Hi all,

First post here, but a long-time lurker and arlofan for 25 years.

Just a quick word on Arlo's show in Cardiff last night. Detailed setlist will follow when I have had a chance to review my recording - suffice it say lots of classics and bits and pieces from both his and his father's (and friends') repertoires.

My first time seeing him live (my bad, I know) and everything I expected - fine musicianship and some great stories, especially the ones before Comin' Into LA and The Motorcycle Song - he had the audience right in the palm of his hand. He seemed genuinely touched by the rapturous reception received from the Welsh crowd, who wouldn't let him leave after his encore. Yes, I know we might have expected Goodnight Irene as the last track, but as Arlo forgot the words, who knows. He was very gracious though when someone suggested a verse for him to continue with, starting it immediately.

All in all, an excellent night, marred only by the fact that, as the snow was really starting to fall, I had to leave at the end before I could try to speak to the man himself. Plaudits too to opener, Gareth Pearson, a local youngster who namechecks Kottke and Fahey amongst his sources for material. His own stuff wasn't bad either.

Sounds like a great show. Welcome to the site...

Never been there, but I hear Reuben Clamzo and that Moby guy are big in Wales. (Nyuck,nyuck,nyuck......hey, they can't all be winners)

Hello! This is my first post here and I'm thrilled to find a forum for all things Arlo. First, I want to say I was at the Cardiff show and it was wonderful. Although I have been a fan since the late 70's this was the very first time I have had the chance to see Arlo live. The venue was tiny but in a very good way- it was absolutely packed and my friends and I were so close to Arlo, pushed right up my the stage, that he might was well have been in my living room. For the first few songs I was sat on the floor right under Arlo's nose (not so easy as I reach my late 40's!) and then I took a welcome barstool and sat in raptures as Arlo played so many favourites (e.g. 'Chilling of the Evening', 'Highway in the Wind', 'The Motorcycle Song', 'City of New Orleans', 'Pretty Boy Floyd', 'Coming in to Los Angeles' among many greats). His between-song patter was an entertainment in itself, with tales from his very full past, including his Woodstock experience and encounters with Leadbelly. Arlo is just amazing. One of his encore songs was a tune he had written to words by Woody called something like 'All I Can Give You Is My Peace' and it was so lovely, especially with the entire audience singing along. His final song of the evening was 'Goodnight Irene' and by then I was moved almost to tears. Thank you, Arlo.

By the way, if boombox does have a recording of all this, please get in touch.

Welcome to the site. You'll find lots of neat stuff here. And good folks too...

This was my first recording with my new Edirol, after very mixed results with an acquired MD recorder and it isn't too bad at all, despite a quite chatty crowd - why do people pay money to see a show and then talk all the way through it?

Will need to do some work on reducing applause levels - very appreciative crowd - but then it will be released to the masses, though it might be a couple of weeks or so, due to other outstanding video projects I'm currently working on. In the meantime, to tide you over, here's a sendspace link to some 160bit mp3s I did very quickly after I got home that night.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/ry3yso

If you want the full recording, let me know and I will let you know when it's out there - probably via bit torrent, or I will B&P or trade to those who are bandwidth challenged.

boombox - Thanks, mate. Very good of you. Will get back to you about the completed show. Can't wait to hear it all.

Hey Boombox, the mp3's do sound pretty good. I will definitely be interested in a BT of the cleaned up version when you get it.

Yes, the mp3's are great. Can't wait to get hold of the whole show. Thanks for the tasters.

Hey, Boombox! Any sign of the Cardiff show to download yet? I'm asking hopefully.

Cheers.

Sorry all, it's taken a lot longer to getting around to doing this than I thought. Have just about finished doing both Gareth Pearson's opening set and Arlo's.

One question to the community here:

Which format is preferred? For instance, the Kula Shaker fanbase tend to prefer mp3s, while I normally just do lossless audio and flacs. I can obviously do mp3s for those who want that format, though I would ask that if you burn these to CD, you keep them for personal use only.

I will torrent the lossless version at dimeadozen and do a few copies for those who are bandwidth challenged - drop me a pm with your address and specify whether you want flacs or audio.

Overall, for a first recording with the new Edirol HR-09, it doesn't sound too bad, though there is too much crowd noise for my liking during songs - why do people pay money to go to a concert to talk the whole time!!!

Boombox wrote:

" why do people pay money to go to a concert to talk the whole time!!!"


I don't understand why they'd do it even if they didn't pay for it!!!

Just a pet peeve of mine. It has also happened the last few times Country Joe came over. The first time, someone from the audience shouted out for them all to "shut the f*** up", to no avail, and Joe even asked if the PA could be turned up. The time after that, the promoter's family, who were on free tickets, did nothing but yak yak yak the whole way through. Another audience member asked them to be quiet, to which the main perp said "Don't you know who I am? I'm the promoter's wife". Big deal, huh!!

Last year, when Jefferson Starship came over with their new female singer, many just talked through her mini solo set, including one who tried to hold a conversation on the phone and another couple who had a right old chinwag right underneath my mate's mic stand - Grrr.

I say bring back the British folk club mentality - no-one dared speak during a song for fear of reprisals from the stage. I have nothing against audience-artist banter or cheering/applauding, but IMHO holding conversations within the audience should be banned!!

The worst I've seen was at Tipitina's in New Orleans, where they had the City of New Orleans tour's final benefit concert to help Katrina victims. It's a standing-only venue, so that enabled groups to form circles, taking up too much space, and chat and laugh and scream at each other's witticism's and call friends to say, "Guess where I am?" Unless you were in the crush at the very front, you couldn't hear much of anything, even when Willie and Arlo were on stage. I thought about offering to pay one group to leave, but the guys in the group were young and kind of big. Sorry for the rant; it's a pet peeve of mine, too.

Perhaps yet another use for duct tape?