[photos by PSquared Photography]
I don’t believe its quite accurate to say that Superchunk is the best working band in America today, but you’d be hard pressed to name one that’s actually better. For more than two decades, minus a few years hiatus, Superchunk has consistently released high quality albums filled with excellent songs. There’s not a clunker among any of their ten studio albums — heck, there isn’t even a bad song in their catalog. The newest release came out last month, and I Hate Music not only continues the streak, but its one of the strongest albums in their history. The band is currently on tour in support of the album and performed two shows at Bowery Ballroom this weekend, and we were there for Saturday’s barnburner. Superchunk opened the show on high octane, working through a democratic mix of songs from the new album interspersed with the classics in an hour-long set that barely came up for air. And the very-sold out crowd was with them throughout. From our standard balcony perch we could see the craziness on the floor, but the manic crowd response even spread to the balcony itself, where we witnessed enough pogoing to shake the floor of the upper deck. But it was in the ten song encore segment where all hell broke loose. The band welcomed out Merge recording artist Eleanor Friedberger for two legendary punk covers (we’re streaming the Patti Smith one below) and then just continued to play a series of their own deep tracks in maniacal fashion. The show reached its climax when Mac laid down his guitar, took over behind the kit and drummer Jon Wurster came out to deliver a couple of hardcore covers to end the night.
I recorded this set with the Sennheiser cards mixed with an excellent board feed. There is a couple of minutes of static near the very end of the set caused by a problematic mic on the snare drum, but otherwise this is a superb capture. Enjoy!
We will also have a recording of the first night of Superchunk’s Bowery shows. That recording should be available by the end of the week.
Stream “Free Money” (Patti Smith cover with Eleanor Friedberger):
Stream “Digging for Something”:
Download the Complete show [MP3] or [MP3] (off site) / [FLAC] or [FLAC] (off site)
Note: All of the material on this site is offered with artist permission, free to fans, at our expense. The only thing we ask is that you download the material directly from this site, rather than re-posting the direct links or the files on other sites without our permission. Please respect our request.
Superchunk
2013-09-28
Bowery Ballroom
New York, NY
Digital Master Recording
Soundboard + Audience Matrix
Soundboard + Sennheiser MKH-8040s > Edirol R-44 (Oade Concert Mod) > 2 x 24bit 48kHz wav files > Soundforge (level adjustments, mixdown, set fades) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > TLH > flac (320 MP3 and tagging via Foobar)
Recorded and Produced
by nyctaper 2013-09-29
Setlist:
[Total Time 1:32:11]
01 Breaking Down
02 FOH
03 Crossed Wires
04 Detroit Has A Skyline
05 Punch Me Harder
06 Staying Home
07 [banter – video]
08 Void
09 Like A Fool
10 Tower
11 Iron On
12 Water Wings
13 [banter – requests]
14 Out of the Sun
15 Me and You and Jackie Mittoo
16 Cast Iron
17 Digging For Something
18 Trees of Barcelona
19 [encore break]
20 Seed Toss
21 [Eleanor introduction]
22 Free Money [Patti Smith]
23 Oh Oh I Love Her So [Ramones]
24 Slack Motherfucker
25 Precision Auto
26 [second encore break]
27 Animated Airplanes Over Germany
28 Throwing Things
29 Fishing
30 20 Eyes [Misfits]
31 My War [Black Flag]
If you enjoyed this recording, PLEASE SUPPORT Superchunk, visit their website, and purchase I Hate Music directly from Merge Records [HERE].
Hey, thanks for this. I wasn’t aware of NYCTaper till I talked to you after the show, and I’m sure glad I did. Great thing you’re doing, and I can’t wait to listen to the show all over again. Much appreciated.
Better late than never. Enjoy.
Thanks. Great job. Saw the show in Carrboro. Bought the poster :).
Awesome!
They are not coming to Florida on this Tour and last time they were here was a short set of the hits.
This is great, thanks!
stood right behind you with my wife for this show… thanks for tolerating us and for recording my favorite show of the year. Much appreciated!
Heh, if you were the couple behind me, then there was nothing to “tolerate”, just people having a good time.
If however, you’re the white t-shirt wearing lunatic who was jumping on people’s backs and pumping his fist while screaming, then maybe we need to have a talk.
Thanks for recording and sharing this, it sounds great!
Very happy to have found this. I’m from Winnipeg, Canada and planned my trip to New York around this show, so I couldn’t imagine a better souvenir. Thanks!
Disclaimer: balcony pogoer, but not a white-t-shirt-wearing lunatic.
I had tickets for both nights but wound up going to Friday’s show only. Sounds like I picked the wrong night. Friday was good, but a little subdued for Superchunk. This at sounds to me the better gig. Gotta laugh at the creeping Springteen-isms in Mac’s stage banter, however. Should probably scale back on the “How’s everybody doing tonight?”‘s
been so busy since the Fall that I failed to see you had posted the 2 NYC shows. As always, THANK YOU for all that you do to support live music, taping and these artists. I have loved Superchunk ever since I was turned onto them by my NC pals back in 1992. I was more than elated when they started playing tours again and can never have enough high quality live shows for my collection.
PS- I work with Sloan so hope to have you out to the NYC show later this fall after the new album comes out (it is going to be another double album) to capture it with you skilled hands .