Eric Burdon - Nidaros Blues Festival, Trondheim, Norway 26th of April 2014
Less than a year since I saw Eric last time (Notodden, august 2013), I was bound for Trondheim (70 km north of Oslo) to see him again. I used to live in Trondheim before, and I hadn't been there since I moved away almost four years ago. Strange to be back...
Anyway, this turned out to be nothing of the experience that Notodden had been (unfortunately). I didn't expect great changes to the setlist, renditions or anything (recent recordings upped here on Dime have told of no such changes), but I was looking forward to the show anyway. Dr. Feelgood played before Eric and the band, and I arrived when they were finishing their set of pretty straight white-guy-blues (sorry if I offend some fans here). I entered the concert hall when the ppl left the Feelgood concert and positioned myself in front of the left speaker stack. The room got PACKED as we waited for Eric, I don't think I've been in a venue so full, and there was definetely anticipation in the air...
Robert Sæthervik introduced the band, and then they walked onstage at 22.45. They started with Don't Bring Me Down, an addition to last year's set. In the middle of the song, Eric stops the band, complaining about the sound. He excuses himself, does a brief sound check, and then they try again. Don't Bring Me Down merges into When I was Young... same story. Eric doesn't even start to sing the song, and a lengthy attempt to make the monitor sound better follows. People in the audience started talking to each other, wondering what the hell was going on, and quite a few sounded pretty angry and disappointed, and I can't say that I disagree with them...
This was pretty much how the whole show went. Eric was visibly angry with the situation, and just fell back into a sort of "default mode" where he didn't even try on many of the songs. He spent large portions of the songs with his back to the audience or facing sideways, and made some half-assed attempts at banging a cowbell mounted on a drum-stand. The whole thing looked kind of ridiculous, and he was definetely spreading bad vibes from the stage. And the irony is - he hadn't shown up for sound check earlier (I was there, so I know). Sadly unprofessional...
By the time of the encore (I'm Crying, also another addition to the setlist), the once-packed room was spacious for those of us who stayed...
There were some highlights, though... Black Dog worked well, and also Ray Charles' I Believe To My Soul. But alas - here I must admit another thing that made this a sorry night - when I exited the venue and checked my recorder, it was blinking "Card Full!" I had only managed to capture the first 53 minutes of the show because I had forgotten to delete the David Munyon show I recorded earlier in April from the SD-card! I present to you here what I have. It was recorded in lossles PCM wave (16 bit 44.100 kHz) with a Zoom H4 stereo recorder. EQ, volume boost + track split done with Cubase 7.
01 Intro
02 Don't Bring Me Down (1st attempt)
03 Don't Bring Me Down (2nd attempt)
04 When I Was Young (1st attempt; mostly sound check)
05 Water
06 Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood
07 Spill The Wine
08 Band Intro
09 Wait
10 Black Dog
11 Bo Diddley Special (incomplete)
Eric Burdon - vocals/bitching
Billy Watts - guitar
Red Young - keys
Tony Braunagle - drums
Wally Ingram - percussion
Terry Wilson - bass