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Today In History
June 7th
1 show
1 tape
Years
2025
132
PlaybackListensHours
48h329m
7d638m
30d13214
8 shows
9 tapes
2024
58
PlaybackListensHours
48h00m
7d514
30d584
15 shows
24 tapes
2023
55
PlaybackListensHours
48h00m
7d00m
30d555
9 shows
9 tapes
2022
2
PlaybackListensHours
48h00m
7d18m
30d217m
10 shows
11 tapes
2021
4 shows
9 tapes
2019
49
PlaybackListensHours
48h00m
7d141
30d495
18 shows
24 tapes
2018
10
PlaybackListensHours
48h15m
7d00m
30d1052m
8 shows
9 tapes
2017
8
PlaybackListensHours
48h00m
7d420m
30d848m
7 shows
7 tapes
2016
2
PlaybackListensHours
48h00m
7d00m
30d29m
6 shows
8 tapes
2015
9 shows
11 tapes
2014
35
PlaybackListensHours
48h532m
7d192
30d353
13 shows
21 tapes
2013
1
PlaybackListensHours
48h00m
7d00m
30d15m
23 shows
42 tapes
2012
50
PlaybackListensHours
48h00m
7d00m
30d504
32 shows
64 tapes
2011
1
PlaybackListensHours
48h00m
7d00m
30d16m
14 shows
25 tapes
2010
48
PlaybackListensHours
48h00m
7d210m
30d485
37 shows
72 tapes
2009
16 shows
20 tapes
2008
8
PlaybackListensHours
48h28m
7d00m
30d844m
17 shows
22 tapes
2007
15 shows
22 tapes
2006
111
PlaybackListensHours
48h00m
7d374
30d1119
30 shows
43 tapes
2005
117
PlaybackListensHours
48h951m
7d840m
30d11710
37 shows
48 tapes
2004
27
PlaybackListensHours
48h00m
7d00m
30d272
29 shows
35 tapes
2003
55
PlaybackListensHours
48h00m
7d222
30d556
34 shows
38 tapes
2002
9
PlaybackListensHours
48h00m
7d00m
30d957m
41 shows
52 tapes
2001
104
PlaybackListensHours
48h14m
7d314m
30d10410
81 shows
96 tapes
2000
16
PlaybackListensHours
48h110m
7d00m
30d161
25 shows
36 tapes
1999
2
PlaybackListensHours
48h00m
7d00m
30d213m
4 shows
4 tapes
1998
49
PlaybackListensHours
48h141
7d317m
30d495
52 shows
78 tapes
1997
66
PlaybackListensHours
48h00m
7d423m
30d666
53 shows
96 tapes
1996
72
PlaybackListensHours
48h173
7d81
30d729
53 shows
98 tapes
1995
106
PlaybackListensHours
48h740m
7d212
30d10610
92 shows
144 tapes
1994
158
PlaybackListensHours
48h438m
7d293
30d15819
94 shows
132 tapes
1993
175
PlaybackListensHours
48h00m
7d738
30d17518
63 shows
105 tapes
1992
137
PlaybackListensHours
48h28m
7d152
30d13717
71 shows
91 tapes
1991
128
PlaybackListensHours
48h315m
7d294
30d12819
93 shows
121 tapes
1990
471
PlaybackListensHours
48h203
7d12817
30d47159
70 shows
94 tapes
1989
77
PlaybackListensHours
48h751m
7d262
30d777
30 shows
40 tapes
1988
13
PlaybackListensHours
48h00m
7d14m
30d131
8 shows
8 tapes
1987
1 show
1 tape
1986
1
PlaybackListensHours
48h00m
7d00m
30d112m
2 shows
2 tapes
1985
9
PlaybackListensHours
48h00m
7d00m
30d946m
1 show
1 tape
1991
6/2/91
Ivory Tusk
8:06
Gotta Get Mean>
4:01
Brother John>*
12:48
Gloria>*
17:11
Gotta Get Mean
1:46
Sweet Pain
10:17
100 Years*
5:43
Mulling It Over
8:37
But Anyway>
6:52
Johnny B. Goode
4:23
FIN
View on archive.org
Sources
Taper: unknown
1:19:44
Transferrer:
Dave Mallick
SHNID:
bt1991-06-02.flac16
Source:
AUD>Cass(3)
Lineage:
Cass(3)>Onkyo TA-6711>Tascam DA-20 (A/D)>Microtrack 24/96>WAVSound Studio 2.2.4>xACT 2.07>FLAC
Taper Notes:
View Notes* with Joan Osborne on vocals - Left channel completely out until 0:50 of track 1. - Tape flip occurs very suddenly, and track 6 cuts in slightly. - Several odd dropouts in track 6, at 0:30, 1:01, 1:40, "regular" dropout at 5:48. Apparent tape stoppage just after the music ends, no music or banter missing. This show is the subject of the greatest Blues Traveler review ever: Sixties Casualty by Joe del Priore Village Voice, New York, NY Aug 1st, 1991 The Marshall Tucker Band has just concluded its set at the fourth annual Suntan Jam in Butler, New Jersey, one recent Sunday, flowing through "Can't You See," "Heard it in a Love Song," and others I don't remember. The 5000 or so beach-clad denizens dance, drink, talk, throw Frisbees, suck on the prevalent mellowness hovering everywhere. I take out my camera, check the lighting from different angles. With my zoom lens I can get some good shots of both stage and crowd from where I'm sitting. As I look through the viewfinder I feel a heavy hand on my shoulder. "What's up with the slick camera?" I look up into the slitty eyes of a 200 pounder. "Why you takin' my picture??" I tried to explain that I was just checking the lighting. "Gimme that camera." I hand it over. He looks through the viewfinder at the stage. "Looks like you're focused in pretty good." Hands me back the thing. Walks back to the woman he was hitting on. I breathe again. Not two minutes later one of many blue-shirted young