STEVE MARTIN AND THE STEEP CANYON RANGERS WITH EDIE BRICKELL
October 6, 2013
San Francisco, CA, USA
Golden Gate Park (Hardly Strictly Bluegrass)


Here's what I wrote in the info file for the show a few days earlier in Seattle:


"Back in '78, when I was in the womb, my parents went to a Steve Martin show in Los Angeles. My mother was wearing an arrow through the head. I like to think that evening affected my life in an important way. Whatever the situation, I've been a huge fan since I was a little kid but, of course, was too young to actually see him live. I met Steve once for my 16th birthday in '95 after seeing a play he wrote, and then in '07 or so I saw him do an on-stage Q&A in San Francisco, but I'd never seen him perform. So even though I'm not a big fan of his music or bluegrass in general, I had to go to this. It was a lot of fun. I like to think this is where he would've ended up anyway had he not quit standup in the early 80s - more banjo, less comedy, but both still present in the act.

I also recorded some of his set at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass a few days later when I was in San Francisco for a wedding. It was a completely miserable experience going to that festival, as it was the one other time I went maybe 12 years ago. Truly terrible. I don't know how people do it - at least, people who want to enjoy music. Most of the people around me were drunk and not even facing the stage, choosing instead to talk in a circle with their friends and being so loud I could barely hear music. I'll stop ranting now, but that show's partially recorded, too, if anyone has any interest. I think its value is in more of a recorded experience than actual show."


I listened to a lot of this tonight, for the first time since I left the park that day. The people at the show were just disgusting. Well, not all of them. Obviously, you can hear people clapping when songs end, so they're paying attention. I went to this festival around 2001 or so to see Willie Nelson. It was a nightmare and I left when a physical fight between two old ladies broke out in front of me and almost knocked me over. "Never again," I swore to myself that day. But then Steve Martin was on the bill and I happened to be in town, and I couldn't bring myself to pass up a free Steve Martin show. What a horrible experience.

The first track, which is 18 and a half minutes, is me trying to figure out where to go and things going wrong. You'll hear bits of other stages in there, and it finally ends with a song from the set I was there to see. I cut after that because the next song is when I finally stopped moving. As I said above, this is more a record of a situation I found myself in than of a musical performance, but the music is still there hiding behind a wall of chattering  morons.


1. (walking + Sarah Jane And The Iron Mountain)
2. Love Has Come For You
3. Stand And Deliver
4. Hunger
5. The Great Remember (for Nancy)
6. The Dance At The Wedding
7. Remember Me This Way
8. Pretty Little One
9. Auden's Train
10. (more crowd)


59 minutes, 55 seconds

Zoom H2-->WAV-->Audacity to raise volume and try to reduce bass-->CD Wave for track splitting-->you guys
