Friday, July 18, 2008

Pretty, Pretty Pagans



The Waterboys - Live at the Batschkapp Club, Frankfurt, Germany (2/19/84) Part 1
The Waterboys - Live at the Batschkapp Club, Frankfurt, Germany (2/19/84) Part 2

Some luscious summery songs (though recorded in the dead of winter back in '84) to awaken the pagan within you.

I remember reading about The Waterboys long before I ever heard them. Atheist and anarchist as I am and was, though more inclined to think of myself sometimes as a spiritual person back then - less so now, I'm afraid, and I wonder if I've lost something by that - the "philosophy" of The Waterboys appealed to me. I didn't believe in an external God of any kind, but I was extending my Whitmanesque ideals into rock 'n' roll as part of a search for the God within me. Or some kind of crap like that.

Regardless, Mike Scott and the 'boys wrote some great songs. And this is their first real public performance as The Waterboys (they'd only appeared on the John Peel show live before this). So, kinda historic this show, with great energy and playing. Far more rock than they would be in a few years. And remarkably good sound, too, with but a few odd glitches, dropouts, issues, etc. Bless the taper with the foresight to record this show. Enjoy!

(Yes, Larry - I'll get you a hard copy of it. Be patient my wee little friend in your wee little cave of sound and vision, be patient).

Oh yeah, there's been some really great reissues in the past few years of their stuff, big double-disc things. I highly recommend them. They sound better than before and there's almost too much extra stuff for your ears to handle.

Buy shit!

4 comments:

Nuzz Prowlin' Wolf said...

Great post, cheers for sharing this gem of a recording.

gomonkeygo said...

I'd forgotten, if I ever knew, that I had it. Never even listened to it before I found it wedged in a binder of boots I'd kinda forgotten about. I need to start payin' more attention to my surroundings.

Anonymous said...

While it's only tangentially on the subject, you wouldn't happen to have a live performance of the Pogues from this era would you?

Good sounding W'boys share. Thanks.

cgm said...

Thanks for this - was unaware of this early recording. Great stuff!