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Long shot here....but this was the best show of any artist I have have ever been to, and I'm trying to gather some info on it. For instance, does anyone have:

1. Setlist from that show

2. Photos from that show

I think "Left Hand" from that Olympia gig ended up on the "Ghost Cars" fanclub cd.....so the show was recorded. Does anyone know of any other recordings from that night out there?

Any help would be really appreciated.

Thank you!

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From notes I scribbled on the night:

Mean To Me
There Goes God
Tall Trees
Into Temptation
Weather With You
Chocolate Cake
Left Hand
Hole In The River
Don't Dream It's Over
Fall At Your Feet
??
Fame Is
Something So Strong
When You Come
--------
Kill Eye
Italian Plastic
Sister Madly
-------
World Where You Live
??
Better Be Home Soon

 

The first unknown song was noted as "Sweet.." Jimi Hendrix?
So it either had "Sweet" prominent in the lyrics, sounded like Hendrix, or at a big stretch they played "Sweet Angel".
The second unknown in the final encore was noted as "Irish song"?
"The Parting Glass" is a strong possibility as Neil has often performed it in Ireland, and certainly did when Crowded House returned to play their second Dublin show 9 months later.

Sean O'Brien posted:
I think "Left Hand" from that Olympia gig ended up on the "Ghost Cars" fanclub cd.....so the show was recorded. Does anyone know of any other recordings from that night out there?

According to my notes it was actually Love You Til The Day I Die that ended up on the Ghost Cars live fanclub compilation, and the only track I know of from this show that is even remotely available.

Left Hand from Ghost Cars was apparently recorded at the Edinburgh Playhouse in Scotland on 19th June 1992, along with Better Be Home Soon and 20th Century Boy.

I do stand to be corrected however, since there's always the possibility the linear notes on the fanclub release were mislabelled.

Secret God (Stew) posted:


I do stand to be corrected however, since there's always the possibility the linear notes on the fanclub release were mislabelled.

No, Sean was correct.

On the Ghost Cars fan club disc "Left Hand" was recorded at the Olympia in Dublin. It's the sole performance to be released from the show, which is a pity because it was one of the best shows I've ever seen them do - and more than a little frustrating to know the entire show in on a DAT tape somewhere. However the majority of their return to Dublin nine months later at the National Stadium was released on the "Foreplay" fan club disc.

Only two Ghost Cars tracks originated at the Edinburgh Playhouse - "Love You 'Til The Day I Die" and "Better Be Home Soon/Frank's Dark Past".

My Ghost Cars CD has 16 tracks and no "20th Century Boy" track.

However there *IS* a nod to the T-Rex song on there, it's tagged onto literally the final seconds of a performance of "Tail Of A Comet" at the Guildhall in Portsmouth. If they performed a full cover of the song, it ain't on my CD so I'd love to see the liner notes you've got to figure out/correct the discrepancies.

Last edited by The Ligature

Thanks for the clarification @The Ligature, it was definitely my error.

It looks like when I initially ripped the CD all those years ago I must have split Track 7 (Tail of a Comet) into two separate files, deciding that the song/jam that follows Tail was a cover of 20th Century Boy. This in turn threw my tracklisting out by one, which made me assume Love You 'til the Day I Die was played at the Olympic Theatre, being Track 9, not Left Hand, which was the official Track 9.

I've since fixed my file listing and spreadsheet, and thank you for pointing this out! Seems my database wasn't as immaculate as I had thought!

I was clearly unfamiliar with 20th Century Boy at the time, but what would you call what came after Tail of a Comet? A continuation of the same song, a jam, 20th a song other than 20th Century Boy? Was the only reference to 20th Century Boy the final part where Neil sings "I'm your boy, 20th century toy"?

Anyway here's the full tracklisting of Ghost Cars, according to Discogs, if anyone's interested.

To my ears it's purely a freeform jam that developed at the end of "Tail Of A Comet" which they were occasionally performing/road testing during the Woodface tour where the guitar riff at the end probably suggested the T-Rex song so Neil stuck a spontaneous vocal ad lib onto - it's literally the final seconds of the song, but it IS reminiscent of the T-Rex song. There's a few examples where the same thing has occurred with Beatles songs/lyrics because the song endings aren't yet etched in stone.
You can often hear how undeveloped the endings of those unreleased songs are when they spontaneously added them to the set on tour - the Olympia performance of "Left Hand" is exactly the same - Neil gives a verbal "here we go" signal to the rest of the band to wrap it up because the ending wasn't as developed or rehearsed as the rest of the songs were in 1991 - they weren't performing it nightly, but equally weren't too concerned about playing it on the fly in the sets.
The end of "Convent Girls" later in the same tour back in Dublin was exactly the same - the ending wasn't developed so they completely winged it and ad libbed.
It was definitely one of the factors that elevated the band in my eyes - the willingness to walk the tightrope like that without fear - many a band would never play an unreleased song or delve into it without having it nailed down start to finish in rehearsals beforehand.
I saw two shows on the Woodface tour which put the band at the top of my must see list (they're still there now). Another factor that blew me away 27-28 years ago at those shows was the willingness of Neil/the band to hand over the lead vocal/microphone to a complete stranger from the audience - I'd read about it before it happened at both those Dublin shows to big success but that's REAL tightrope walking.
I've seen a lot of bands since but only a couple have taken that degree of risk.

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