Sue Me Sue You Blues (The Lost Tapes)
Seattle Center Coliseum, Seattle, WA – November 4th, 1974
Disc 1 (74:10): Hari’s On Tour, Something, While My Guitar Gently Smile, Will It Going Around In Circles, Sue Me Sue You Blues, Zoon Zoon Zoon, Jay Sri Kalij, Na Na Dahni, Cheparte, Anurag, Dispute and Violence
Disc 2 (75:26): I Am Missing You, For You Blue, Give Me Love, Soundstage Of Mind, In My Life, Tom Cat, Maya Love, Nothing From Nothing, Dark Horse, Outa Space, What Is Life, My Sweet Lord
George Harrison was the first ex-Beatle to schedule a US tour. The opening night was on November 2nd, in Vancouver and the second show was two nights later in Seattle. Sue Me Sue You Blues is a Russian copy of Live In Seattle 1974 (Gold Standard GS-96009/10). The sound quality is very good, except a manufacturing error places the contents of disc one onto disc two (and visa versa).
The tape is valuable because it contains a rare extended jam on the opening song “Hari’s On Tour.” The musicians continue to jam for a while before Harrison comes out on stage. It would later be shortened.
In Vancouver they played two songs “Who Can See It?” and “The Lord Loves The One (That Loves The Lord)” from Living In The Material World which were dropped for this show. (The two songs can be found on Mixing In The Material World (Masters Of Beatles Essentials MBE-2006-001CD) and the entire Vancouver fragment on First Live Show At Pacific Coliseum Vancouver (BMW025A/B) in poor sound quality).
“Something” is played in the slow, thumping arrangement which completely baffles the audience. But Billy Preston plays a playful and energetic version of “Will It Go Round In Circles” which ignites the audience.
After “Sue Me, Sue You Blues” Harrison introduces Ravi Shankar and his part of the show. Luckily, the taper in Seattle didn’t turn off the recorder as tapers in other cities have, so the entire Shankar set is captured in its glory. The audience are extremely quiet as Harrison tries to convince the audience of the music’s importance. It is valuable because it is a rare performance of “Jay Sri Kalij” would later be dropped from the set. “Cheparti” receives the loudest ovation of the night for Shankar set. By the time they finish “I Am Missing You” the audience sound very thankful. As nice as the Indian music is, it goes on too long and tests everyone’s patience.
The show definitely improves with the long jam in “For You Blue.” Harrison introduced the band at this point before a short, “disco” version of “Give Me Peace.”
A rare and excellent recording of the unreleased “Soundstage Of The Mind” is an assett for the Seattle tape. The rearrangement of “In My Life” follows but Harrison sings the last line “In my life, I’ve loved you all” instead of “I’ve loved God more” as he does later in the tour. The show ends with “What Is Life?” and the ten minute long version of “My Sweet Lord” as the encore.
The Lost Tapes is good despite the manufacturing error. Seattle is one of the best sounding and most complete tapes from this tour and is worth having.
