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Liner Notes: …On the Road Again….

Bad Company had just released the 'Run with the Pack' album on February 21^st, 1976 and Kansas was lucky enough to gain the coveted position as special guest on the tour. The series of shows began in March and extended through May of that year. Bad Company was on the rise as a major headliner with their prior album scoring a number three chart position in the United States. This tour allowed Kansas to ride these coattails and play to larger audiences than if they were to headline on their own. At the time, Kansas were still promoting their 'Masque' album which was released in September, 1975. Despite steady touring after the album release and without any radio hit single, the album's chart position peaked in February, 1976 at number 70. Understandably, there were great hopes that this tour with Bad Company would expose them to new potential fans.

There are a number of other reasons that this Bad Company tour was important for Kansas and the history of the band. Steve Walsh has mentioned in interviews that Bad Company's singer Paul Rodgers had a major influence on him after this tour. This was also the last time Steve sat down at the Hammond organ to play. From the following tour, 'Leftoverture', to the present day, Steve stands behind his keyboard for the duration of the concert. The 'Masque' tour was also the last tour to find Rich Williams attired in overalls. Rich decided to spruce up his stage appearance with a tuxedo from the 'Leftoverture' to 'Vinyl Confessions' tours.

During the New Orleans concert included here, violinist Robby Steinhardt mentions that the band may be better known to some as White Clover. White Clover was the band that was to become the most famous version of Kansas when Kerry Livgren joined the group. Kerry had left Kansas Mark II to join White Clover and brought the name Kansas with him. White Clover played the club circuit in New Orleans as did the first incarnation of the band Kansas in the early 70s. In fact, Kansas Mark I was on the same bill as the Doors for a concert at The Warehouse in New Orleans on December 12^th, 1970. Some members of Kansas got up on stage with The Doors for a couple of songs during that show. This was Jim Morrison's last live performance with The Doors before passing away in Paris the following year.

During the Providence concert, also included here, Robby mentions that the band is playing in a new building. It may have been the first time Kansas played the civic center, but the building was completed several years before in 1972. Today, the venue still stands but now has a corporate moniker.

The reason that both the Freezer New Orleans and Lampinski Providence recordings sound so good, aside from the superior microphones and decks used, is that the tapers were likely positioned close to one set of the main speakers in the hall. During Child of Innocence, the Front-of-House engineer for Kansas would stereo pan the guitar effect from one set of mains to the other. So, if the taper was directly in front of the sound desk, in the middle of the venue, you'd hear a balanced effect, clearly in stereo. However, if you were sitting off to one side of the venue, which seems to be the case for both of these tapers, you hear what we hear on the tapes. The guitar solo oscillates between sounding very close and sounding very distant during this segment of the song. Kansas has continued to use this effect when playing the song live ever since that time.

Many thanks to both Lampinski and Freezer for sharing these wonderful early recordings of Kansas; they represent a small but important piece of Kansas' long touring history.

Notes from the Re-Master

Obviously there were two different sources for this PRRP remaster project. The first is a master sourced recording from the trader known as Freezer who recorded Kansas in New Orleans March 26^th, 1976. The FLAC version of this recording was torrented on a share site and obtained for the project. As with most of Freezer's recordings the quality was outstanding but a number of problems needed to be fixed. First was the speed which was found to be too fast. Clipping was present and also needed repair. Gentle noise reduction was applied so that the subtle and quiet sections could be better appreciated. Channel and tone imbalances were also found and corrected. As always, clicks, pops and other tape imperfections were identified and repaired. Dynamics were adjusted to enhance the recording and then the missing section was patched using an alternative recording as a source. Finally, the show was tracked to be consistent with the Lampinski recording.

The second recording is from Dan Lampinski, a master recently torrented, capturing the performance in Providence on April 13^th, 1976. Like the Freezer New Orleans recording, this is also outstanding but did have some obvious flaws. The most obvious problem with this recording was the tape speed. A significant speed correction was applied using standard studio and commercial live recordings as references. Once that was achieved, the dynamics were adjusted and channel imbalances were corrected. No tone adjustment of noise reduction was necessary. The tracking was similar to the New Orleans recording.

PRRP Staff.

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