Cream - Goodbye Tour Box

I would say so. I will compare again and let you know tomorrow, but to my ears everything sounds clearer with better separation.

 

This has been hanging on my office wall for about 20yrs.

 

That's the Cream show my parents saw! Great find.

 

I think Eric once said that this show was the best he's ever played...

 

He mentions it in the press release for the Gibson Custom Shop Clapton Firebird reissue:
Gibson Eric Clapton 1964 Firebird I

 

Ginger was there but didn't last long. He told the other drummer on stage to f@@k off, dropped his sticks, and stormed off the stage.

 

That sounds very Ginger

 

Listening to Sunshine Of Your Love preview track, it seemed to me that Eric’s guitar stereo image keeps moving between right & center. Guessing with high volumes, that’s just mic bleed?

Interesting choice to not mix the drums in the center but pan them left and right. Very sixties I suppose. While a new remix from mutlis would’ve been great, I am glad that these vintage mixes have survived and not lost like much of the Cream tapes.

 

Thanks for posting. Great poster and shows how big Cream were back then. Anyone know how many MSG held back in 1968.

 

The present-day Madison Square Garden opened in early 1968. The Cream show was one of the first rock concerts to be held there. Some sources say it was indeed the very first rock concert at the newly built arena. The basketball seating capacity was listed as 19,500 for the years 1968 to 1972. I assume that Cream could have packed in even a bit more than this because they played on a revolving circular stage that was placed in the middle of the arena.

 

Are you sure it was Cream that played on a rotating stage? I thought they did that on the Blind Faith tour.

 

Yes. They used that rotating stage for both Cream and Blind Faith.

 

Some photos of the revolving stage setup and other info in this thread:

The Cream, Buddy Miles Express & Terry Reid - 11/2/1968 Madison Square Garden

 

That is great, thanks Arnold Grove.

 

Amazon dropped its price to $59.84... it'll drop again

 

It’s possible that some of the guitar movement was fading the vocal tracks up and down during mixing. It’s hard to say for certain though. But things like that are typical with live recording, where “making it work” is usually the goal.

As far as the drums go, all of the live Cream material has stereo drums, although some mixes do things to make the separation somewhat less extreme. Stereo drums is the norm today, but there are countless ways that can be effected, some more extreme sounding than others. The way Bill Halverson recorded the drums in the case resulted in quite a bit of noticeable stereo separation.

 

Ok, finally had a chance to listen and compare the new set against the boot. As far as the three US shows are concerned we know the multitracks no longer exist so the mix could not be changed for any of the shows.

In my opinion the new release is better. Aside from the known errors on the boot, I also feel the official version has better definition and clarity and none of the known faults. I have already covered the RAH and considering the only source material available, the producers have worked miracles. I for one am very pleased they included the last show in this set, and would argue that performance wise it is one of the best shows of the farewell tour.

 

Thanks for that. Looking forward to the forthcoming official set. I shall keep my boots for reasons of nostalgia!

 

Good to hear, Marc!

I've never doubted that there's some really good music in those two shows - the video soundtrack doesn't always allow that to shine through (especially when the echo & reverb gets turned to STUN level), but it seems like the band really pulled together for that final night & finished on a high (as supported by the bandmember's recollections of wondering whether they'd done the right thing, in the immediate post-show glow).

 

Thanks for your info. Looking forward even more, now.
+1 on the last show. Never understood why some regarded it as subpar, esp. in comparison to the other shows along the farewell tour...

 

Folks probably got dizzy from trying to watch the film!

 

Thankfully no sign of Traintime!

 

Speaking about the revolving stage:

How did the stage work for the Cream and/or Blind Faith shows at Madison Square Garden? Was it constantly revolving (very slowly, of course) throughout each and every song during the whole concert? Was it rotated say 45 degrees after each song, and then remained stabile for that song? Was the stage rotated only after every 2 or 3 songs? Anyone know?

 

Correct.
Soundwise it freaked out Free as on one number half the members concurrently played a different song to the other two!
I have never heard Cream's MSG set but bet the sound wasn't great.

 

Years ago I heard a stunning version of Sitting On Top Of The World on YouTube which was said to be from one of the Albert Hall shows!
Hoping it is from this second set as I never found that YouTube link again!