Bon Iver February 23, 2008 Glasslands – Flac Download

[photo courtesy of Jason Bergman Photography]

There has been so much written about Justin Vernon’s outstanding Bon Iver project and the story behind For Emma, Forever Ago, that I have no intent to repeat. Last night, Justin provided a live glimpse into what makes these basic songs so compelling — his ability to capture the simple aspects of life with poignant humor and charm, and present it within a basic band structure.

This week, Emma was released on the Jagjaguwar label, and one would expect the beginning of the blogger backlash. This might be the fate of an artist whose hype exceeds the talent, but Bon Iver heartily deserves the last six months of praise. If a live performance is the ultimate expression of a musician’s artistic value, then Glasslands was the proof positive that Justin is the real deal. He handled the huge crowd, some technical problems, and the weight of expectations with grace and fortitude.

At nyctaper, we consider ourselves quite fortunate to see live performances of such quality. We are doubled blessed when the artist and the management afford us authorization and guest list access. Bon Iver gave us all three, and we offer much thanks for this courtesy, and as well we thank the staff of Glasslands.

We placed our microphones in the same location as our last Glasslands recordings (Avey Tare/Deakin/Kria [here] and Rings [here]), and in order to avoid the persistent crowd chatter and bar noise, we brought along hyper uni-directional microphones. We were also given access to the main mix of the soundboard to capture a “matrix” recording. Unfortunately, we didn’t trust our room equipment enough, and relied a bit too heavily on the board mix. As a result, the mix is not properly balanced, and there is quite a bit more kick-drum in the mix particularly during louder moments. We do believe this is still an excellent recording, but offer it to our readers with the knowledge that should have done better. Enjoy!

Black Mountain was also recorded and will be offered in the coming days.

Download the Complete show in FLAC [HERE].

Bon Iver
2008-02-23
Glasslands Gallery
Brooklyn, NY USA

Digital Master Recording
Soundboard/Audience Matrix

Soundboard + Front of Board Neumann KM-150s > Edirol UA-5 (Oade Digimod) > digital coaxial > M-Audio Microtrack 24/96 > 24bit 48kHz wav file > Soundforge (set fades, downsample) > CD Wave 1.95 > Flac Frontend (level 7, align sector boundaries) > flac

Recorded and Produced by
nyctaper
2008-02-24

Setlist:
[total time 37:33]
01 [introduction]
02 Flume
03 Lump Sum
04 [banter]
05 The Wolves (Act I and II)
06 Blindsided
07 For Emma

If you email nyctaper for access to this recording, we expect that you will PLEASE SUPPORT Bon Iver, visit his myspace page, and purchase Emma directly from the label.