David Bowie 1972-11-17 Dania ,Pirates Cove Amusement Park (Matrix Learm)
Sound Quality Rating
101. Ode To Joy intro.flac
102. Hang On To Yourself.flac
103. Ziggy Stardust.flac
104. Changes.flac
105. Supermen.flac
106. Life On Mars.flac
107. Five Years.flac
108. Space Oddity.flac
109. Andy Warhol.flac
110. Drive In Saturday.flac
111. Width Of A Circle Pt1.flac
201. Width Of A Circle Pt2.flac
202. John I’m Only Dancing.flac
203. Queen Bitch.flac
204. Moonage Daydream.flac
205. Waiting For The Man.flac
206. Jean Genie.flac
207. Suffragette City.flac
208. encore call.flac
209. Rock’n’Roll Suicide.flac
210. Ode To Joy outro.flac
Label: No label
Audio Source: audience
Lineage: Combination of 2 audience tape versions from the same source.
Total running time: 1:23:04
Sound Quality : Much noise ,dull ,but still good listened to
Attendance: 200
Artwork: None.
A historic gig amongst the Bowie community, the Pirate’s Cove show from 1972 showcases the first ever performance of a newly written Drive In Saturday, which is performed solo by Bowie on acoustic. This is one of the better quality existing Ziggy era tapes, and although the tape itself is a bit overmodulated, the sound is full. There are very few tapes that exist from the first American leg of the Ziggy tour, so for those interested in the history this is worth the download. I received this recording as part of a batch in the mid 80’s so perhaps it is lower generation, there is not a lot of tape hiss.
After Hang on to Yourself Bowie says: “Good evening,my name’s David Bowie and these are the Spiders from Mars” to which some from the audience responds “Hi dave!” .The Spiders start tuning their instruments and Bowie does the announcement: This song called Ziggy Stardust“. After the number is finished there follows another round of tuning .and Bowie’s explanation “Ah,let me tell you that we’re all totally out of tune.Ha!. But we’re gonna play” is answered by someone from the audience calling “OK,allright,no problem!”.
It is a fine concert,the backup singing in Five Years is good and the rest of the songs are also played very well. The audience are reasonably enthusiastic,they recognise most of the songs and listen with interest when after Space Oddity
Bowie dwells upon the following number.Andy Warhol: “Thank you. When we got to New York we had a painter who had painted K. Bowles and Manlyn Monroe…” – the rest is not very intelligible. After Andy Worhol Bowie introduces a new song: “I’ve a now song for you I’d like to do very much. I wrote it on the tram from L.A to Chicago before I came down here and I tried to write it on the tram journey from Chicago to here. l’m not quite sure if I’ve learnt it yet ,so we’ll see won’t we”. The audiencee laugh and applauds. “l’ll tell you what it’s about because I didn’t understand it when I wrote it” Bowie goes on and the attentive audience laugh again. “This takes place in – probably in the year two thousand and thirty three witch is a good year,and in that time it was after a catastrophic time of war and many people didn’t know how to make love, and they learn to make love by watching the video film of the era of the nineteen seventies and the nineteen eighties”. Again the audience applauded,and Bowie start to sing Drive in Saturday with his own guitar as sole accomparument. This was the first time this number was played live,and Bowie turns out a splendid version. It is also quite special because it is acoustic.As likely as not Bowie played it more than once during this US tour,but this is the only tape of the tour that contains it. “Thank you” Bowie says after the number is over,and gets thunders of applause.
“This is a number that was written by a band…..this is a New York band’s number and the band was called the Velvet Underground” Bowie says ,referring to Waiting For The Man,a cert in the ’72 US tour repertory.
Somewhere during the show a tiny,sharp object got into Bowie’s boot. In Cut deeper into his flesh with every movement,but he wouldn’t interrupt the show and kept on singing and swinging. He gave no inkling of his pain,and after Sufragette City he disappeared so that at last he could get rid of the thing in his boot; there was a bloody,fleshy mess in his boot.It took some time before Bowie and the spiders returned for an encore.but in the end they gave way to the yells for more. “Thank you very much. If we can manage it” Bowie says,not quitLe certain whether he would be able to do another number with his painful foot “this is is from Ziggy Stardust,its called Rock & Roll Suicide“. It’s a good performance,and after the number Bowie calls out “Thank you”,and the Ode to Joy tape is played ,witch brings us to the end of this concert
Comment :
James Roos – Miami Herald (18 November 1972)
Review of Pirates World, Dania Concert – 17 November 1972
The first thing you notice about David Bowie is his, er unusual attire. When he stepped onto the stage at Pirates World Friday Night,lights flashed, Beethoven blared a la “Clockwork Orange” and there he stood – the incarnation of “gay rock”.
Yes, this is the latest fad in rock’s theatrical bag of weird tricks, blatantly homosexual mannerism, with costumes to match. So David Bowie wears his hair frizzed red, his face blanched white like a harlequin, his slender frame zipped into a red pantsuit. What a sight.
What a voice. For whatever his attempt at theatrics, David Bowie’s music is better than his show. At least, this time it was. All the effeminate gestures and swivelling of hips were just so much affection added to basically good musical talent.
That voice is a hard one to pin down in words, so conclusive is its quality. It is not quite sultry, yet sensuous. It is tinged with cabaret style, the smoothness of the balladeer. It can turn raunchy when the music so demands.
Most of the time it has an original timbre, so far as rock is concerned, though it derives from the Beatles and possibly Johnny Mathis.
