Willie Nelson - 1979-08-18 - Sedalia, Missouri (SBD)

Willie Nelson

1979-08-18

Missouri State Fair

Sedalia, Missouri

Soundboard Recording

320 kbps

Artwork Included

01.  Whiskey River

02.  Stay All Night

03.  Funny How Time Slips Away >

04.  Crazy >

05.  Night Life

06.  Down Yonder

07.  If You've Got The Money

08.  Shotgun Willie

09.  Sweet Memories

10.  Good Hearted Woman

11.  Angel Flying Too Close To The Ground

12.  Bloody Mary Morning

13.  Time Of The Preacher >

14.  I Couldn't Believe It Was True >

15.  Time Of The Preacher

16.  Blue Rock Mountain > 

17.  Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain >

18.  Red Headed Stranger > 

19.  Time Of The Preacher

20.  Under The Double Eagle

21.  Blues Skies

22.  Georgia On My Mind

23.  Mama Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys >

24.  I Could Get Off On You,

25.  Stardust Memories, 

26.  All Of Me

27.  Workingman's Blues

28.  Till I Gain Control Again

29.  Will The Circle Be Unbroken > 

30.  Amazing Grace

Willie Nelson - 1979-08-18 - Sedalia, Missouri (SBD)

I've seen Willie Nelson live on one occasion, on September 2, 1978 when he led in for the Grateful Dead at Giants Stadium, just the 3rd concert ever performed at that venue. Actually, it was supposed to be Waylon Jennings and Willie, but the former no showed the concert. Willie didn't let that stop him from getting us fired up for the main event with a perfromance as hot at the weather that day.

The same year I saw him in concert, Willie released the album Stardust. where he covered 10 legendary pop standards, such as the title track, Georgia on My Mind, Blue Skies and September Song. Stardust received rave critical reviews, and went to # 1 on the Billboard Country charts, as well as #30 on the magazine's top 200 album chart.  This soundboard recording captures Willie a year later,  on tour in support of that disc, on August 18, 1979, 47 years ago today.

Santana - 1999-08-18 - Sacramento, CA (SBD)

Santana

1999-08-18

Arco Arena

Sacramento, CA

Soundboard Recording

320 kbps

Artwork Included

01. Opening > Spiritual > (Da Le) Yaleo/Hanniba

02. Put Your Lights On

03. Smooth

04. Our Roots (Began In Africa)   

05. Day Of Celebration/

06. Victory Is Won

07. Aranjuez > Maria Maria

08. Europa

09. Bacalao Con Pan

10. Karl Perazzo > Raul Rekow > Rodney Holmes

11. Black Magic Woman > Gypsy Queen

12. Oye Como Va   

13. Corazon Espinado> Band Introduction

Santana - 1999-08-18 - Sacramento, CA (SBD)

On July 7, 1981, I saw Carlos Santana in concert for the first time. I was about a month removed from college graduation, and enjoying a summer off before starting business school in the fall. My buddies and I were going to see Carlos at a new outdoor concert venue that John Scher had opened, the South Mountain Muisc Fair in West Orange NJ. When we arrived, we found out that it wasn’t quite a venue at all. Nor was it an Amphitheater or Hall or an Arts Center or anything quite so fancy. It was…. THE SIDE OF A HILL. Yep, , Mr. Scher, who, as mentioned in my prior post, above all knew how to make a buck, rented space in a large park, put a stage at the bottom of a hill, put up fences to keep out anyone without a ticket, and created a concert venue. I guess it’s a little late for me to complain, especially since I bought to tickets to several other shows at South Mountain that summer. All issues with the venue were forgotten once Carlos hit the stage. He played a blistering set, featuring songs from his latest album Zebop, as well as a host of classics. We had gone hoping that Carlos would play Open Invitation, and he delivered. For the full story behind why that song was so important to us, you'll have to read my book. By the way, I would get to see Carlos again in 1986 as part of the Crack Down concerts at Madison Square Garden, which alos had CSN and the Allman Brothers on the bill!

This soundboard recording captures Carlos long after I saw him, in Sacramento on August 18, 1999, 27 years ago today. Carlos was on tour in support of the album Supernatural, which would re-ignite his career. The disc would reach No. 1 in eleven countries, including the US where it topped the Billboard charts for 12 weeks and certified 15 times platinum. The first single from the album, Smooth, featuring Matchbox Twenty singer Rob Thomas, would also go to #1 on the Billboard charts, spending a dozen weeks at the top.

TEN RULES OF THE ROAD I LEARNED AT MY FIRST CONCERT: UPDATED & EXPANDED EDITION - A GREAT SUMMER READ!