security guards approaches and barks, "If I come back and see that camera out I'm taking the film. No unauthorized picture taking." So much for mellow. The kid sprawled next to me across the picnic table, caressed by his girlfriend, soused into semiconsciousness, refuses my offer of Tylenol. I feel embarrassed for trying. I get into it with an older type, reminiscing about hitchhiking to concerts, the Fillmore, great jams we've seen. I ask him if he's seen Blues Traveler and he shakes his head. "Time machine stuff," I inform him. "You'll like it." Massive John Popper wears a tan fedora, patterned violet shirt, sneakers, and green ammo pouches draped around his neck. Looks like a tourist at Disneyworld's new Desert Storm Reenactment Pavilion. His once thick muttonchops have been trimmed to hedge size, a faint goatee and 'stache adorn his beefy face. He immediately dedicates the set to the "whole U.S.A." Blues Traveler, early twenties, out of Princeton High, knows its strength, which is bash blues, played long, loud and brash. Popper hunches over like a Macy's balloon doubling up on itself, shoves his harmonica so tightly against his mouth he appears to be performing oral surgery on himself. His eyes squeeze shut as though attacked by head lice. His body jiggles wildly, like Boy Scouts trapped in a tent with killer bees. Easy to see why BT has built a growing following. Their music combines '60s innocence, '70s bacchanalia, '80s cynicism and '90s alienation. "In this vale of toil and sin, you're stuck in a race you just can't win/Take a look around and it's so obscene/But that's the way it is so you gotta get mean." And they jam the piss out of an amoeba. None of their stuff live lasts less than eight minutes. You can't understand a damn lyric, but no one gives a shit. A typical BT sojourn: Popper machine-guns a flurry of lightning phrases that squeal upward and climax with nipple-hardening siren cries, an entire family of bats torched to cinders. Guitarist Chan Kinchla whips his hair around like Peter Frampton shoved into a Cuisinart, spews out notes that careen around corners with blowtorches that ignite other ideas, every possible combination without predictability, yet paced, dramatic, sensual - Hendrix after swallowing rat poison. He and Popper trade licks, impregnate each other, two starving, horny jackals yowling across a desert of sound. Bobby Sheehan fist-fucks the bass line, Brendan Hill drums like a man trying to escape a rock slide, sax man Arnie Lawrence (when available) creates his own torture chamber of sound, and at the New Year's Eve gig at Roseland, keyboardist Merl Saunders joined in the carnage. In full gear, BT plays with enough ferocity to make Sherman's March look like a rain-soaked Mummers Parade. BT fans don't bop. They involuntarily spasm. Here, most dressed skimpily, whirled, bumped and bounced like cactus-humping demons in heat. In cooler weather the wardrobe encompasses overalls, scarves, bandanas, psychedelic vests, peasant skirts, pins in nostrils, bare feet, cheap jewelry, hats with dead furry animals attached. I asked one kid why he was into the band. "THEY JAAAM!" he ejaculated. This day, the Wall of Whomp continues well into a second hour, including something from the upcoming work, "Sweet Pain," featuring agonized vocals from Popper and a Kinchla solo that peeled the skin off everyone within 300 yards. "But Anyway," their most popular piece, gets Popper pumping like a giant rogue Muppet. We are knee-deep in body fluids, as he half-scats, half-yodels a call and response, like in "Gloria" earlier in the set. Salacious slut-puppies of both sexes are sprayed with hot coals disguised as 16th notes as Popper opens fire indiscriminately. Horrors! In the midst of one stratospheric note, the top part of Popper's head explodes, smoke, pus and white stuff spurts out. His torso, still clutching a harmonica, careens across the stage, knocking over the amps, short-circuiting wiring. Somehow we sense the gig is over. A guy stumbles by in a shirt that says, "We'll get along fine as soon as you realize I'm God." Up on stage Popper's body twitches. God's not dead, he's just unconscious. The political passion of the '60s has been supplanted by Coors and paintball warriors. Meanwhile, the era's indigent flower children are reincarnated in BT followers who've already swiped Popper's sneakers and picked his pockets. Wish I could have photographed it. Blues Traveler will be at Wetlands August 15th.