LAMBCHOP - Bowery Ballroom, New York - 2017 (Flac)

Bootleg of the Month - June 2017

Bowery Ballroom,
New York, NY.
March 30, 2017



I first saw Lambchop  a few years ago on the anniversary tour, celebrating the release of Nixon. It was a bit surprising to find tables and chairs set out at the venue for the whole audience.
The cabaret-club style of the setting worked immensely in Lambchop's favour and it was fortunate that the audience remained quiet for the majority of the show. Frontman Kurt Wagner also remained seated throughout a fascinating show interspersed with Tony Crow's jokes enlivening the atmosphere. Lambchop often throw in a cover when playing live and this time it was David Bowie's 'Young Americans'.

The current album release 'Flotus' is yet another change in style, this time introducing vocoder and electronica effects. 'Flotus' is bookended by two lengthy tracks, firstly the 12-minute 'In Care Of 8675309' and the closing 18-minute epic 'The Hustle'. My only disappointment is that the band have performed edited live versions of these two tracks. So you really need to get the official album available in the US on Merge Records and here in Europe on City Slang Records to enjoy the original extended studio versions.

This is a masterful performance and an exquisite matrix recording by NYC taper. He has blended an audience recording with a soundboard capture to produce what must be the ultimate live Flotus tour show. I have heard quite a few older Lambchop shows broadcast on FM radio and the engineers and mixers have struggled with the quiet and just a bit louder dynamic of the music. This show is perfectly balanced and mixed.  

Setlist:

01  NIV
02  The Hustle
03  Directions to the Can
04  Poor Bastard
05  Old Masters
06  Writer
07  [banter - physical comedy]
08  In Care Of 8675309
09  [band introductions]
10  The New Cobweb Summer
11  [banter - build character]
12  Howe
13  JFK
14  Relatives No. 2
15  Harbor Country
16  [encore break]
17  My Blue Wave
18  When You Were Mine [Prince]

[Total Time 1:39:16]

This post was kindly made available with the permission of NYC taper.

Digital Master Recording
Soundboard + Audience Matrix
Recorded and Produced by nyctaper 

Soundboard + Schoeps CCM4u Cardioids > Edirol R-44 (Oade Mod) > 2 x 24bit 48kHz wav files >
Soundforge (post-production) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > TLH  > flac (320 MP3 and tagging via Foobar)

Please support this legendary band: http://www.lambchop.net/

The following is from NYC taper's original post, he writes:

"In my not so humble opinion, Lambchop’s FLOTUS was the best album of 2016. In a similar regard, “In Care of 8675309” is the best song released this decade. What makes it more remarkable is that the album represents for Kurt Wagner a stylistic pivot from a twenty-five year career of eclectic americana. For FLOTUS, Wagner used modern technology juxtaposed with his intimate lyrics to create a masterpiece about the maintenance of an interpersonal connection in a world increasingly enslaved to machines.

We were fortunate to capture the live debut of the FLOTUS material at Hopscotch in September. Since that time Lambchop has toured the world and performed this material more than fifty times in a live setting, so that by the time they arrived at Bowery Ballroom last Friday, we were excited for the development of the songs. Our expectations were met early in the proceedings when Wagner sweetly crooned a subdued version of “NIV” that blended seamlessly into a guitar-driven truncated version of “The Hustle” that was transformed from the hypnotic electronic bifurcated melody on the album to a more unified alt-folk ballad live. “8675309” was placed in the middle of the set but Wagner’s intense vocal performance of the epic number was perhaps the highlight of the evening. The band’s setlist included a handful of older numbers and one cover, but this night was dedicated to FLOTUS and sans the title track, the album was nearly completely performed. The keyboardist Tony Crow provided several ace solos (and some hilarious banter) and the band also includes veteran bassist Matt Swanson and Wye Oak’s percussionist/electronic wiz Andy Stack, whose expert multitasking we’ve noted previously in this pages. But it was Wagner centerstage, and while his abundant use of vocals effects may have startled some of the old guard, the packed house was clearly on board for the FLOTUS sound and hovered on every note. Lambchop’s current tour comes to a close in the next few weeks, and they’re going back to Europe in the Summer festival season, but we expect that they will return to NYC in the Fall.

I recorded this set with the Schoeps mounted in our usual balcony spot and mixed with a flawless soundboard feed. The crowd’s great respect for this performer and this material permitted us to capture the often quiet moments of this set without distraction and as a result the sound quality of this recording is superb. Enjoy!"

The links to download this show are available exclusively at NYC taper's site, see the link below which takes you directly to his original post:

http://www.nyctaper.com/2017/04/lambchop-march-30-2017-bowery-ballroom/

There is a review and photographs from the show available here:

http://houselist.bowerypresents.com/2017/03/31/lambchop-paint-a-pretty-picture-at-the-bowery-ballroom/