World Party - 1997-07-24 New York, N.Y. (sbd)

“Sessions at West 54th” live recording 

Sony Music Studios 
New York, N.Y.
1997-07-24

 

soundboard recording (EX quality)

I sourced this one many years ago from a Karl Wallinger-maintained website via downloaded FLAC files. The lineage of the source files is unknown, but presumed to be from a digital copy very close to the soundboard master. This was recorded for what became Episode 15 in Season 1 of the American public television series “Sessions at West 54th”. It first aired Oct. 11, 1997. Sinead O’Connor was the other featured artist in the episode. Setlist FM says the taping happened on July 24th, 1997, in the midst of a World Party tour of U.S. east coast cities.

Have a listen

SETLIST:

01 It Is Time

02 Beautiful Dream

03 Is It Like Today?

04 Vanity Fair

05 She's the One

06 Call Me Up

07 Put the Message in the Box

08 Way Down Now

09 (Tuning)

10 Vanity Fair (Take 2)

11 Put the Message in the Box

(Take 2)

12 (Talking)

13 (Talking)

14 (Talking)

15 Ship of Fools

ROB SEZ:  I downloaded this from either worldparty.net or karlwallinger.net, back when Karl was alive and well and prone to uploading goodies like this for fans like me to snag. You hear it as I received it: all I did was re-track, tag the files, and raise the levels on the talking in certain places to make it easier to hear what Karl is saying. I forgot just how smashingly good this recording is, sound and performance wise. There are too many highlights to list, but I especially like the killer set-closing Ship of Fools and the super-tight rhythm section and guitar-forward mix on Way Down Now. There's even a horn section on two songs. If Karl had lived longer and looked for archival material to officially release, this would’ve been an easy contender. Karl and the band sound swaggeringly confident, they’re playing in a state-of-the-art NYC music studio, and the rather polite attendees sound more & more enthused as the performance rolls along. Now that we’re approaching the 29th anniversary (!) of the recording, the time seems right to get it out to anyone who remembers just how damn good Karl was. I like to think he’s hanging with Sly, John Lennon, and Prince somewhere very groovy right now.

FLAC

 

MP3@320