Free
Fairfield Halls, Croydon, England
Sept 13 1970
MP3 320
EX
* Original Notes
The band that plays these 2 shows in September 1970 here has nothing in common
with the one who played in Sunderland in January the same year .
"All Right Now" has been a massive hit worldwide and the 4 young musicians
(they hardly reach 20 years) have now a new audience full of female teenagers
and live a quite strange situation, with their muddy and bleak hard blues for
people waiting to dance to hard rock standards with a pop quality,that
neither Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath had. Here, they suspended
some days their studio sessions for the Highway LP, and play in Croydon in
front of an hysteric audience. Songs from these 2 shows gave most of the Free
Live LP the following year, and some more songs from this concert were added
on the 2002 reissued/remastered version but only on the Songs of Yesterday
boxset was the information if songs were recorded on the 1st or the 2nd show
(how were they able to play 2 so intense sets in a row, it's a mystery for me)
To compile this fake LP, I chose to include the versions from the boxset
(most of the 2nd show) when there was another version on the Free Live LP.
It's better to have rarest versions I think. I respected the order of the
setlist (and the wrong announces at the end of some songs are surely due to a
fake addition on the boxset to imitate a true concert since they are not
listed this way on the setlists I got from various sources, note for example
that they didn't play "Moonshine" at Croydon and it's announced at the end of
("The Stealer"). Only missing "Songs of Yesterday" and "The Hunter", the
latter closing the concert (sad they didn't put them both in the boxset).
But all in all, it's an absolute gem to listen and listen to again.
A precious band for eternity.