Regardless, Bowie’s songs are enjoyable, his band rarely too loud. He can give you “Space Oddity” the song that put him into rock star orbit, with chordal electric guitar textures that beautifully set off his voice.
He knows how to use the guitar’s resources, to detune it for effects. He can blend with his partner in mellifluous duet, adding the Elvis Presley “Come on, come on” with compelling intent.
There was a new song, something about “Put you arms around my head and lets go to bed” which meandered without shape to guide it. And there were his standards, like “Changes” and “Five Years” which the small Pirates World audience soaked up with delight.
Ginger (Nitzfinger), the epitome of the loud, unimaginative hard rock band, was endured as prelude to Bowie’s appearance. This group seems to think overloaded bass guitar and a few screams are all there is to rock music. Two minutes of them would have been the same as 20; 45 minutes were absurd.
As a step in the right rock direction, the promoters searched all ticket holders for drugs at the gates, which held up the evening’s music, but may be a way of beginning to clean up the dope and drugs which taint the reputation of rock concerts. For a while I thought this was an altruistic step on the part of rock promoter Leas Campbell, especially when Capt. James Cooper of the Broward County sheriff’s office told me that the police were just on hand to make arrests, and that the promoters were doing the searching.
However, Campbell walked on stage to clear up any misconceptions about his motives.
No he didn’t like this search any more than the audience. It was supposed to have been for bottles, which have been thrown on stage in the past.
Perhaps. But Campbell is a clever man. He wouldn’t want to alienate his audience. And after all, this was his first concert at Pirates World, which is but little changed despite much ballyhoo about improving the facility.
Postscript from a reader:
“With regards to the David Bowie At Pirates World, Dania….I was working sound for the opening band, Ginger, who replaced Nitzfinger due to scheduling conflict. The [negative] review of Ginger portion of the show review is accurate with regards to the bass sound. We were using Clair Brothers Audio and the bass was way too loud and they would not turn it down due to Bowie’s sound check establishing the initial mix…..the tribulations of the opening act !! An interesting aside is the drummer for Ginger was Frankie Banali…..later of Quiet Riot.”
David Bowie Tour Band – The Ziggy Stardust Tour
David Bowie – vocals, guitar, harmonica
Mick Ronson – guitar, vocals
Trevor Bolder – bass
Mick “Woody” Woodmansey – drums
Matthew Fisher – piano (20 Apr 1972 – 27 May 1972)
Robin Lumley – piano (2 Jun 1972 – 15 Jul 1972)
Nicky Graham – piano (1 Aug 1972 – 7 Sep 1972)
Mike Garson – piano, mellotron, organ (22 September 1972 – end of tour)
John Hutchinson – rhythm guitar, 12-string acoustic guitar (8 Apr 1973 – 20 Apr 1973 – 3 July 1973)
Aynsley Dunbar – additional drums (8 Apr 1973 – 20 Apr 1973)
Geoffrey A. MacCormack – backing vocals, percussion (19 January 1973 – end of tour)
Ken Fordham – saxophone (19 January 1973 – end of tour)
Brian Wilshaw – saxophone, flute (19 January 1973 – end of tour)
Crew
Robin Mayhew ,Will Palin ,Mick Hince ,Dean Heiser – Sound ,Ground Control ,Front of House Engineer ,Stage hands
Nigel Olliff, Nick Gilbey, Paul Normand and crew – Lights ,1972 Heavy Light ,1973 See Factor Industries NY Bob See ,Steve Hurston ,Mick Fussey
Peter Hunsley – Stage Equipment
Suzi Fussey – Wardrobe, Makeup and Hair
.
Combination of 2 audience tape versions from the same source.
Version 1: by a private collector as 96 kHz/24 bit (first part of the show).
Version 2: by learm as 48 kHz/24 bit (second part of he show).
Processing Info:
Version 1:
96/24 flac file -> Foobar2000 convert to 48/24 -> Magix Music Cleaning Lab (remaster/edit) -> FLAC (48 kHz, 24 Bit, Stereo)
Version 2:
unknown gen tape received in the mid 80’s in a trade > transfer via Onkyo tapedeck TA-2330 -> Magix Music Cleaning Lab (wav-file 48/24) -> (remaster/edit) -> FLAC (48 kHz, 24 Bit, Stereo)
Transcoded to 44.1kHz/16 bit
Removed SBEs with TLH.
Remaster measures:
– some hiss and noise reduction
– sound levels adjusted
– some minor gaps between songs removed
– bass lifted
– middle frequencies reduced
– frequencies between 1 and 3 kHz lowered in order to reduce hiss
– treble lifted a bit at version 2
Other remarks:
– There is still some hiss present but I decided to leave it that way in order not to remove too much of high frequencies.
– Some seconds in the middle of Width Of A Circle missing due to tape flip
– From all versions I know of this concert part 2 (starting with the 2nd part of Width Of A Circle) has an
inferior sound, manifested by a lack of higher frequencies. I decided to take part 2 from my tape as the sound was a bit
superior to version 1. Nevertheless version 1 had a better sound at part 1.
– There are only ca. 2 seconds missing of the start of the second part of WOAC as in version 2 there is a slower fade in.
– The second half of Space Oddity is getting inferior in sound and was EQ’ed separately (treble lifted)
In comparison to all other versions I know of this show this version has a much wider range of frequencies especially at higher frequencies as I have avoided to run an automatic hiss reduction process step.
I know that some people would still prefer more hiss reduction but for me this version here represents a very good compromise between enjoyable frequency range and partly reduced hiss.
.
