Ultrasonic 75

Album Information: Title: Ultrasonic 75 Artist: Gentle Giant Year: 1997 Type: unofficial live recording

About The Album

This is the same concert that appears on Live in New York 1975 and Amongst The Darkers (but that latter release is incomplete). This album restores the missing tracks: Proclamation and Octopus Medley. It is on the Highland label.

Other recordings of this concert

• Amongst the Darkers - Behind the Few
• Live in New York 1975
• The WLIR FM Sessions, Live at Ultrasonic Studios 1975

A concert report

Gary Citro has this to say about the concert, based on his brother's report:

Ultrasonic was a recording studio on Long Island, and this session took place a few days before the concert at the Academy of Music in NYC (which was *my* first GG concert, at the tender impressionable age of 14--sob sob).

Anyway, [Gary Citro's brother] says it was a rectangular room about the size of a small gymnasium. There were definitely less than 100 people there total, probably more like 50 or 60 in the audience at the most. The audience--or witnesses--all sat on the floor close up to the band, who were not on a stage. There were no theatrics or special lighting of any kind. GG wore T-shirts and drank Heineken beer. I know this is a big revelation for some of you, and it might even make it to the web page, but I can't honestly lay claim to the fact that Heineken was the OFFICIAL beer of Gentle Giant. It may have been all that was around at the time--no doubt my brother brought along a few cases himself--but at the very least we can assume that Derek drank increasing amounts of it as the years went on.

He says the attitude of GG at this session was one of "let's get this over with". The audience was all but completely ignored. Any shouted requests from those in attendance were not acknowledged even at close proximity, and rightfully so I'm sure, as I remember how loud and unruly local crowds were at this time. GG certainly didn't want their radio broadcast to turn into a piano bar. The set they played was the same as the one they played at the concert a few days later. He remembers them trotting around from instrument to instrument, and that the playing was at a high level.

After it was over, GG left and did not pal around with the audience as I earlier suggested might have happened. From what we both remember there was a back stage door at the Calderone Concert Hall in Hempstead, and band members would often come out of there after concerts and give autographs and chat with audience members there.

Just as my brother began to recount the part about the farm animals and Ray's tutu, the effects of the hypnosis wore off, and unfortunately this will have to remain one of those unsolved mysteries that will keep all of us coming back to this space for generations to come.

Track List

1. Cogs in Cogs
2. Proclamation
3. Funny Ways
4. The Runaway / Experience (mislabeled as "The Runaway ~ In A Glass House")
5. Octopus Medley (The Boys In The Band, Dog's Life, Knots, The Advent Of Panurge)
6. So Sincere
7. Free Hand
8. Just The Same

Date discrepancy

This recording was previously believed to be from October 3, 1975. However, fan Nick Sudbury has identified the correct date as October 7 by the following analysis:

• Four CDs claim the October 3 date: Amongst the Darkers - Behind the Few, Ultrasonic 75, Live in New York 1975, and Endless Life
• Three of these recordings are of the same show (determined by listening): Amongst the Darkers - Behind the Few, Ultrasonic 75, and Live in New York 1975.
• On Endless Life, there is a malfunction of the tapes of the intro and the breaking glass. Some fans remember this as happening at the October 3 concert.
• On Endless Life, Derek says they'll be back "next week," and indeed there was a concert at the same venue on October 11.

Therefore, Endless Life is most likely the October 3 show, and the other three discs are from October 7.