A good audience recording by the sounds of it. Some limited audience chatter which does not interfere.
This tour is well document in official releases via the "Touch Sensitive Bootleg Box Set" (Castle CMYBX752) indeed the night before at this very boutique is the first disc in that splended collection. Band is very tight and punchy on this evening. Some significant fret worrying from Mr Pritchard and perhaps sometimes there is a little over-enthusiasm from the group. This is clearly evidenced in "Jim's-The Fall" which feels a little rushed and sort of nearly falls apart in places.
There are a hell of a lot of musical styles rattleing around in this version of the band. The feel moves from fallabilly, to lanquid country and northern to overweight rock metal - sometimes in the same song - as evidenced by a menacing "And Therein".
As usual "Crop Dust" is memorable tour de force despite some initial bum notes from Ben. Spenser's drumming on this is remarkably good. "Bens/Foldin'" etc comes across as heavy rock which gets the natives all excited. "Touch Sensitive" is a little laboured - Mark seems a little troubled at the start and then picks up the pace. However the rhythm section feels a little constipated and Ben does not come forward enough in the mix. Some dropped beats and interesting phasing sounds leads to an extended instrumental with some guitar extemporisation as Mark leaves the stage.
Matters are clearly resolved as the band carries on with a super-fast version of "Sons of Temperance" and a chunky "Classmates". "Speak English mate what does that mean? - you are complete f***ing cretin" deals with a drunken interloper in the audience who dares to interrupt MES in his peroration of the "Enigrammatic Dream" - the band plays a simple ascending three chord sequence as Mark delivers an excellent performance and extemporises with a prophetic "and for the east read Spar-tah" spat out at the end.
Encore call and then a version of "Antidotes" that sounds like "Dr Bucks" .... marvellous sloppy followed by lengthy tumble through "Way Round" which suffers from microphone failure. The real "Bucks" is a wonderfully restrained version until Ben decides he wants to do his hard rock stuff - guitar is tad overload here and drowns out some good drumming and bass from Spen and Jim.
A longish encore call leads to an extended "Librans" which features some twiddly Steve Howe type guitaring from Ben and driven muscular and intense. Unfortunately Mark is low in the mix and we don't get the full benefit of what appears to be great version.
Reviews of the time said this was a great show - they were not wrong.
This tour is well document in official releases via the "Touch Sensitive Bootleg Box Set" (Castle CMYBX752) indeed the night before at this very boutique is the first disc in that splended collection. Band is very tight and punchy on this evening. Some significant fret worrying from Mr Pritchard and perhaps sometimes there is a little over-enthusiasm from the group. This is clearly evidenced in "Jim's-The Fall" which feels a little rushed and sort of nearly falls apart in places.
There are a hell of a lot of musical styles rattleing around in this version of the band. The feel moves from fallabilly, to lanquid country and northern to overweight rock metal - sometimes in the same song - as evidenced by a menacing "And Therein".
As usual "Crop Dust" is memorable tour de force despite some initial bum notes from Ben. Spenser's drumming on this is remarkably good. "Bens/Foldin'" etc comes across as heavy rock which gets the natives all excited. "Touch Sensitive" is a little laboured - Mark seems a little troubled at the start and then picks up the pace. However the rhythm section feels a little constipated and Ben does not come forward enough in the mix. Some dropped beats and interesting phasing sounds leads to an extended instrumental with some guitar extemporisation as Mark leaves the stage.
Matters are clearly resolved as the band carries on with a super-fast version of "Sons of Temperance" and a chunky "Classmates". "Speak English mate what does that mean? - you are complete f***ing cretin" deals with a drunken interloper in the audience who dares to interrupt MES in his peroration of the "Enigrammatic Dream" - the band plays a simple ascending three chord sequence as Mark delivers an excellent performance and extemporises with a prophetic "and for the east read Spar-tah" spat out at the end.
Encore call and then a version of "Antidotes" that sounds like "Dr Bucks" .... marvellous sloppy followed by lengthy tumble through "Way Round" which suffers from microphone failure. The real "Bucks" is a wonderfully restrained version until Ben decides he wants to do his hard rock stuff - guitar is tad overload here and drowns out some good drumming and bass from Spen and Jim.
A longish encore call leads to an extended "Librans" which features some twiddly Steve Howe type guitaring from Ben and driven muscular and intense. Unfortunately Mark is low in the mix and we don't get the full benefit of what appears to be great version.
Reviews of the time said this was a great show - they were not wrong.