23.05.2012
Netherlands, Amsterdam, Paradiso
Tonight in Amsterdam
very good Aud.

01. The World Turned Upside Down [2:38] 
02. To Have And To Have Not [2:22]
03. Banter [1:40]
04. From Red To Blue [3:27]
05. Banter [1:57]
06. Greetings To The New Brunette [3:26]
07. Banter [3:52]
08. Tomorrow's Going To Be A Better Day [2:44]
09. Banter [1:22]
10. Way Over Yonder In The Minor Key [2:50]
11. Banter [1:26]
12. I Ain't Got No Home In This World Anymore [3:47]
13. Banter [1:00]
14. All You Fascists Bound To Lose [2:30]
15. Sexuality [3:36]
16. Banter [4:25]
17. Song Of The Iceberg [3:27]
18. Banter [1:15]
19. The Space Race Is Over [4:33]
20. Banter [3:01]
21. NPWA [3:59]
22. Banter [3:26]
23. There Will Be A Reckoning [3:27]
24. Banter] [3:23]
25. Never Buy The Sun [3:46]
26. Banter] [0:30]
27. Must I Paint You A Picture? [5:33]
28. Banter] [0:28]
29. The Saturday Boy [4:42]
30. Brickbat [3:23]
31. Banter [4:38]
32. The Milkman Of Human Kindness [2:52]
33. Banter [5:32]
34. There Is Power In A Union [2:55]
35. Waiting For The Great Leap Forwards [4:38]
36. Encore Break [0:36]
37. Banter [0:19]
38. Tank Park Salute [3:12]
39. Levi Stubbs' Tears [3:17]
40. Banter [2:18]
41. A New England [3:55]

Total Running Time: [2:02:27]

Taper: Ian Macdonald (ianmacd)
Type: Audience master, recorded 4 metres back from the left-hand PA stack.
Source: 2 x matched DPA 4060 mics -> DPA MMA6000 amplifier (100 Hz low-cut filter) -> Edirol R-09HR recorder (44.1 kHz/24 bit WAV)

Lineage: Audacity 2.0.0
    * applied minor equalisation to accentuate the high end
    * normalised to 0 dB
    * attentuated loud applause
    * added fades
    * split tracks
    * converted to 16 bit
  -> FLAC (compression level 8) [libFLAC 1.2.1 20070917]

NOTES:
This, like Nils Frahm last week, was another concert originally scheduled to take place in De Duif, a lovely church on the Prinsengracht. For reasons
unbeknownst to me, however, it was moved to the Paradiso. I arrive in time for Anaïs Mitchell, who is supporting tonight, but by the time I've emerged from the taper's dressing room (a.k.a. the toilet) with my gear ready to roll, she's already started her performance, earlier than
scheduled. Rather than record an incomplete set, I don't bother at all. Sorry, but that's just my nature. If it's any consolation, a large contingent of the audience don't give her much of a chance, chatting away throughout her set. I found her a bit dull, too, to be honest, but she still deserves our respect. Billy Bragg comes on just after nine o'clock. He looks eager and dives straight into 'The World Turned Upside Down', followed by 'To Have And To Have Not'. It's an unambiguous statement of intent. Whatever else this evening may bring, we appear to be in no danger of a half-hearted performance. The Paradiso, on the other hand, is once again half-empty. It's a repeat of the Charlotte Gainsbourg experience a few days earlier. The upstairs balcony is closed and we're not exactly packed in like sardines downstairs, either. The unrealised ticket sales tonight are merciful happenstance for us, the punters, because it's roasting outside and only marginally more comfortable in here. I'm 'working', too, so I can't just take off layers of clothes like those around me. Billy oscillates between banter and songs with a ratio of almost 1:1. He's sharp and funny, his stage badinage a natural extension of his lyrics and vice versa. It's half gig, half stand-up routine, but with the lyrics and jokes not seldom a vehicle for matters more serious. Amongst Billy's early material are a handful of numbers I consider absolute classics of our time (well, my time, anyway). A lot of his later material, on the other hand, leaves me cold. I come here this evening, therefore, not really knowing what to expect. Will it be a relatively dull evening, punctuated by moments of greatness? Or will it be better than that on average, but lacking the peaks? It's neither of those things. It's great from start to finish; inspirational even. Bragg is sincere and remains true to his socialist roots after all these years. Perhaps most admirable of all, his political marginalisation in 21st Century Britain hasn't left him jaded or cynical. He still cares and he's still angry, but he's still optimistic, too. That alone is quite a feat in these troubled times. Compare political agitator Bragg to the self-deluding, method-acted facade of
blue-collar solidarity purveyed by Springsteen, and one is forced to ponder the question why one struggles to fill a former church in Amsterdam, while the other easily manages to fill football stadiums all over the world and does so whilst charging the working man more than $100 to get in.
The music alone? If only it were that simple. Perhaps part of the reason is because one artist causes us to question our values, choices and lifestyle, with all of the discomfort that can bring, whereas the other offers little more than an opportunity to revel in the reassuring illusion of being righteous and blameless. It's all someone else's fault, after all. The low stakes, guilt-free, feel-good experience is nothing more than neatly
packaged entertainment, artificially enhanced with the vaguest whiff of compassion. Springsteen serves up fast-food for the conscience. The Bragg experience, on the other hand, might just make you realise that you're responsible for a lot of the world's ills, not because you actively participate in them, but because you don't actively participate in stopping them. People don't like to be confronted with their failings, particularly their apathy, their failure to care. It's easier to make it personal, to dismiss Bragg for a presumed sanctimonious attitude, a case of shooting the musical 
messenger and an excuse to refuse to listen to his message. During 'Levi Stubbs' Tears', a bloke gets up on stage and stands next to our Billy, slinging an arm around him. When Bragg finishes the song and makes a joke about the incident, the bloke clambers up on stage again, but Billy's
having none of it this time and chases him off with his guitar. It's all good-natured fun. Talk is cheap, but Bragg's banter this evening is priceless. Interspersed with 23 songs, the set clocks in at just over two hours. It's been thought-provoking and invigorating. As Bragg leaves the stage, he tosses his soggy teabag into the audience. Rock and roll! Occasionally, circumstances comes together to produce a recording that is a little bit special. This is one of those occasions. I enjoyed line of sight to the PA throughout the evening and the sound was perfect. Well, there's not an awful lot for the sound man to mess up, is there? It's just one man, a voice and a couple of guitars. Not much mixing required there. Apart from some mild attenuation of loud clapping and some slight raising of the high end to accentuate Billy's guitar, very little has been done to this recording.
This may be considered one of the very best recordings I have ever made. I don't make a habit of blowing my own trumpet, but if this were released as a live album, I don't think many fans would feel disappointed if they had to part with a few quid for it. I know I wouldn't. Tonight and forever more, though, it's yours for free. I hope you enjoy it. The one and only scribble I feel the need to enter in the margin of this recording is that there was nothing I could do in post-processing about the tuneless wailing of those close to me during the sing-along choruses that Billy occasionally encouraged. I personally hate it when artists have the crowd sing the song instead of doing it themselves, but I respect their right to do so. Anyway, apart from that minor distraction during a couple of songs, this is about as good as audience recordings get.

Dimeadozen.org: Torrent 406599 (by ianmacd)