MOTORHEAD

Palladium, NYC
May 14, 1982

Final concert of classic line-up.
29th Anniversary
[MedusaNYC master recording]

01 [Introduction]
02 Iron Fist
03 Heart Of Stone
04 Shoot You In The Back
05 The Hammer
06 Jailbait
07 America
08 Leaving Here
09 (Don't Need) Religion
10 Capricorn
11 (Don't Let 'Em) Grind Ya Down
12 (We Are) The Road Crew
13 Ace Of Spades
14 No Class
15 Bite The Bullet
16 The Chase Is Better Than The Catch
17 Overkill
18 [Encore intro]
19 Bomber
20 [2nd Encore intro]
21 Motorhead

Lemmy: b, voc
Philthy Animal Taylor: dr
Fast Eddie Clarke: g

Lineage: Stereo condenser > Sony D5 > dub from master cassette > WAV > EQ'ed and remastered in Apple Logic > AIFF > FLAC

This is an alternate recording--never before circulated--of the last show the classic Motorhead line up ever played. Fast Eddie walked out from the band after this show and several dates were canceled in the wake of his departure.

If you want to hear what this band sounded like two days earlier, the expanded edition of "Iron Fist" features a soundboard recording of the Toronto show from May 12. However it only features the songs not on the studio release and a short version of Overkill. With the scarcity of torrents from this tour, this is one of the few shows with five songs from "Iron Fist
" played live. Yes, even Lemmy has stated that Iron Fist was subpar compared to the four classics that preceded it. But classic Motorhead's B-stock sounds better to my ears than most of the stuff out there.

This historic final concert, which featured a rare Stateside appearance of the "Bomber" lighting rig (seen on the cover of "No Sleep 'Til Hammersmith") marked my first time seeing the band live. What a shock to learn some time later-no Internet, yet, boys and girls-that Eddie left that night never to return.

The only recording I could find of this concert for nearly three decades was a rough mono cassette I had bought from a street vendor on St. Marks Place in Greenwich Village. It was complete but so compromised that even after I did all my post-production razzle-dazzle, it remained the roughest sounding boot in my entire collection. I posted it to DIME for completists, in the hopes that someone might offer up an improvement. Lo and behold!

DIME member medusanyc first mentioned three years ago in a comment on my torrent, that he had recorded this historic concert though the tape was somewhere in storage. To my total amazement and delight, he retrieved said morsel from storage, made a digital transfer, and a couple of weeks ago sent me the result. Christmas is nice, but getting this tape after three years is better!

It's not a perfect recording, by all means. Medusa taped from the mezzanine at the Palladium which apparently trapped some hi- and mid- frequencies and lost some low end. But it was made on a Sony D5, while the other one could have come from a Dictaphone, for all I know. Some EQing and a hint of sub-bass was all I felt I needed to do before solidly declaring this the best version of the show out there. It is what it is, and it rocks. The guitars sound great, Lemmy's monologues are crisp (I finally figured out what he was saying) and Phil's drums are not just audible, but sound actually something like what I remember. All the classics are here.

For your listening pleasure, in living stereo, here's Fast Eddie's Last Stand!


My Thanks go to medusanyc and of course, Lemmy and company. Rock 'n' Roll!