That’s what I was getting at. They probably started on something, a laAlbert Hall and then swing into EMH.
They are all from So You Want To Be A Rock and Roll Star, The Byrds Day By Day 1965-1973 , by Christopher Hyort. I highly recommend it.
This is not a great copy of this show, but yeah, I've always loved this concert for what this band could've been. But it was 1978 and they had signed with RSO who were on top of the musical world with The Bee Gees so it's off to Florida and discoland! Have you seen the video of this tour? The band doesn't exactly excite onstage, they're rather limp, but the music is great.
Well, on the other hand, he still had to work with those guys -- even if they were employees. McGuinn is not a confrontational guy, and seems like exactly the sort of person who would go with the flow in the group--Parsons, White, and even Battin working much more closely with one another, and with much more sympathy, than any of them worked with McGuinn--and then just quietly resent them all for it.
Yes, but it's the only document of the early MCH before the change of direction that occurred in Miami that exists on YouTube and can be linked to. I have a better copy and also somewhere a good copy of the Adelaide gig that includes the video of 4 songs IIRC.
Wow! Thanks. The first Gene tune sounds a lot like R.E.M. Obviously McGuinn's sound influenced Pete Buck, but now I am thinking maybe Gene influenced Stipe's vocals.
That was my initial thought on first hearing REM back in the day; the classic Byrds lineup's influence, the chiming guitar, the Gene like vocal delivery. I don't know about Stipe being "influenced" as such, it's maybe just that they had similar singing voices, it's possible though.
Oh god that cover looks familiar. I think I may have bought that back when it came out, back before I knew anything about the Byrds and back before I had easy access to the internet to check these sorts of things. Anyway, if it's the cd I think it is then it's simply not the Byrds' music on it - whether it features anybody with any sort of link to the band I couldn't tell you, but avoid at all costs. Have no idea what the review of the 1990 boxset on that Amazon listing is all about though.
Hard to say without a tracklist, but I think this is a very grey-market release, and the recordings are not The Byrds, let alone the lineup in the cover photo. It might be the Michael Clarke-led incarnation from the 80s on this songs. Yup, here's the back-side tracklist. Everything after track seven, bar 'He Was A Friend Of Mine' is unequivocally NOT The Byrds.
It's the "fake" Byrds from the 80s/90s. NO ex-Byrd in this group. Not even Michael Clarke. It's a guy called Danny McCullogh (previously from the second batch of Animals) and some studio musicians pretending to be The Byrds. 'You Ain't Going Nowhere' and "It Won't Be wrong' aren't even the songs we're familiar with but completely different songs. AVOID AT ALL COSTS.
I remember buying it when it was released. I didn't know anything about it except it was a Byrds album. It was a surprise when I gave it the first listen. I always loved the county rock groups. Pure Prairie League's first few albums still get played a lot. I think the Burrito Brothers and Parson ' s solo albums carry on where Sweetheart left off. I'm listening to the Sundazed double LP of the Byrds Columbia singles in mono. It's a great collection.
I lived in Athens, GA. 1978-90 and saw R.E.M. in their first public appearance. At that point the Byrds influence was not as clear as it became by the time they started recording. Until now I had never made a specific connection between Gene's vocals & Stipe's. By the way, I saw McGuinn play a solo set at a very small club in Athens, just him & the electric 12-string. He then brought out R.E.M. without Stipe to back him in an encore set. Obviously they were confined to tunes that the R.E.M. guys knew, so they mostly repeated songs Roger had already done in his solo set. An odd occasion, maybe an ironic contrast to "So You Want To Be A Rock 'n' Roll Star", a song R.E.M. sometimes did as an encore.
Is it this concert? Roger McGuinn & The Southern Gentlemen - R.E.M.iniscing The Byrds Uptown Lounge, GA – May 11, 1988 Roger McGuinn (guitar, vocals) With members of R.E.M.: Peter Buck (guitar, vocals) Mike Mills (bass, vocals) Bill Berry (drums, vocals) 1. Roger McGuinn - My Back Pages (2:44) 2. Roger McGuinn - You Showed Me (2:48) 3. Roger McGuinn - Don't You Write Her Off (2:49) 4. Roger McGuinn - 5D (2:58) 5. Roger McGuinn - Ballad Of Easy Rider (3:55) 6. Roger McGuinn - It's All Right Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) (2:34) 7. Roger McGuinn - American Girl (3:45) 8. Roger McGuinn - Sunshine Love (2:24) 9. Roger McGuinn - The Tears (3:21) 10. Roger McGuinn - Chestnut Mare (5:20) 11. Roger McGuinn - Tiffany Queen 2 (2:36) 12. Roger McGuinn & R.E.M. - You Ain't Going Nowhere (3:14) 13. Roger McGuinn & R.E.M. - Mr Spaceman (2:55) 14. Roger McGuinn & R.E.M. - Bells Of Rhymney (3:38) 15. Roger McGuinn & R.E.M. - Mr Tambourine Man (2:44) 16. Roger McGuinn & R.E.M. - Turn Turn Turn (3:46) 17. Roger McGuinn & R.E.M. - Eight Miles High (5:13) 18. Roger McGuinn & R.E.M. - So You Want To Be A Rock 'N' Roll Star (4:03) 19. Roger McGuinn & R.E.M. - Knockin' On Heaven's Door (5:19) 20. Roger McGuinn & R.E.M. - I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better (2:59)
I believe that was the club & the date seems reasonable. The set list doesn't match my memory, but maybe McGuinn played some of the songs twice but the solo versions weren't included. Given the length of the program, I guess not more than a couple could have been repeated. Or maybe my memory is just faulty. An aspect of the show (it was in a small club & I wouldn't call it a concert) that irritated me was all the sorority girls who had come on the strength of a rumor that R.E.M. might be there. They talked all the way through the solo set. They applauded when the R.E.M. members came out & then talked (more loudly) through the band set. Why pay money to hear music & then have to yell your gossip to each other?
Gene presented the song to the Byrds in the same way he would perform it during his solo shows in the '80s: as a slow, dark ballad.
Yes, I think, as @Clarkophile suggests, the closest to a template for "Eight Miles High" as conceived by Gene for the Byrds is probably "Here Without You" or perhaps "I Knew I'd Want You."
In one of the earlier parts of this thread I posted Gene’s introduction to the song, as performed during his October 1988 tour: "For this last song I'd like to do a song called 'Eight Miles High'. And I would like to do it the way that I originally wrote it, mainly because I haven't got a band to do all the John Coltrane licks and stuff like that. But the song was originally presented in this form." As an aside, if you get a chance to hear anything from Gene’s Oct ‘88 shows, you’ll see that he was in top form at every show, playing and singing with great intensity. The Mountain Stage Show was recorded during that set of appearances.