Wishbone Ash: London 1973 (VG++ Aud) FLAC

Super Rare

London, Alexandra Palace
August 4, 1973
Lineage: Audience recording>Japanese vinyl bootleg>CD-R>EAC>FLAC(level 8)>DIME>You!
Line-up: Andy Powell - Ted Turner -Martin Turner - Steve Upton
Original tracks:

Vinyl Side 1:
1.So Many Things To Say
2.Rock & Roll Widow
3.Everybody Needs A Friend

Vinyl Side 2
4.Ballad Of The Beacon
5.Phoenix

OU: Here's what proved – after some research – to be Wishbone's August 4, 1973 at Ally Pally show during the "London Music Festival" set to celebrate UK's entry to the Common Market.
Despite the relative failure of "Wishbone Four" released earlier that year, our band were still in the top league back then, as they headlined the 3rd day of the festival, following fellow biggies Black Sabbath and Ten Years After on the previous evenings.
The recording was taken directly from the old Japanese vinyl bootleg "At Alexandra Palace `73" that came in a thick plain white cover with handmade rubber stamped lettering.
Since our heroes played the Ally Pally twice that year (on August 4 and on December 22), there was some uncertainty about which show this recording stems actually from. However, the concert poster announcing as well the August show AND the latest single "So Many Things To Say"
– depicted on the reverse side of the front cover – leads me strongly to believe that it promotes the show in question. I simply find it hard to imagine they decided not to play this new number and single A-side while both show and song are being promoted in combination. Too, like most other artists, our heroes have had the tendency of dropping new numbers after a while, and since "So Many Things" was tough to sing according to Mart, it is pretty likely this number was a contender for getting dropped some time into touring. In fact, it no longer appears on any of the existing late 1973 or early 1974 recordings.
The August 11 NME article - which you can find reprinted on the insert - reveals that this show was obviously the legendary and mythical show with the horn section brought on to boost their encore "No Easy Road". Wow, I would really like to hear that thing before I pass the Pearly Gates.
For some reason unkown to us, this recording never got into trading circulation. It may seem it was perhaps sent by the taper (or someone who got the recording from him) to someone in Japan who edited it down to c. 45 min and had himself made this vinyl album. (Hey, over there, where the heck is the rest of the show?).
I tend to believe the bootleg must have been released sometime in 1974, and the Japanese (or the taper who may have already done the edit) was a dedicated Wishbone fan: not less than 4 out of 5 tracks are from "Wishbone Four", and "So Many Things…" and "Everybody Needs a Friend" are exactly two numbers that were actually recorded along the band's June 1973 tour but eventually left off the "Live Dates" album
Since this album was released in November 1973, it may be that the bootlegger intended this release to somehow make up for that loss – for me at least, and within its sound quality confines, it actually does!
Moreover, this bootleg even seems to contain the only available MK I live recordings of these two numbers. Hoping for someone to please correct me if I'm wrong...
Japanese vinyl bootlegs were always released in small quantities only, in the 70's (some 300-500 copies) but of this one, there sure are much less copies in existence. Aside of yours truly, I know only of Doc John (of course!) to own this thing and another unknown collector who recently offered it for some $1,000 on Ebay.
I got my copy from a long-deceased German bootleg dealer in 1986 who had excellent Japanese sources - and it cost me fortune, then. Still, I'm no hoarder and though I imagine most of the dedicated Wishbone fans will have this show already, there sure are only a few who have this as a 1st generation copy off the vinyl. So, this should at least make an upgrade to your collection.

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