Mile High City (Tinkerbell Bell-04/05)
The Coliseum, Denver , Colorado – August 12th, 1975
Disc 1: Stormy Monday, Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door, Badge, Can’t Find My Way Home, Carnival
Disc 2: Key To The Highway, Teach Me To Be Your Woman, Blues Power, Little Wing, Tell The Truth
Tinkerbell’s Mile High City features Eric Clapton’s Denver stop during the second leg of his 1975 US tour still in support of There’s One In Every Crowd. At this point most of the songs that were played live from that LP were abandoned and the set list relied more toward a cross section of past material. The recording is an excellent soundboard with just a little fuzziness in places mainly in the vocals but otherwise is a very enjoyable listen.
The first few tracks of the show appear to be missing with the tape cutting in just before the start of “Stormy Monday”. The band is very tight and gives a slick performance tonight. “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” is a little more kicking as opposed to the normal laid back feel thanks to Jamie Oldaker and Dick Sims’ organ sounds ferocious in this recording, especially during “Badge”.
Another one of tonight’s highlights has got to be the high energy “Carnival” which has George Terry and Eric toying with “Motherless Children” by the end. Marcy Levy thanks her friends for coming from New Mexico and Denver (helping to identify the location) before “Teach Me To Be Your Woman”. She gives a great vocal workout and hits some incredibly high notes.
Clapton says “I’ve run out of songs” before “Blues Power” while George Terry plays a few bars of “House Of The Rising Sun” and The Kinks’ “All Day And All Of The Night”.
A cut right before “Tell The Truth” brings a sudden change in sound quality. The tape gets brighter and makes me wonder if it is from the same night or just a different generation of tape. Hopefully someday the entire soundboard will surface and clarify this issue as well as provide us with the start and finish of the show.
This show was previously released as Carnival on Silver Rarities with three tracks from 8/16/75 in San Diego and Keep On Knockin’, an incomplete single disc on Rock Calendar. Solid Rockupation on Watch Tower claims to have “Eyesight To The Blind” from this show, not found on any other title.
Once again the label used picture discs, printed the artwork on thick glossy paper and includes an obi strip with the packaging. This is the third release by Tinker Bell and it’s nice to see them featuring a soundboard recording. Mile High City is a worthy addition to anyone’s Clapton collection.
