Curtis Nixon Hall
Tampa, Florida
Aud3 (mono)
Special Guest: Duane Allman joined the Dominos during the whole concert
Geetarz Comments:
This show is of historical importance, as it is apparently the only time Duane Allman played live with the band.
According to the EC Tourography (ectours.de), "The opening band of this show was Toe Fat, followed by Elton John, then Derek and the Dominos."
There are two different sources of audience recordings of this particular performance, and various releases and "remasters" thereof.
In these comments, we will address three of the earliest and most common versions of this performance.
According to my sources, "the [Geetarz Note: Source 1] recording was originally made by a Tampa resident, who was fairly close to the stage. The other tape [Geetarz Note: Source 2] was made by a non-Florida resident who had much worse seats, and the source quality is less consistent. From what I have been able to find out, and this includes hearing from some Allmans fans, is that Allmans representatives tracked down the second source shortly after Duane's death."
This release, "Live at Tampa", is taken from an unknown generation of the original "Source 1" recording.
"Soul Mates" (Mid Valley 25/26), is taken from the "Source 2" recording.
"Soul Mates 2" (Mid Valley 38/39), is a "remastered" version of the "Source 1" recording earlier released as "Live at Tampa" (Red Light RL-1001/2)
so, which version is better? I posed this very question to a respected D&D collector whose opinion I value, and got the following response:
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"Tough call. 'Soul Mates 2' is definitely a better recording than 'Live at Tampa'. But the choice between 'Soul Mates' and 'Soul Mates 2' is difficult. I think I prefer 'Soul Mates' just a bit more. Even though the recording level has its ups and downs, it is complete and flows well. 'Soul Mates 2' still has some of that annoying hiss from the source tape and it really gets on my nerves. I usually listen to 'Soul Mates' more often, so I guess I'd recommend that one.
I guess I would answer it this way:
'Soul Mates' is a more raw recording, there is more crowd noise that occasionally overpowers the music, but it is the most complete recording, despite the flaws. Any noise and hiss due to the original source recording is completely gone, probably because there was very little to begin with. The person who taped it probably had very good equipment, despite his poor tickets.
'Soul Mates 2' and 'Live at Tampa' originate from the same source tape, which is different from the source tape mentioned above. While the taper had better seats, he either had poorer equipment, or both Red Light (Live at Tampa) and Mid Valley (Soul Mates 2) had access to very high generation copies. I would guess it was inferior equipment. 'Live at Tampa' appears to have been released without any attempt to digitally remove noise or remaster it. There is a lot of tape hiss present, which makes it very hard to listen to on a good stereo with good speakers. Boom boxes and all-in-one shelf systems usually don't have very good high frequency response, so the hiss is less noticeable. 'Soul Mates 2' has been digitally remastered and cleaned up by Mid Valley as much as possible, but some hiss is still present. The taper apparently turned his recorder off and on between songs, because the running time on every version I've heard of this source is shorter than the other. What is missing is the tuning and discussion between songs."