Psychedelic Circus (Mid Valley MVR 354)
Madison Square Garden, New York , NY – November 2, 1968
Introduction, White Room, Politician, Wheels Of Fire platinum disc presentation by Ahmet Ertegun and Robert Stigwood, I’m So Glad, Sunshine Of Your Love, Crossroads, Traintime, Toad, Spoonful
This performance from Madison Square Garden in front of 22,000 is the third to last show of Cream’s Farewell Tour in the U.S. before returning to London for their final two Royal Albert Hall performances. The insert has a short essay about the show and some quotes from Jack Bruce describing the show as bizarre. “It was a very strange gig, on a revolving stage, which must have been horrible for the audience. They’d get a glimpse of the drums, guitar, and bass and then they’d all go away again”. This revolving stage may explain the dramatic changes in sound quality throughout the disc.
Psychedelic Circus is either compiled from two different sources or is the result of the revolving stage. The recording starts off distant and very thin with plenty of top end distortion. The sound rates only about a five and the drums during “White Room” and “Politician” actually sound paper thin. Clapton’s guitar becomes more prominent during “Politician” but the quality still makes it hard to fully enjoy. Following these two opening numbers, president of Atco Records, Ahmet Ertigun, and manager, Robert Stigwood are called out to present the band, as well as producer Felix Papalardi, with platinum awards “for the sale of two million dollars worth” of the Wheels Of Fire LP. This would mark the first double album to sell a million copies.
The sound quality improves a little bit for “I’m So Glad” and has much better low end but is still a distance from the stage. The song is marred with many small cuts making it hard to follow at certain points. The beginning of “Sunshine Of Your Love” is missing also, cutting into the first chorus and is followed by a decent version of “Crossroads” (None compare to the Winterland version from the previous March found on Wheels Of Fire). Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker have their spotlight segments with the harmonica driven “Traintime” and “Toad” with a lengthy drum solo. The drums sound very clear with Ginger Baker in fine form tonight and the crowd lets him know it. This solo actually sounds like a predecessor to what Bonham would be doing in his live solos. “Spoonful” is very long with the band going off on a few tangents and there is also a small part that sounds like the taper was concealing the microphone under his coat. Jack Bruce’s comments at the end are too muffled to make out. It would have been nice to hear his final words to the New York audience.
The last five tracks from this show previously appeared on Garden Of Electric Delights on the Super Sonic label utilizing a completely different source tape. This tape is closer to the stage than the one(s) found on Psychedelic Circus but also suffers heavily from distortion. Mid Valley could have used this source to complete “Sunshine Of Your Love” as the first part of the song is intact on Super Sonic.
Mid Valley does a nice job with the presentation as usual. The art work is printed on glossy thick card stock and the CD on picture disc. Thanks to Mid Valley, we finally have a much more complete version of this show from MSG but the sound quality keeps this to the die hard Cream fans.
5 Comments
Although the start of ‘Sunshine of Your Lust’ is missing on Mid Valley’s “Psychedelic Circus”, it’s also missing as well, as I previously stated, on “New York, New York” by the EC is Here label, but it still runs approx. 4:14 in length, and on Super Sonic’s “Garden of Electric Delights” it runs approx. 4:37-long – only approx. 23 seconds longer, so not that much is actually missing. I know this because I just managed to get “Garden of ED” by Super Sonic yesterday – thanks to someone who may be a member here, although that’s not necessarily to say that he or she actually sold it to me or even just merely told me particularly where/how I could track it down.
Unfortunately I’m sorry to say that when I said “in comparison to Mid Valley’s “Psych. Circus” “, that was a rather poor choice of words on my part, since I don’t actually have the MVR version, but based on everything that I read on the ‘Net about both it & the EC is Here version, incl. the CMR review above here, before ordering the EC is Here version, I’m making an educated guess here that the EC is Here version is probably quite similar to the MVR version – possibly only very slightly worse, or possibly only very slightly better. Both probably used the same source(s), and the start of ‘Sunshine of Your Love’ is sadly missing on both. Except that the EC is Here version apparently has the clicking defect near the end that I described above on most, if not all, originals of it, as I finally heard back from the dealer I ordered it from, and he said that his supplier found the same defect on all the ones that he had remaining.
Hey DLee, If you did a comparison between the MVR and EC Is Here, than I would be interested in what you found.
So not even just a single person here is familiar with the EC is Here label’s “New York, New York”? And no one is even interested in it at all?
Anyone possibly familiar with the same show as the factory-pressed silver original 1-CD of Cream called “New York, New York” by the E.C. is Here label (143), which erroneously claims July 12th, ’68 as the date? Do some or even all of the discs have the same manufacturing defect on mine, which I’ve just received? That is, mine has clicking/ticking noises that start somewhat subtly late on the disc, then become annoyingly/irritatingly quite noticeable for approx. the final 3 minutes (approx. 14:00 to 17:12 into the last track – Track 9, which is “Spoonful”). My disc looks to be in perfect new/mint condition, as absolutely no defects on it are visible at all. Any replies, whether you’ve heard the same defect or not, as either type of answer will be very helpful, will be greatly appreciated, as always – thanks. And if anyone has ever been considering buying/ordering “NY, NY”, then this message here serves as a warning about the possibility of the defect I described on its discs. And as for how the quality of “NY, NY” otherwise is in comparison to Mid Valley’s “Psych. Circus”, of which wgpsec’s great review is considerably appreciated (thanks), I’ll be happy to tell anyone who might want to know.