2,449 sold at remote locations and 671 at the box office, for a total of 3,120, producing an improbably round $20,000.00 in receipts, on capacity 4,389.)

! seealso: JGMF, "The April 1975 Legion of Mary Tour" for a bit more on the tour and listening notes for 4/10/75 early. I like that show and 4/5/75 more than this one, and 4/12/75 about as much, it seems from my notes.

! R: source 1: MAC (Unknown taper & equipment) > C > c > C > CDR > EAC > flac (mono) supplies 1st set & "The Harder They Come" & alternate "Boogie On Reggae Woman" of 2nd set

! R: source 2: shnid-4482, MSR > 1R > 1PCM > 3DAT > CD > EAC > SHN supplies first four songs of the 2nd set.

! R: source 3: shnid-124315, sbd > ?? > cass > flac supplies last two songs of 2nd set.

! R: seeder notes: I received a CD of this show several years back. The quality was poor and I put it on the self and forgot about it. It was only recently I ran across the CD and realized much of the show did not circulate. Somewhere in the lineage, someone substituted a degraded copy of the circulating soundboard source (4482) for the first four songs of the second set and probably tossed the audience copy of those songs. The audience source picked back up with "The Harder They Come" and the CD finished with "Boogie On Reggae Woman". The Jerry site lists the tracks to end the show (206 & 207) as "Boogie on Reggae Woman" & "Talkin' About You" and does not list "Harder They Come" as being played on the 18th. Who knows, about all we can tell is that this Harder They Come does not match the song from surrounding shows. I decided to leave it in for your enjoyment. Recently taperchuck3 & Kevin Tobin released a soundboard copy of the two final songs of the second set (124315). I have added these to my copy to make a complete show. Not wanting to toss the audience copy of "Boogie On Reggae Woman", I have labeled it as alt206 and left in the show folder. I handed everything over to Droncit to see if his wizardry could make something out of almost nothing. What you will hear is significantly better than what's on my CD. Bill Proctor aka germain 4/25/2013.

! R: Droncit Notes: I used a paragraphic equalizer to lower some of the boominess in the bass. I added a little clarity to the bass with a virtual valve simulator, but most of the change from the original was to get rid of some of the bassiness and loss of high frequencies through equalization.  That left a very noisey tape. The tape was mono, and the left channel appeared to be slightly better than the right, so this is just the left sidespread over both channels. It sounds clearer this way. There may be multiple sources involved (besides the soundboard). I decided to not use noise reduction because there was so much noise and so little signal that it would have cut into the music too much.  Instead, I used a spectral filter to bring down the noisiest areas by a few dB. The last thing I did was to gain-normalize each track (including the soundboard tracks, after interpolating the pop in one track) to -1.5 dB, and then to autolevel so that they all sound somewhat similar.

! R: tagging notes: Show information is embedded within the headerof each flac file. It will display on any player capable of directly playing flac files. If converted to wav during processing, all tags will be stripped, however audio data will remain unaffected. If you must transcode to a lossy format, do so directly Flac > Lossy. Use ffp to validate audio integrity. Md5 values will change if tagging is altered. B. Proctor 4-25-2013.

! R: JGMF: not a great aud tape to start, but your ears adjust. It was recorded from quite close to the stage, as one can pick up the countoff to La-La (for example) directly from stage.

! P: 102 La-La ends with some meltiness, which could have become something

! R: 104 LTFPV splice @ 6:04

! R: 107 IARR cuts out

! P: 204 ITAM John is playing a Motown-style bassline. The tune had debuted on 4/4/75.

! R: 205 HTC cuts in

! 207 (1) JG: "Thank you. We'll see you all later on."