Bootleg

It was one of those things that I always described as "a bit of a grey area" when my Dad asked me if these things were legal. (The same 'grey area' that I brought up when I explained why it was absolutely fine to go into town to pubs when I wasn't 18 yet. I may also have used the "it's fine dad, *everyone* does it" line of reasoning). Anyway, I used to love going to the Trans-Pennine Record Fairs that came to Hull when I was a sixth form-age teen and I invariably bought a few live tapes, either from gigs I'd actually been to or by bands that I'd heard of from the NME and thought I really should be into. So, for example, I'm standing there at some fella's stall and pick out a C60 with a recording of Husker Du in Liverpool from the previous week. He hands me a walkman for me to pop on some headphones and give it a quick listen before I hand over my £3 and  go away happy. It's only when I get home and stick it on my tape deck and play it over the bedroom speakers that I realise how atrocious the quality is, but I have a tracklisting and can more or less make out the songs.

Fast forward a few years and live tapes were still doing the rounds, and there was often a stall selling them at university in the students' union, wedged in between the one selling incense sticks and the other selling secondhand paperbacks. This tape came from there. I'd been to the gig and it was fantastic. Despite TDK's best ferric-based efforts, this D90 really doesn't do it justice. Sound quality? Awful, of course.

Last Song Of The Night