Customer Reviews

Live At The Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco, 4Th February 1967

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This Feb 4th 1967 concert finds QMS in good form, evolving into the band that produced 2 fine albums over the next 2 years. Still a five piece, still plenty of R&B covers, Cippolina is in fine form and rest of the band's advancing musicianship seems to have left Murrays vocals behind. In about two thirds of this performance, the band sound like the four-piece they would become later that year when Murray departed. The guitar work is not quite up to the standard of '68 QMS, but it's close. Interestingly, they back Dino Valenti for three numbers as he guests between prison spells. If you like the music of the four-piece,'68 QMS the best, this concert is a good addition to a regrettably small body of recorded work.

This is very enjoyable and a great example ofr early QMS. There are a number of never officially released songs here that will please the fan base. It should be remembered that this is more bootleg ( not an insult to we collectors and not to be confused ,as the RIAA likes to do, with a pirate copy) than megacompany release so the sound while excellent will put off those who expect perfection. If you really want more than the little that has been available of this period pick it up before someone bans it.

The version of this concert that I purchased through Amazon is a double CD on a UK label called Bear Records. It has an entire set not listed here on the Distribution 101 release. It was recorded at the Fillmore Auditorium on February 4, 1967, on bill that, from the between song announcements, apparently had Quicksilver opening for the Jefferson Airplane. My guess is that each CD contains an entire set from two different shows on the same day, though I can't verify that.
This is a valuable document of the five-piece band, which included Jim Murray on harmonica, vocals and guitar, Gary Duncan on lead guitar and vocals, John Cipollina on lead guitar, David Freiberg on electric bass and vocals, and Greg Elmore on drums. In early '67, the QMS still sounded a lot like a west coast version of the early Butterfield Blues Band, when Butter had Mike Bloomfield and Elvin Bishop on guitars. However, like the "East-West" era Butter band, this period also found Quicksilver augmenting it's electrified Chicago blues boogie with more musically ambitious forays into jazz and eastern raga improvisations.
The two CD version includes outstanding second set versions of "Dino's Song" "Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You", "Hoochie Coochie Man", "Pride of Man", and "Who Do You Love", which is performed in a rather truncated six minute version, perhaps because of the band's second billing status. Also Dino Valente joins the band for three songs on the first set, and someone, most likely Freiberg, plays violin on the second set performance of Valente's "Stand by Me", which was later recored by QMS as a single side.
The sound quality is hardly pristine, although it is presented in quite listenable stereo, and the two guitars of Cipollina and Duncan are clear in the mix. Some tweaking on an equalizer might pull a better sound experience from this recording. This is probably more for hardcore QMS fans because of the bootleg sound quality, but there is some killer guitar-slinging here!