Bremen (Tarantura 1980-9, 10)
Stadthalle, Bremen, West Germany – June 23rd, 1980
Disc 1: Train Kept A Rollin’, Nobody’s Fault But Mine, Black Dog, In The Evening, The Rain Song, Hot Dog, All My Love, Trampled Underfoot, Since I’ve Been Loving You
Disc 2: Achillies Last Stand, White Summer/Black Mountainside, Kashmir, Stairway To Heaven, Rock And Roll, Communication Breakdown
Bremen 1980 represents a good attempt by Tarantura to release the definitive version of this show. There have been very few releases of the incomplete soundboard recording and the last one from Wendy used one of the Mannheim shows to fill in the gaps. This new release is the first to use the very good sounding audience recording to compliment the soundboard, and is used at the very beginning, during the latter part of “Trampled Underfoot,” and to fill the gaps before the encores.
Tarantura used to utilize easy fades between sources, but on this the changes are very abrupt to be almost jarring. The use of the audience source is even more problematic because it runs at a different speed than the soundboard recording and Tarantura failed to correct that making “Trampled Underfoot” sound terrible. Finally, there are digital crackles and scratches during “Rock And Roll” and “Communication Breakdown.” Although this is a step in the right direction, this is far from being the final word on this fun and underrated show and is not worth the asking price.