Countless "truth is stranger than fiction" tales, 177 magical concerts, 100 unique bands, 50 years of finding a way to the next show, and 10 Rules Of The Road all add up to 1 ordinary guy's extraordinary love letter to live rock & roll. 

And now, the book with a 4.4 star review on Amazon just got even better - welcome to the updated and expanded 2025 edition of TEN RULES OF THE ROAD I LEARNED AT MY FIRST CONCERT: AN ORDINARY GUY'S LIFETIME OF LIVE ROCK & ROLL!  

The new edition is 550 pages, with over 250 pages of brand new content including:

• updates elements to every section of the book – the rules, the essays, the concert summaries, and the statistics.
• more tales from my 20th century concert adventures that I dredged out of my memory that didn't make the first edition
• details of all the shows I’ve attended since 2021, after the first edition was published, until today
• complete re-writes of Rules #2, #5, #6, #7, # 8 and #10, as well as the Grateful Dead essay, have been almost completely re-written. 
• consolidating the Song Selection essays from three to two but adding more songs to each remaining chapter in the process, doubling the number of tunes covered from 40 to 80. 
• replacing the discarded song essay, with a new one about the relationship between rock & roll and Broadway, a unique pairing that only really came into focus for me in the last year or so. 
• adding numerous new charts/tables to the statistics section
• quadrupling the number of setlists from shows I attended.  
• re-editing the entire book to clean up some areas that either seemed cumbersome or didn’t flow well 
• reformatting the entire book to give it a more professional look and feel. 

It's bigger! It's  better! It's the perfect summer read for the rock & roll fan in your life!  And the paperback is still only $14.99!  Also available in Kindle and now Hardcover as well!

Read a sample here!   

See the table of contents here!

Read reviews here!

Buy it here!

The Clash - 1982-08-17 - Akron, OH (SBD)

The Clash

1982-08-17

Civic Theater

Akron, Ohio

Soundboard Recording

320 kbps

Artwork Included

01. London Calling

02. The Leader

03. This Is Radio Clash

04. Clash City Rockers

05. Know Your Rights

06. Guns Of Brixton

07. Train In Vain

08. Call Up

09. Rock The Casbah

10. Police And Thieves

11. Police On My Back (incomplete)

12. The Magnificent Seven

13. Wrong ‘Em Boyo

14. Career Opportunities

15. Somebody Got Murdered

16. Brand New Cadillac

17. I Fought The Law

18. Armagideon Time

19. Should I Stay Or Should I Go

20. Clampdown

21. Straight To Hell

22. Janie Jones > Garageland (incomplete)

The Clash - 1982-08-17 - Akron, OH (SBD)

In 1982, the Clash were riding the crest of a wave of popularity triggered by 2 huge radio and MTV hits, Should I Stay or Should I Go, and Rock the Casbah. Two of my buddies from college and I got tickets to see the Clash at the University of Pennsylvania on August 27, 1982, the first, last and only time I would see them live. The saga of that show - especially the trip there - is one of my favorite tales from my book! Less than 2 months later, the band would be opening for The Who at Shea Stadium, with many saying that they stole the show from the classic rock veterans. Who knew then that it was the beginning of the end? Within a year, Mick Jones had left the band. But, for a few brief moments in 1982, the Clash were on top of the rock world. 

While there's no recording of the U Penn show, I do have a fantastic soundboard from 10 days earlier in Akron, on August 17, 1982, 44 years ago today.  Download this one to hear the group that once billed itself as "The Only Band That Matters".

Maria McKee - 1989-08-16 - Santa Monica, CA (FM)

Maria McKee 

1989-08-16

KCRW Studios 

Santa Monica, CA

FM Broadcast

320 kbps

Artwork Included

01. DJ Deirdre O'Donoghue Introduction > interview

02. Am I The Only One (Who's Ever Felt This Way?)

03. interview

04. To Miss Someone

05. interview

06. This Property Is Condemned

07. interview

08. Shelter

09. interview

10. Drinking In My Sunday Dress

11. interview

12. Into The Mystic

13. interview

14. Nobody’s Child

15. DJ Deirdre O'Donoghue outro

Maria McKee - 1989-08-16 - Santa Monica, CA (FM)

I saw Maria McKee, the former lead singer of Lone Justice, in September 1989, at the Palladium in New York, leading in for Neil Young, right after she released her self titled debut album.

This FM broadcast captures her just a few weeks earlier, in Santa Monica on August 16, 1989, 37 years ago today.

