Simon and Garfunkel
Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
2 May 1970
Mastered from soundboard tape / Yellow Dog CD
Above > Audacity + mda_image > CD Wave > TLH > FLAC
CONTRAST CLAUSE:
This is a minor re-work (slight bass reduction on some of the songs in the earlier part of the gig,
sound widened - check the samples) of the 1970 Amsterdam concert from this torrent here:
Torrent #145184 Simon And Garfunkel "Live In Holland" 1966-00-00 & 1970-05-21 SBD
http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=145184
Performers Paul Simon - guitar, vocals
Art Garfunkel - vocals
Larry Knechtel - piano
01 The Boxer
02 Homeward Bound
03 Fakin' It
04 The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)
05 Silver Haired Daddy
06 I Am A Rock
07 For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her
08 Mrs. Robinson
09 Scarborough Fair
10 El Condor Pasa
11 Leaves That Are Green
12 Punky's Dilemma
13 America
14 So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright
15 Song For The Asking
16 A Poem On The Underground Wall
17 Bridge Over Troubled Water
18 The Sound Of Silence
19 Bye Bye Love
20 Old Friends/Bookends
Length of the above : 79 minutes
Bonus:
21 Bridge Over Troubled Water (slightly differently mixed)
Note from original torrent:
"One of a handful of concerts performed in support of the Bridge Over Troubled Water album. A lively performance, with many "stripped down" renditions of BOTW material. An excited audience creates an ideal environment for Paul and Art to ad lib witty intros to the songs. The recording is quite nice, with a few dropouts, but definitely soundboard. Art has some problems with his microphone in the beginning, but they
are quickly remedied."
I have widened the sound a little using Audacity and mda_image. If you don't like re-worked recordings, or
you work in a studio etc etc, this may not be for you. The samples which follow in the Comments section
will give you a pretty good idea of whether you should try this anyway.
I actually used a slightly different method for working on Bridge Over Troubled Water than the rest of
the concert...piano sound is obviously different from guitar. The original recording had the instrumentation
slightly biased to the right of the vocals for much of the concert. As on all but this track that consisted of Paul's guitar, even after widening, it's thankfully not that noticeable. However, on this piano led track it was, and besides, I'd heard a very nice sample of what I could do with it quite by accident when the player in Audacity doubled up the sound (sometimes you get little 'blips' with players when they don't act
as they should but on this occasion and an earlier one it led to finding a way to improve - at least in my opinion - the sound further). The bottom line is I ended up fattening up the left channel sound for this track more, partly out of necessity (due to the aforementioned bias), and partly because it worked...if you've scan read this out of boredom and / or such details send you to sleep, just check the sample, you may well like it! :)
I left the spoken intro in the track editing of "So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright" mostly because Paul had
started playing as they finished the words (therefore making a smooth track start edit after it nigh
impossible), it also seemed fitting, because Paul admits he knew nothing about Frank Lloyd Wright
but "wrote the song anyway", which has been alleged to be about the gradual ending (at that time)
of their partnership.
A Poem On The Underground Wall, while not wildly different from other renditions, seems especially good
here, more vividly read and played than other live versions, to my ears at least, livening up a track
that has sometimes passed me by a bit considerably.
There has been confusion over the concert date. I read on an earlier torrent of this - now removed as
some tracks had been sped up but not pitch changed - that someone had a ticket showing this concert
was on the 2nd, and not the 21st as the vast amount of shares of this concert online suggest.
I went by the data on this informative site here, hence stating the 2nd as the date :-
http://roboud56.wordpress.com/the-70s/1970-79/
Regarding the speed of the concert...there were comments on the now removed (partly sped up) torrent
that the tracks sound slow, but weight of argument suggests they / Paul may well have chosen to take some songs slower and lower on this night. Indeed, it does seem from Paul's demeanour and performance that he deliberately slowed things down, making some songs sound comparatively mournful (but not in a bad way, it's an interesting treatment...Scarborough Fair is one particular example...their harmonies and Paul's playing on this version reminds me of medieval music).
I see from the above webpage link that the Denmark concert from 1970 was recorded too!
"1970-04-28 Kopenhagen Denmark
This show was probably also broadcasted on radio by the Danish Radio. There exists a very nice recording of this show. Released on the Midnight Dreamer label (MD358)."
Has anyone got that to share, please? I see a flac version was shared online back in October last year,
so somebody reading should have it hopefully - thanks for any help there!
Regarding the 'bonus' track : this may well seem identical, and it practically is. As mentioned, I did
use a slightly different method to mix this track. The difference here is that the widened track that
I overlay with the unaltered version (I do this as the process produces a wider sounding track but
one that is slightly 'ghostly', hence combining it with the more precise and closer sounding unaltered
track) was at a slightly higher level. I liked this version, but it arguably sounder less 'realistic'
than the final version I selected. The difference is most (some may feel 'at all?' rather than 'most')
noticeable in the passage starting around 3'30...Art's voice drifts slightly more towards the left
channel. I should point out that if you are burning this to CD the entire concert will fit on one CD
if this (or the other) version of Bridge Over Troubled Water is left off.
If this download is for you, enjoy.