Tom Waits
Auditorium Theater
Chicago, Illinois
August 9, 2006

Master: Sonic Studios DSM-6 => bass roll-off => Sony M-1 DAT (15th row left)
Transfer: Sony ES DAT => Stand-alone Pioneer CD burner => CDR => EAC => Magix Audio Cleaning Lab => Export to WAV => FLAC (level 8)

Setlist:

Disc 1 (52:32):
(1) Band entrance (0:51)
(2) Make It Rain (5:06)
(3) Hoist That Rag (4:41)
(4) Shore Leave (5:20)
(5) God's Away On Business (3:04)
(6) Banter (0:40)
(7) All The World Is Green (4:07)
(8) Falling Down (4:52)
(9) Belmont & Sheffield story (2:21)
(10) Tango 'Till They're Sore (2:49)
(11) Weiner Circle story (1:42)
(12) Tom Traubert's Blues (6:30)
(13) Eyeball Kid (5:35)
(14) Down In The Hole (4:48)

Disc 2 (70:03):
(1) Don't Go Into That Barn (6:59)
(2) Shake It (6:12)
(3) Trampled Rose (4:31)
(4) What's He Building? (5:06)
(5) Who's Been Talking =>
'Till The Money Runs Out (5:05)
(6) Murder In The Red Barn (6:22)
(7) Lie To Me Baby (3:07)
(8) Get Behind The Mule (6:16)
(9) Encore break (2:38)
(10) Day After Tomorrow (7:00)
(11) Singapore (3:02)
(12) Encore break (3:30)
(13) Whistlin' Past The Graveyard (3:52)
(14) Time (6:15)

Notes:

Nice audience recording from a good location (15th row on the floor, directly in line with the speaker stack) of Tom Waits' Chicago stop on the "Orphans" tour. I was very pleased with how this came out; the sound was excellent (which is typical for this theater) and the crowd near me was very courteous. The clapping between songs is quite high in comparison with the relatively quiet music, but I didn't hear any distraction during the actual songs. I have no idea how this compares with the DPA 4061 source that was also posted; I'm guessing that it sounds more "in your face" because of my seat location but has less sonic range because of the difference in the mikes. Hopefully some people that hear both sources will comment.

I had very little audience interference because I was sitting in a "row" that only had one seat, just because of the configuration of seating in the auditorium (I was just in front of a railing that divided me from the next level of seats. Jim DeRogatis (Chicago Sun-Times music critic) sat behind me with a friend; they held court with music-industry people before the show, but they were stone silent during the performance.

The file size is small because the levels are set with the peaks at the height of the audience cheering. The music itself has much lower levels; I figured that anyone who wishes to can tinker with the levels of individual portions but that was better left up to the individual. Other than using Audix to set the overall level, this is the raw source.

This show (whichever source) is worth the download purely for the "Belmont and Sheffield" story Waits told during the piano interlude; that was the funniest banter I have ever heard from him in concert. (I don't want to give it away; you need to listen to it for yourself.)