Traffic Hamburg 73

Hi everybody!

Since this is my first concert review, it took
me quite a while to decide.
But going back to my youth, maybe the most
impressive show was Traffic's Hamburg show
in 1973 (On-the-Road-Tour).

It was the Shoot-Out-Line-Up and Winwood
played guitar for most of the show.
The setlist was superb and I'd like to show it:

Shoot Out... (played very straight and to the point, sure
like on the album)
Rock & Roll Stew
Who knows what tomorrow might bring
Fourty-Thousand Headmen
Roll Right Stones (what a beauty, they played it with the
utmost timing and sensibility)
No Face No Name No Number
Glad > Freedom Rider
Tragic Magic (this song is aptly titled, again I like it
live more than studio, where it feels a little sterile)
Sometimes... (great emotive ballad)
Light up or leave me alone
Low Spark (together with Roll Right Stones imo the highlights
of this faultless and marvellous show).

The interweaving of the instruments (Rebob especially supported
geniously)was great and always had an air of ease.
Traffic in the following year played again in Germany   
(When the Eagle Flies-Tour, saw them in Münster), but it was not the same anymore,somehow one could feel that it was their swan song.

Man, you got good taste!

Hm Münster.
I think it was March 74.
If i do remember correctly, they played all of When the Eagle flies except Something New, which for me had an air of melancholy.

Münster went like this (maybe not exactly):

Heaven is in your Mind
Love
John Barleycorn
Fourty-thousand Headmen
Graveyard People
Pearly Queen
When the Eagle flies
Walking in the Wind
Dream Gerrard
Memories of a Rock 'n' Roller
Mr. Fantasy

So, for me, that show didn't have the 'flow' of Hamburg.
And it didn't have no Roll Right Stones or Low Spark,
although it had Mr. Fantasy.
I think they did improvise heavy on Dream Gerrard,
but the song's arrangement just isn't that beautiful.
Otherwise, the craftsmanship was also great.
Thing is, with a group having such high standards,
the expectation of the audience/listener does also grow
and grow.
If one imagines the Münster show as a one-off and compared
to nowadays musical landscape (which doesn't mean, that
there are no more groups worth listening) it surely
also was brilliant.

Much prefer the 73 set-list to 74's, because I'm not a big fabn of When the Eagle Flies, and the set list is filled with songs from that album