Schon, Sears & Errico w/ Rolie guesting
Pre- Journey, SSE + R
Sunshine Festival
Diamond Head Crater
Honolulu, Hawaii
1 Jan 73

Mastercassette (recorded by Don Amick with Sony 126 casssette deck and two mics on poles, usually 20 feet apart FOB)>(taperpat)1st. Gen. Reel (Revox A77)>Phillips 785 Standalone-CDR>PC>Sony Vegas>EAC>FLAC Frontend>Dime

This show comes from taperpat’s 1st Gen. reel copy of this amazing performance!  Note that there was no 'remastering' done to this recording apart from a 6.9 gain boost, cleaning up the cut from original tape flip and adding beginning and ending fades. There was no re-encoding or compression added. There is some light tape crackle in the left channel on tracks 4, 5 and 6 that was on taperpat's original reel. This, to me, does not affect the overall quality of the recording, which again is excellent!  This is a nice, warm mix with excellent stereo separation. Neal is on FIRE and the rest of the band ain't too bad, either ;-)

This is a pre-Journey band fronted by Neil, called "SSE" [Pete Sears, Neal Schon, Greg Errico] but on this particular Hawaii show, Mr. Gregg Rolie was guesting. So we have the pre, pre, pre-Journey band,  known as SSE+R. For those of you who track this, it was Neil's group between Santana and Journey which just happens to have a lot of that fusion tinged material - honestly, it sounds like a blend of Santana, Journey and Hendrix. All three of the SSE+R tracks are instrumentals and it is a very good audience recording.

The timing of all this seems about right. In 1971, Rolie says when he and Neal quit the band (after the 4th Santana album), he opened up a restaurant for a year before hooking up with Schon to form Journey ~73. The 1st Journey album's songs are copyrighted 1974 and the album was released in '75, so it's logical Neal was doing something musically during the year or so between the two bands.

Pete Sears-bass
Neal Schon-guitar
Greg Errico-drums
+Gregg Rolie- keys

1. You're My Girl
2. Voodoo Child (Slight Return)
3. Tonight
4. Storm
5. Pirates of the Caribbean
6. Black Magic Woman

Filler, Journey, Sausilto, CA, KSAN Studios, 27 May 74
? > Maxell XLII-S > Nak BX300 > Sony RCD-W1 > Roxio Creator Classic PCM 44.100 kHz 16 Bit Stereo > Wave Corrector 8dB Hiss Reduction, -1 dB Normalization, Channel Balance & Track Splitting > dBpowerAMP Music Converter FLAC Compression Level 5

7.  Topaz
8. Of A Lifetime
9. Kahoutek >>

Keyboards/Lead Vocals - Gregg Rolie
Guitar - Neal Schon
Bass - Ross Valory
Rhythm Guitar - George Tickner
Drums - Ansley Dunbar

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