. : : March 20th, 2015 : : .
I’d really been enjoying the quality of my most recent Sound Professionals microphones but I’ve found that even powered off and unplugged it seems to drain the batteries. It’s happened more than once that I’ve picked up the mics after weeks (or months) of disuse to discover that they were prematurely emptied. Others mics lasted years with heavier usage on a single battery, while this one seems to need to be changed every 8-10 months. Knowing this hasn’t helped me in remembering to change the batteries, and I’m often the victim of what really shouldn’t be an unpleasant surprise.
Colleen Brown‘s record release show at The Burdock was once of those nights.
The Burdock was a brand new venue, and this performance was only the second they had ever hosted. It’s a small, intimate space, holding roughly 100 people and although adjacent to a restaurant (and microbrewery), it’s been acoustically treated to be soundproof from the neighbouring noise.
Although five years have somehow passed(!!) and I haven’t been back(!!), I remember the sound being really nice, and the intimate setting really conducive to the atmosphere. So I was disappointed when I had to use the decent but inferior built-in microphones on the Edirol recorder.
I tried something a bit different this time, afforded by the intimate space and layout of the venue: rather than propping the recorder in my breast pocket with the microphones pointed towards the ceiling and potentially rubbing against my shirt, I found some space on a shelf on the wall about a foot over my head, and posted it there with the mics facing the stage. The elevation was intended to help keep conversation and noise room to a minimum — but luckily, the chatty audience (that you can hear all over the introduction track) immediately and respectfully went silent, reserving the noise for boisterous applause and cheering between tracks.
As a record release show for Direction, the show predictably leans heavily on then-new material. Never one to rest on her laurels, however, Colleen peculiarly used the record release show to debut two songs newer still that would end up being released as part of the self-titled album by collaborative effort Major Love — but not for another 3 and a half years!
The recording is quite good, but only saddens me knowing how much improved it would’ve been with the better mics. Very listenable, and Colleen Brown fans will get a kick out of hearing the live debuts of a number of songs.
01. [introduction]
02. Fantastic Feeling
03. [banter]
04. Lead Me On
05. [banter]
06. Moncton Flight 179
07. [banter]
08. Soap & Denim
09. [banter]
10. Randy Newman
11. [banter]
12. Come To Arizona
13. [banter]
14. Direction
15. [banter]
16. Happy Love Song
17. [banter]
18. Older Younger [Major Love]
19. The Great Divide
20. [banter]
21. I Love All Of You [Major Love]
22. [banter]
23. Love You Baby
24. [encore]
25. [banter]
26. Bird On A Wire [Leonard Cohen]
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Sounds great! Minor quibble… first track is Fantastic Feeling, is it not? As always, thanks for posting Colleen shows. Cheers!
Ooops. Fantastic Voyage is Coolio. lol.
Thanks for the edit!