Audience

CDR

2

DVD 3328; lineage: Church Audio CA-11 cards => UGLY pre-amp => Tascam DR-2D (24/44.1). Transfer: DR-2D => WAV => Audition 1.5 (dither to 16-bit) => WAV => Magix Audio Cleaning Lab => WAV => FLAC (level 8). Location: Stage left, ~10th row

Enjoyable Summerfest performance by TP&TH on a Friday night, a setting which is usually extremely taper-unfriendly due to frat boys and concert amateurs who have spent the day drinking Leinie and PBR leading up to the show. By and large, the audience was well-behaved, and the performance was a notch above his typical show. He commented at one point that the band had been looking forward to Milwaukee for the entire tour because they love playing Summerfest (and indeed, I think they've performed on the main stage four times in the last decade) and one could tell they were enjoying themselves.

Though not as adventurous as his recent club shows in New York and L.A., I thought the setlist was really good for a festival setting. He'll never be able to play a shed without old warhorses like "American Girl," but there were a lot of covers and relative obscurities in the set to satisfy those of us who have seen him many times. Of the 15 or so Petty shows I've attended over the years, I thought this was near the top.

In terms of sound quality, this came out really good - particularly given the setting. Seats were right under the overhead stack at about a 30-degree angle from the stage, and I got most of the benefit of those along with some of the stage monitors. The mix is pretty good and overall balanced, although I felt the vocals could have been a little more prominent (I used Audio Cleaning Lab to emphasize the vocals a little, and drop the midrange slightly - but this recording didn't need much help). With the exception of two or three woo-woo's and outbursts (and of course chatter between songs) near the mics, there really isn't much audience interference to distract from the recording. I've done a couple masters at Summerfest shows where the nearby crowd was so bad that I never even went back to check my master; I felt pretty lucky. (Part of my good fortune came from the fact that the fan in front of me - a gentleman in his late 50's in a Blackhawks jersey - made FIVE separate trips for beer during the show and double-fisted each round. He might be dead now after consuming 1 1/4 gallons of beer in two hours, but it worked out great for me since he was too preoccupied to clap or talk.)

This doesn't match up to the Schoeps recordings from New York and L.A., but this should be good for even the casual Tom Petty collector.

There are no fades on this file set, so the CD breaks (for those who still burn to CD) are merely a suggestion - you can split discs wherever you want.

3328

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