Rock And Roll Magic (Electric Magic EMC -014 A/B/C)
outer slip cover
Rock And Roll Magic (Electric Magic EMC -014 A/B/C)
front cover
Starkers Royal Ballroom, Bournemouth, England – December 2nd, 1971
Disc 1: Immigrant Song, Heartbreaker, Black Dog, Since I’ve Been Loving You, Stairway To Heaven, Going To California, That’s The Way, Tangerine, Bron-Y-Aur Stomp
Disc 2: Dazed & Confused (incl. Theme from Shaft), What Is And What Should Never Be, Rock & Roll
Disc 3: Whole Lotta Love (incl. Just a Little Bit, Hideaway, Trucking Little Mama, Boogie Chillun’, (small cut) Heartbeat, Hello Mary Lou, Lawdy Miss Clawdy, I Can’t Quit You), Communication Breakdown (incl. Turn on Your Lovelight), Weekend, You Really Got Me, It’ll Be Me
This new title by Electric Magic is a complete source for the December 2, 1972 show in Bournemouth. An hour fragment was previous available on Heartbreak (H-Bomb HB9616) released many years ago. It is good to very good mono, rating a notch below the Leicester tape from November 25, 1971. Unlike that one, this tape has more depth and echo to it. There are two problems with the tape however. The first is the current trend by Electric Magic/Celebration to over equalize the their tape sources. This process produces the metallic tingling noises covering the music. At some points it is worse than others, but the overall effect isn’t as bad as their Two Nights In May release in December.
The other problem is a fair amount of distortion during “Since I’ve Been Loving You” and “Stairway to Heaven,” rendering those tracks almost unlistenable. Pity because Since. sounds amazingly heavy in this show. Despite these limitations the source is very enjoyable and the show equals the other shows on this short tour of the UK. “Dazed & Confused” is another winner, with another version of the theme from “Shaft” (we thus have three now), which served as a precursor to “The Crunge” in 1972 and the “funk” part of the piece in 1973 onwards. The “Whole Lotta Love” medley is also very inspired. “Truckin’ Little Mama” was obviously thrown in by Robert (singing the first two lines a capella) and the rest of the band scramble to follow along. This title is definitely worth having given the scarcity of complete shows from this important tour.
