Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
Garden State Arts Center
Holmdel, NJ
8/20/1989
BARN175
Original recording:
Aiwa recording walkman with outboard stereo “box mic” and auto record level controls -> Normal Bias TDK-D90 “normal” cassette (master, no NR)
Cassette Transfer:
My master cassette > Nakamichi Dragon (Dolby C decode, auto azimuth adjust) > Sound Devices 722 (@16/44.1)
Mastering:
Sony SoundForge 11 (EQ, volume normalization, clap/whistle/yell scrubbing); Tracked in CDWave 1.98. Tagged in Tag&Rename 3.9.14
Setlist
- Intro
- I’ll Feel A Whole Lot Better
- How Many More Days
- American Girl
- Banter – Tom Says Hi
- Free Fallin’
- Banter – Welcome To Mike Campbell
- The Waiting
- Breakdown
- Banter – Public Service Announcement
- I Won’t Back Down
- Banter – Boogie Woogie Power
- Ben’s Boogie
- Don’t Come Around Here No More
- Banter – A Few Acoustics
- A Face In The Crowd *
- Even The Losers *
- Banter – Requests
- Listen To Her Heart *
- Banter – Upwardly Mobile
- Yer So Bad *
- Banter – Important Part Of The Show
- You Got Lucky
- Rebels
- Should I Stay Or Should I Go?
- I Need To Know +
- Refugee
- Runnin’ Down A Dream
- Encore Break
- Banter – Thanks
- Little Red Rooster
- Banter – Pleasure To Play For You
- Jammin’ Me
Total Time: 1hr 46min 07sec
*= performed acoustically
+= unfortunately the final drum hit is cut for a tape flip on the master tape
I scrubbed hundreds of individual claps (including constant claps through “Don’t Come Around Here No More” and “Refugee”) and a whole bunch of loud screams and whistles from this recording for your listening enjoyment
The Replacements were the opening band. I did not tape them, unfortunately.
Taper notes:
BARN175 is a tribute to another of my favorite musicians who was taken away from us far too early — just weeks ago on 10/2/2017. I have been a fan of Tom Petty ever since I saw the mesmirising video for the (unlike anything else I was hearing at the time) amazing song “You Got Lucky” on MTV in 1982, and this was the first of only 2 times I ever saw him live — at the Garden State Arts Center in the summer of 1989 on the tour for the Full Moon Fever album. At the time I was only 19 years old, and this is among the earliest concerts I recorded. My recording gear wasn’t sophisticated (consisting of an Aiwa recording walkman with Auto Recording Levels and a small clip on box mic), but if memory serves, I was in a great spot in the 2nd row. So while this recording has some strikes against it (VERY low quality cassette stock, compressed volume levels due to the auto record levels, clip on mic, a slight touch of distortion), I was in a GREAT location and have been able to do a bunch of work on the recording to really polish it up — and if you give it a chance, I think you will be impressed by the result!
The setlist is kind of a dream setlist with a number of tunes from the recently (at the time) released Full Moon Fever album, a nice spread of early classics like Refugee, American Girl, Don’t Come Around Here No More, You Got Lucky, Jammin’ Me, some very deep cuts (especially “How Many More Days” — which I had forgetten about and according to setlist.fm has only been documented to have been performed 7 times, and “A Face In The Crowd”) and a bunch of random covers — The Byrds’ “Feel A Whole Lot Better”, The Clash’s “Should I Stay Or Should I Go”, and Willie Dixon’s “Little Red Rooster”, and even a mini acoustic set. Pretty much a perfect Petty show!
This is a recording that I had transferred from my cassette masters when I bought my Nakamichi Dragon cassette deck in August of 2013, but I had not had an opportunity to master or track it. TP’s death inspired me to go back and correct this oversight.
I hope you enjoy this recording as much as I did listening back to it 28 years after I recorded it…RIP TP
Enjoy!
Recorded, transferred, mastered, tracked, tagged, and posted by Scott Bernstein
Cassette Transfer: 8/31/2013
Mastering, tracking, tagging: 10/4/2017-10/18/2017
Live Petty 