RENAISSANCE : OPEN UP EYES

  1. Introduction
  2. Can You Understand ?
  3. Black Flame
  4. Things I Don't Understand
  5. Cold is Being
  6. Running Hard
  7. Ashes Are Burning

Label : Blue Cafe

Venue : Ebbets Field, Denver, Colorado, USA

Recording Date : August 7, 1974

Length : 60:16

Quality : FM recording (A-)

Review : This is a remaster/restoration of a performance that was broadcast live to air on KBPI FM. The show is from Renaissance's second year of touring in the US, and the tape appears to document the entire concert. Many concerts from the Ebbets Field venue were broadcast throughout the mid 70s. This was an initiative of two college friends who had an audio company (ListenUp) and offered to do the live sound in exchange for promotion, all in collaboration with the venue and local radio stations. Various versions of this show, all from the same source tape, have been circulating. This tape appears to be the only known surviving document of the performance. For an off-air recording, it is entirely clean of FM transmission artefacts such as heavy compression (ubiquitous in the 70s), poor reception fuzz or squelch noise shaping. This leads me to suspect that it is actually a recording of the live feed as it was being sent to air - i.e.; a pre-FM. The dynamics of the drums alone, which pound through at times due to the live nature of the mixing, suggest this as possible. The Date: This performance has been listed as either October 1973 or sometime in 1974. The earlier date is incorrect, as there are comprehensive date listings for artists appearing at Ebbets Field during 1973, and Renaissance is not among them. Also the setlist is typical of their 1974 tour, and they announce songs being from their 'recent' album Turn of the Cards, which was released in May 1974. The band toured the US extensively in 1974, from April through to December, possibly in (3?) seperate stints. While there is no definitive date for their appearance at Ebbets Field, there is an advert listing them as 'coming next' after Papa John Creech who played Thurs-Sun Aug 1-4, and before Return to Forever who began a run the next week on Thurs 8th (a good week to be in Denver!). As the venue rarely opened Monday, that places Renaissance appearing either Tues 6th or Wed 7th August (possibly both). Concerts were usually broadcast on Fri or Sat, and a midweek show would have been unusual. Setlist.com has them in New Jersey only a week prior, so as they would have had to come more than halfway across the continent, I'm going to guess the 7th as being more likely. Confirming there was no earlier appearance, Jon announces this is the first time they've visited Denver, and its taken them year (from when they first toured the US in late 1973). This is a highlight soundboard recording from Renaissance's golden period in the mid 70s, and, in the absence of any better source appearing, I believe this remaster may now be a definitive version.