Robyn Hitchcock with Emma Swift 
2018-04-18
One Longfellow Square, 
Portland, ME 

(AUDIENCE MASTER) (24bit/48kHz)

Dead Center First Row>Edirol R-09>Audacity 2.1.2 for trimming and track splits,, fade in/out, compression for clip/clap reduction, none applied to musical program>no further processing applied

Set 1 Robyn Hitchcock

01 (long-winded introduction)
02 The Abyss
03 I Pray When I'm Drunk
04 (not much has really changed..)
05 My Wife And My Dead Wife
06 Saturday Groovers
07 (shows should have subtext)
08 Luminous Rose
09 Madonna Of The Wasps
10 The Ghost Ship
11 (magnum force and vintage phones)
12 Light Blue Afternoon
13 I'm Only You
14 (bull moose full moon, staking records out)
15 Mad Shelley's Letterbox

Set 2 Robyn Hitchcock with Emma Swift

01 Gene Hackman
02 Cynthia Mask
03 (aquatic recording and the importance of context)
04 Trilobite
05 (peppered with portholes)
06 Adventure Rocketship
07 Sinister But She Was Happy
08 You & Oblivion
09 Airscape
10 Queen of Eyes (Soft Boys)
11 Visions of Johanna 
12 Motion Pictures (For Carrie) (with Emma Swift)
13 Queen Elvis (with Emma Swift)

This show may very well be the result of my begging Robyn on his social media page to come back to Maine and suggesting One Longfellow Square as the perfect venue if he were to do so. Many thanks to Robyn and Emma for taking the time to visit us up here.

One Longfellow Square is about as intimate a setting in which anyone could wish to see an artist. I was lucky enough to get tickets the day they went on sale and was the first to arrive at the door of the venue that night in order to secure a superior seat from which to record the show. This resulted in a fantastic mix of Robyn's acoutic output directly in front of me with the house PA which I consider to be my finest recording to date and much clearer than my recording of Robyn at the Iron Horse. You can actually hear the pick attack of Robyn strumming about three feet from me in the recording at certain points. There's a bit of mic bump during the first song while I verify the position of the R-09, and an occasional creak from the chairs at the venue throughout the show, but other than that very few distractions from the performance. I applied some compression to many sections of the recording that had clipping due to applause, but applied none if there was any musical content so all clipping was not eliminated. I doubt you'll find it very noticeable unless you're really listening for it, but your speakers will thanks me for it.

Robyn delivered two incerdible sets this night playing several selections from his most recent release at the time, Tromso Kaptein, but the hightlights of this show (in my humble opinion) appear in the second set with performances of Gene Hackman, Trilobite, Sinister But She Was Happy, Airscape (dedicated to Tom Petty), and an absolutely stunning cover of Neil Young's Motion Pictures (from the great lost (until recently) Neil Young album, On The Beach) on which he duets with Emma Swift as well as the closer. I've indexed most of Robyn's onstage patter separately from the songs for convenience but some is still attached to the musical content in a few spots.

The title of this collection comes from one of Robyn's between-song comments so if you have an issue with it, I suggest you take it up with him.

Many thanks to Caitlyn, who sitting next to me in the front row was able to contain her excitement at seeing Robyn so close up, thereby enabling me to capture a magic evening without too much chatter. Wherever you are (and however you spell your name) I hope this recording finds you somehow.

Enjoy!

stonytokes 07/08/21



