3 Nights Of Winter


The Experience played a number of times at San Francisco's Winterland venue. This was their longest stand though, 6 shows in 3 days. Equipment problems hampered the band somewhat, but they managed to overcome most of them to pull out some great performances. They were even joined onstage for a few of these performances by guests Jack Casady (of Jefferson Airplane, on bass for Killing Floor & Hey Joe), Virgil Gonzales (flute on Are You Experienced), and Herbie Rich (from the Buddy Miles Express, on organ for 5 tracks), just there to jam and make some great music with friends. Hard to pick a favorite as there are so many great tracks. So I guess if I have to, I'll go with Little Wing from the Oct.12 show. But there are plenty more to choose from, such as 3 performances of Red House, Like A Rolling Stone, & Voodoo Child (Slight Return). Or how about a couple Sunshine Of Your Love jams? Or one of the 4 Star Spangled Banners? Or... As you can see, there's plenty of great tracks to choose from. I can't imagine you would be disappointed in anything you'd find on this 6 disc set.

There was a "complete" Winterland set released by Whoopy Kat a few years ago. However, this new set far surpasses WK's release, good as it was at the time. Sound on these discs is next to commercial release quality, with the exception of three tracks from the October 11 first show. Those come from an audience source of the show. The tape machine recording the October 11 show malfunctioned, resulting in the loss of three tracks. Luckily for us completists, someone in the audience had a tape recorder with them and the tracks survived. While some people may say these are not the Experience's best shows, they are still damn good! Two versions of this release exist, this set, with the October 11 first show complete, and a second which contains the 02/25/68 Chicago concert, as the Whoopy Kat release did. The quality difference is vastly improved on these discs however, the Winterland shows is at least one tape generation better, and the Chicago show is at least a couple gens better. This is a definite must have for your collection, even if you have the WK version!
Notes :
* These come from the audience source of this show
[1] Features special guest Jack Casady on bass
[2] Features special guest Virgil Gonzales on flute
[3] Features special guest Herbie Rich on organ

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