Hi Airplaners:
As the author of the Jefferson Airplane book "Take Me To A Circus Tent" I put together this information for you and hope it gives you the best source of making a judgement about the recording. If you don't already have the music, please don't be turned off by the change of sound quality. Many times in order to acquire previously unreleased music you can't always have it sound like George Martin was part of the project.
This is the same as "Cleared For Take Off " Acrobat (U.K.) ACMCD 4001 CD released 11/6/03 (Taken from the Winterland, San Francisco, California performances of 3/10-3/12/67) but puts the tracks in a different order and on two CD's. The sound quality changes throughout the CD and the pops come at no extra charge. Although the CD wasn't put together with the greatest respect to the band or fan (Some songs fade-out and have wrong titles), those that don't own the material will be interested. There should have been one version of everything played during the three nights. The CD doesn't include "And I Like It", "Let Me In", "Fat Angel", or the jam. No information was given in the liner notes about the dates used for the songs so I have included that for you. "3/5 Of A Mile In To Seconds" 3/11/67, "Don't Let Me Down" 3/10/67, "Don't Slip Away" 3/10/67, "She Has Funny Cars" 3/12/67, "Let's Get Together" (Fades-out) 3/11/67, "High Flying Bird" 3/12/67, "It's No Secret" 3/12/67, "Come Back Baby" (Listed as "Jorma's Blues") 3/12/67, "Plastic Fantastic Lover"(Intro cut) 3/11/67, "Runnin' Round This World"(Listed as "Running Round The World") 3/11/67, "Somebody To Love" (W/"Leave You Alone" which was not listed) 3/10/67, "The Other Side Of This Life" 3/11/67, "Thing" (Fades-out) 3/11/67, "Tobacco Road" 3/10/67, "Today" 3/11/67, "White Rabbit" 3/12/67, "Bringing Me Down" (Listed as "You're Bring Me Down") 3/11/67, and "My Best Friend" (Listed as "You're My Best Friend").
Thanks and be well,
Craig Fenton
Author "Take Me To A Circus Tent"
Just purchased this item and was disappointed to find that it contains the same tracks as a previious release
Cleared for Take Off. Same tracks spread over 2 discs instead of 1 and in a different order. If you don't own Cleared for Take Off, this is a worthy purchase with pretty decent sound of a great band coming into it's own with songs recorded live in 1966 - 67,
There is no excuse for releasing shoddy product like this. The sonic quality is variable and mostly horrible--and mono, no less! As Craig Fenton (who should no better than to endorse this with four stars) noted, the order is all mixed up, songs fade in and out. There's distortion on most of the lead vocals. It's just a slipshod deal from beginning to end. Is the music good? Absolutely! But I guarantee you can hear much, much better Airplane from this era (though streaming only) on wolfgangsvault.com or a couple of other past '67 releases. A truly bad, unauthorized bootleg.
(I am a lifelong Airplane fanatic and author of several books about the Grateful Dead...)
