Stevie Wonder
"In Front Of A Few Thousand People"
Grand Prairie, Tx
Nokia Theater
December 6, 2007
Taper: V4TX
DPA4061>SonyD100 DAT>SonyZA5ES>Sony CDRW-66 via Optical Cable/AES/EBU Converter Box>CDR>EAC>FLAC

Taper’s Notes: Sometimes things just fall in your lap. A couple days before this show I was lucky enough to get Row B seats to this show at face value. When I got to the show I discovered there was no Row A, so I was in the front row! Now I thought taping from the second row would be a challenge, I knew the front row was going to be even more of one. I quickly decided that I would need to switch to automatic level control as checking levels would be impossible. I also knew bringing the mics to the regular position on the side of my head wasn’t going to happen either. So I made a quick trip to the bathroom to clip them to the inside of my shirt at the shoulder, and I started the recorder. Luckily, and this was dumb luck, I was wearing a thin material shirt so it probably affected the sound very little. The result is a pretty nice recording. Vocals are very clear. There were 2 small speakers aimed right at me. These seemed to be very vocal intensive. If you like the bottom end of the recording spectrum you should love this. The other instruments are a bit buried, but this is mostly due to the fact that the PA was pretty much over my head. Let’s put it this way, I was sitting right in front of the background singers, and at times I could hear their voices w/o amplification. That’s how close I was. I understand this does not make for perfect recording, and the automatic level setting has it’s drawbacks also, but the alternative was no recording at all, or getting caught. There is a bit of audience on the tape. Some singing along, some screaming, some talking back to Stevie, some clapping, a bit of talking, but really nothing so frequent that I wouldn’t feel this was worth sharing. If you wear headphones to listen to this, a couple of times you might wince in pain from a scream. Some purists might not like that I also tweaked the sound a bit. If this bothers you please don’t download. I did this to help with the low level it was recorded and to boost the upper frequency range a bit. I did this for my ears. It does sound better than a straight clone. I also further boosted the levels during the couple of long passages when Stevie talked and did not play any music. Oh, did I mention this was one helluva concert. It was a concert I was still buzzing about the next day. It looked as if Stevie was having a good time, and that he was throwing a few curves at the band. Quite a few times the band seemed to be looking very closely at Stevie to see where they were going. There were many visual cues given to the band all night, as if it wasn’t all just rote memorized playing. Tracks done on the fly so they may not be perfect. I did try to mark the tracks so if you cut of the last track of disc 1 and the first track of disc 2 you should have a smooth complete show. I’d also like to thank the nice security guy for telling me the exact start and stopping times of the show, and Stevie for putting on a great show and providing nice stopping points so I could fit this on 2 cds. Enjoy.

CD1:
1. Stevie’s intro story
2. Love’s In Need Of Love Today
3. Too High
4. Visions
5. Living For The City
6. Master Blaster-jamming-
7. La La La I Love You/Makes The World Go Round
8. Higher Ground
9. Golden Lady
10. Ribbon In The Sky/Overjoyed/Ribbon In The Sky
11. Stevie gets the giggles
12. How Will I Know
13. If It’s Magic
14. fade out

CD2
1. disc 1 overlap
2. waiting on Kimberly
3. false starts and instructions
4. If You Really Love Me/plus a couple of musical detours/*
5. Silent Night
6. drums
7. Don’t You Worry ‘Bout A Thing
8. Signed, Sealed Delivered-i’m yours-/jazz interlude
9. Signed, Sealed, Delivered-i’m yours-country version
10. storytime
11. My Cherie Amour
12. For Once In My Life
13. Fingertips pt. 2 w/vocal harmonizer to sound like Lil’ Stevie
14. Uptight-everything’s alright-
15. I Was Made To Love Her
16. Do I Do
17. Sir Duke
18. I Wish
19. You Are The Sunshine Of My Life
20. Superstition
21. I Just Called To Say I Love You
22. introductions
23. As

*the banter/coaching between Stevie and Kimberly looked spontaneous during this song