Grateful Dead - 1991-08-16 - Mountain View, CA (SBD)

Grateful Dead

1991-08-16

Shorline Amphitheater

Mountain View, CA

Sounboard Recording

320 kbps 

Artwork Included

1st Set:

01. Jack Straw

02. Bertha

03. All Over Now

04. Ramble On Rose

05. Desolation Row

06. Dark Star >

07. Promised Land

2nd Set

01. Scarlet Begonias >

02. Victim or the Crime >

03. Fire on the Mountain >

04. Truckin' >

05. Drums

06. Space >

07. Playing in the Band (reprise) >

08. Standing on the Moon >

09. Good Lovin'

Encore:

01. U.S. Blues

Grateful Dead - 1991-08-16 - Mountain View, CA (SBD)

On September 3, 1977, me and my buddies, along with 150,000 others, made the pilgrimage to Englishtown NJ, to see the Grateful Dead play the largest concert in the state's history. The day was hot - over 100 degrees - and the band was even hotter., as evidenced by the fact the show was officailly released as Dick's Picks #15.  I would see 49 more after that, at least 1 show every year except 1982, 1984, 1986 and 1992, with the last show being June 18, 1995, just 2 month's before we lost Jerry Garcia. My long strange trip with the Dead was short compared to folks who saw hundreds of concerts, but it was memorable, as over a dozen shows that I attended were good enough to be officially released. It's been 31 years since we lost Jerry, and I still miss the magic. 

As mentioned in several posts here at So Many Roads, the period from 1989 to 1991 featured the band’s finest playing in the wake of Jerry’s recovery from a diabetic coma in late 1986. To underscore that point, here’s a list of just some of the shows from that period that the Dead have officially released:

• a show from Philadelphia from July 7, 1989
• the Giant Stadium Shows from July 9 and 10, 1989
• The 2 night stand at RFK Stadium from July 12 and 13, 1989
• the famed Warlock shows in Hampton Virginia on October 8 and 9, 1989 
• the Meadowlands NJ concert on October 16, 1989
• the Landover, Maryland show on March 15, 1990 
• the Knickerbocker arena run from March 24 to 26, 1990; 
• 2 (yes 2) box sets from Spring 1990, featuring every show from that tour - the only other tour to be released in its entirety besides Europe 1972
• a show from from Mountain View CA from June 16, 1990
• a show from from Pittsburgh from July 8, 1990
• the Madison Square Garden concerts from September 14 to 20, 1990. 
• a show from Paris from October 27, 1990 
• a show from Washington DC from June, 14, 1991
• Giants Stadium shows from June 16 and 17, 1991
• a show from Pine Knob from June 20, 1991 
• a show from Madison Square Garden from September 10, 1991, featuring Bradford Marsalis
• shows from Boston Garden on September 25 and 26, 1991

Today we bring you another gem from that period, a soundboard that captures the Dead on August 16, 1991, 35 years ago today, in Mountain View, CA.

 

Tom Petty - 1995-08-15 - Saratoga Springs, NY (SBD)

Tom Petty 

& The Heart Breakers 

1995-08-15

Saratoga Performing Arts Center

Saratoga Springs, NY

Soundboard recording

320 kbps

Artwork Included

CD 1:

01. Love Is A Long Road

02. You Don't Know How It Feels

03. Listen To Her Heart

04. I Won't Back Down

05. Free Fallin'

06. You Wreck Me

07. Diamondhead

08. Mary Jane's Last Dance

09. Don't Come Around Here No More

10. A Higher Place

11. Learning To Fly

12. The Waiting

13. Yer So Bad

14. It's Good To Be King

CD 2:

01. It's Good To Be King

02. Goin' Down To Georgia

03. Refugee

04. Runnin' Down A Dream

05. Crowd

06. Honey Bee

07. American Girl

08. Crowd

09. Alright For Now

10. Crowd

Tom Petty - 1995-08-15 - Saratoga Springs, NY (SBD)

I saw Tom Petty live once, in April 1983 at the Brendan Byrne (later the Continental Airlines, and finally, the Izod) Arena. Nick Lowe was the lead-in band, making for quite a new wave night of music.

Today's post takes us forward about a dozen years after I saw Mr. Petty. In the early 1990’s, Petty took a break from the Heartbreakers to work on his second solo album, Wildflowers, which was released in 1994. The disc sold over 3 million copies, went to #1 on the Billboard charts, and spawned the hit singles, You Don't Know How It Feels, You Wreck Me, It's Good To be King and A Higher Place.  He reunited with the band, however, in 1995, launching the Dogs With Wings Tour. This soundboard recording captures Petty and The Hearbreakers during tha run, in Saratoga Springs on August 15, 1995, 31 years ago today.