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Live Recording

Cork, Ireland, City Hall
28 July 28 1973

Unquestionably the best-quality live recording of Fruupp known to date.   An indoor concert recorded with a hand-held tape cassette recorder (a mid-60's Philips unit and a (then) top-of-the-range Philips hi-fi cardiod microphone from a reel-to-reel tape deck).  The recording quality is crisp and true.  The music is outstanding.  Three of the cuts are from the first album, though the band introduces the audience to Seven Secrets as well by playing Faced with Shekinah.  The only annoying part of this show is the chatty, self-absorbed announcer who introduces the band.

Length of recording   31:06 minutes

Set list
Faced with Shekinah
As Day Breaks with Dawn
Decision
On a Clear Day

Review 

Colourful memories of the Cork show, provided courtesy of the recorder, Vince Lyons, and his fellow-guitarist friend, Gerald Hennessey, who also attended the show:

Vincent Lyons:

"The bouncer at the door asked  'what's in the plastic bag'?   Luckily when openly told it was 'only' a recorder, he let us bring it in.  My buddy and I went to see Mungo Jerry, who had been quite hot in the early seventies, but the band line-up and music had changed a lot by the time they played Cork.  So I was saving my two sets of batteries (wow) to record Mungo Gerry.

First band was a pleasant, local band, Smog, that played covers.  Then Fruupp came on.  Just picture it; we're there to see Mungo Jerry, then the stage goes very dark.  This strange guy sitting at the keyboard wearing a big cross on a chain around his neck and bathed in green light introduces the first song.  Amazing 'graveyard' type of atmosphere on stage. But the energy of the performance was mesmerising.

McCusker's guitar was breath-taking -- extremely powerful and precise.  Martin Foye was spectacular -- hitting the skins with long blond hair, and waiving drum sticks as if juggling balls above his head while playing unbelievably.  I later read that he previously played in a circus band!  And what bass from Farelly -- pumping away at lead-guitar speed, and then being able to sing over it.   Despite being very concerned about depleting batteries before the main act, I still had to record a half-hour of Fruupp.

Of course, the real joy was listening to the concert at home afterwards with headphones.   After the first few listens, it was clear how magical the performance had been.   I'm sure that many of the (still very appreciative) audience (full house) didn't have time to digest just how good it all was.  Remember, everyone thought the best was yet to come in Mungo Jerry.

The performance was very loud, so much so that I couldn't set the recording level low enough; this explains the occasional 'drop out' as I wrestled to cope with Fruupp's spectacular use of dynamics, sometimes from a whisper to an ear-wrenching roar, carefully set up for maximum audience shock.  At one time, the entire audience literally jumped out of their seats with the shock and you can year the reaction on the tape.  By the way, Mungo Jerry were even louder, I'm sure well above any safety standards...even painful!"  


Gerald Hennessey:

"Went to see Mungo Jerry, but we were confronted by a ‘weird’ band.   We were blown away -- a theatrical performance.  It was a circus, an act, a visual theatre; nothing we were ready for…the costumes, the visuals; the audio.   The lighting was brilliant, the music was unclassifiable, from rock to classical to ‘circus’.  The drummer was great to watch.  The guitarist blew us (guitar heads) away.  The keyboard player wore a priest’s collar.  The crowd expected to see a ‘pop’ support act, but still gave a brilliant reaction to Fruupp.  Listening back was astounding, wished we had recorded more. Mungo Jerry were good, but disappointing after the spectacle of Fruupp."