Boot Tracker; April 4th 2008, Sacramento

It's been a long four day wait, but the Sacramento recording is finally here! Pun intended here, I'm amazed at how fast the boots tend to surface during this tour and most of them in very decent to good quality as well. The Sacramento show seems to be no exception to this rule. This tape seems to be edited and thrown out there without re-mastering. With that in mind the sound to this boot is pretty amazing. A good mix between the audience and the band's playing. You can get a good sense of the reaction of the fans without anybody being too close to the mic, there's no annoying fans standing out. The mix between Bruce's voice and the band is just right with nice instrument separation. Although the base could have carried a bit more of a wallop and the high notes don't quite reach the mix.

Especially "Magic" suffers a little from that latter ailment. To me it stands as one of this tour most subtle performances. Especially because of Nils' Spanish picking. A bootleg where you can hear that in its full glory has yet to surface. Although I suspect that we might even have to wait until an official release. If such an album or DVD appears it better feature "Reason To Believe" which was oddly dropped here for "Murder Inc.". A very odd choice if you ask me. "Reason to Believe" all Granged up stands as one of Bruce's best all time performances in my book. Dropping it feels as odd as when he would have dropped "Prove It All Night" in 1978. While "Murder Inc." got a fired up performance in Sacramento it didn't work that well as it did during the Reunion tour where it came in an immortal two punch with "Youngstown". This oversight is compensated by a very nice performance of "Sherry Darling" for sunny California. What better place to pull that one out right? The interaction between Bruce and Steve on this one is infectious even without seeing it. Who am I kidding, we can all see the show in our minds can't we?

The encores offer few surprises for those who already own multiple bootlegs of this tour. "Girls In Their Summer Clothes" was kept in the set for Cali followed by Rosie coming out to play once more. The breezy feel of both songs work very well if you ask me. The band crushes into a fine version of "Ramrod" after "Born To Run" but we have yet to hear it as a true barn burner where the boys exhaust the audience by taking it over the ten minute marker. In all this bootleg is a fine souvenir for those who were at the show, a very nice listen for those who make a point of collecting them all, but I don't suspect that this show will be one that will make it into heavy rotation. That's not because of the tapers effort though, a Magic simply needs a "Reason To Believe".

"Magic"

Download the full show here

Sound: 4 out of 5
Show: 4- out of 5
Artwork: none