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Blind Faith - Madison Square Garden July 12, 1969 (1969)

Track listing:
  1. Had To Cry Today 10:36
  2. Can't Find My Way Home 4:29
  3. Sleeping In The Ground 5:32
  4. Well All Right 5:49
  5. In The Presence Of The Lord 6:19
  6. Sea Of Joy 7:32
  7. Do What You Like 15:52
  8. Means To An End 9:43

Notes


First Gen audience Tape

This comes from a mint, first gen tape. The band played on a revolving stage. The sound quality is G/VG. The last song/encore is the exception and is only fair in quality. There are problems with the house sound system/PA. There are problems with the crowd. There are problems with the cops. Sometimes, the performance transcends these problems. Sometimes it succumbs to them.

Blind Faith's American tour turned to be a disaster, at Madison Square Garden in New York there were riots, and everywhere there were disappointed audiences.

...Making their debut at Madison Square Garden on July 12 in front of more than 20,000 people. A riot developed when fans charged the stage, only to be repulsed by the police; in the half-hour melee that ensued, Ginger Baker was clubbed on the head by a policeman who thought he was an interloper, and Winwood's piano was destroyed. The environment and that sort of passion placed the group in a ridiculous situation--in truth, they didn't sound that good and they knew it, and the nature of sound systems in 1969 destroyed whatever panache they might've brought to their performance, as an under-rehearsed group; yet audiences roared and demanded more music, and rioted at their shows.

During the Blind Faith concert at Madison Square Garden in New York City on July 12, 1969, there were a series of events that stirred controversy about the group and the gathering of nearly fifteen thousand music fans. Toward the end of the performance, it is said that there was an incident when one of Ginger Baker's drum sticks shattered and flew over the edge of the stage. An energetic young fan leaped to grab the drum stick piece, and was roughly treated by the security men surrounding the stage. Perhaps a bit of nastiness ensued, because, Ginger seeing the fan being roughed by security, jumped from his drumkit, and quickly whacked the security man on the back of his head or shoulder to try halting the beating. Well, that started something, and that led to the concert being abruptly ended, with the boys being escorted off the stage.