Bad Company @ The Forum 1976-05-16

 

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Bad Company
The Forum
Inglewood, CA
May 16, 1976
Special Guests Jimmy Page and Robert Plant
Barry Goldstein Master Series Vol. 23 via JEMS

Recording Gear: Sony TC-55 portable cassette recorder

JEMS Transfer: Barry Goldstein Master Cassettes > Nakamichi RX-505 azimuth-adjusted playback > Sound Devices USBPre2 > Audacity 3.1 capture > iZotope RX10 Advanced and Ozone 9 > FLAC

01 Introduction
02 Live For The Music
03 Good Lovin' Gone Bad
04 Simple Man
05 Young Blood
06 Deal With The Preacher
07 Feel Like Makin' Love
08 Wild Fire Woman
09 Ready For Love
10 Sweet Lil' Sister
11 Shooting Star
12 Silver, Blue & Gold
13 Run With The Pack
14 Rock Steady
15 Honey Child
16 Can't Get Enough
17 Bad Company
18 I Just Want To Make Love To You w/ Jimmy Page & Robert Plant

Known Faults: "Sweet Lil' Sister" has a cut due to a tape flip

Paul Rodgers - Lead Vocals, Piano, Guitar
Mick Ralphs - Lead Guitar
Boz Burrell - Bass
Simon Kirke - Drums

JEMS is proud to extend our partnership with longtime Southern California taper Barry Goldstein. Barry began taping in the early '70s and remained active until a few years ago, though his later work focused more on video than audio. In his heyday, Barry was a dual threat, recording the shows he attended and photographing, too, with impressive results.

His master tapes circa 1973-83 include previously uncirculated shows and recordings of David Bowie, Genesis, Roxy Music, Fleetwood Mac, Rory Gallagher, Eric Clapton, Supertramp, The Who and others.

Beyond his own captures, Barry was a close friend of the late, great Mike "The Mike" Millard, attending many concerts with him as well as recording nights and shows Mike didn't cover. Like Jim R, Barry shared Mike the Mike tapes with JEMS that are not in general circulation for our Lost and Found series. Volume 23 offers another great example of Barry being in the right place at the right time.

Bad Company was on tour in support of their third album, Running With The Pack, released in January 1976 on Swan Song Records, which just so happened to be owned by Led Zeppelin. In 1976, Zep were off the road for a host of reasons, notably the foot injury Robert Plant sustained in Greece the prior summer.

But it just so happened that Page and Plant were in Los Angeles when Bad Company played The Forum May 16, 1976, and the Swan Song label mates invited their bosses to join them on stage for the final encore, and in doing so made their first public appearance the US in nearly a year.

While they would only perform one song, a cover of Willie Dixon's "I Just Want To Make Love To You," it proved to be a significant moment in Plant's recovery as Page told LA Times reporter Dennis Hunt:

"You don't realize how important that little segment at the Forum was. It was a decisive point for us. It was an emotional release beyond description for Robert. It proved to him that he could still perform on stage, even though it was only ten minutes. Some singers may be able to stand still and sing on stage but Robert can't. He also can't sing on one foot. He has to move around on stage. It's crucial to his performance. He was plagued by thoughts that he would have to sing on one foot or standing still and that he would no longer be effective in front of an audience. There was a psychological barrier that he had to get over after being in a cast all that time. When that Forum thing was over, he was walking on air."

Barry's recording has circulated in unknown generation transfers for decades including a Japanese CD bootleg on the Breakdown label that can be heard on YouTube. This master transfer represents a significant sonic upgrade to prior versions, with clearer sound and enhanced fidelity. It still suffers from low-end distortion, more so than Barry's best tapes, and the impact of the automatic level control is more pronounced in part because the audience is extremely loud between songs. That being said it is considerably more listenable than it ever was before. Samples provided.

Better still, circulating copies of the recording miss the start of the show, supposedly due to "[the taper flipping] the cassette back to side A to capture this historic moment for posterity--despite taping over the first two songs in the process," or so says a post on The Ultimate Bootleg Experience. Turns out that is not the case. Barry brought two cassettes and recorded the full performance. You'll hear him and a friend making sure the recorder is running at the start before the band launches into "Live For The Music" and "Good Lovin' Gone Bad." He also gets the eponymous "Bad Company" before Page & Plant take the stage, which is missing from the bootleg pressing of his tape.

JEMS thanks Barry for trusting us with his incredible archive of audio, video and photography. He was one of the pioneers and it's an honor to put his work out into the world 50 years later. We should note that Barry continues to battle major health issues and could use all the positive energy you can send. Thanks to Professor Goody for his pitch work and to mjk5510 for his stellar post production efforts.

BK for JEMS