Watford

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About The Album

Live in Watford, 1974. A "strictly limited edition" bootleg put out by Wilkinson Archives, WILK014.

I heard from a guy who says he taped this show -- and his tape is likely the source of this CD:

"I've not seen or heard the CD, but if it's from my tape, it's not going to be much good. The recording was made on a Decca Legato portable cassette machine with a cheap moving coil microphone on a horrid Audio Magnetics C120 cassette. It suffers from compressed dynamics, limited frequency range, some overload distortion and a fair bit of hiss, but is still quite listenable. I think all circulating copies must come from a cassette to cassette dub I made many years ago, because I can't remember giving it to anyone else.

"Watford Town Hall has a world-renowned acoustic and is often used for orchestral recording, but as a rock venue, it's terrible. It's a big, aircraft hangar of a place and the further you are from the stage, the worse the sound. The 1974 Gentle Giant show was a standing-only gig; there were no seats, so I was able to position myself in a good place, more or less stage centre, maybe twelve rows from the front. However, the limitations in the equipment I used at the time and the shortcomings of the venue's acoustics conspired to create a less than perfect audio record. But, as I say, it's quite listenable.

Track List

  1. The Runaway
  2. Experience
  3. Prologue
  4. Funny Ways
  5. Octopus Medley
  6. Knots
  7. The Advent of Panurge
  8. Nothing At All
  9. Plain Truth
  10. In a Glass House