Arizona Audioblogging: Meat Puppets Live At The Mason Jar, Phoenix, August 18, 1984

This Meat Puppets show was recorded at the Mason Jar the night after this one. It has better sound quality and is a fantastic performance. There are some technical issues: some "time to turn the tape over" confusion and restarting at the end of part one and the beginning of part two. The second part of the show is tragically marred by a drunk and noisy young lady sitting very near the tape recorder, and at one point she decides to sing a loud, tuneless rendition of "Shine on Harvest Moon" while the Meat Puppets are playing the best version of "Oh Me" I ever heard. Tsk. These things happen. Besides the usual suspects, songs from Meat Puppets II and Up On The Sun, there's an aborted attempt to do the ridiculously intricate "Out in the Gardener" from their first single, and two Elvis covers: "Trouble" and "Suspicious Minds."

I went to this show with my friends Jeff and Sam, on a weekend in Phoenix when the MPs were playing two nights in a row. I specifically remember this night being one of the times they let us pretend to be "roadies" so that we could get in the bar without all of us being old enough*. At the beginning, Chris says, "Check this out: it's a balloon with another balloon blown up inside it," something we had given him before the show. A fun night was had by all!

The two mp3 files are 105mb, and zipped up for download here.

*Looking back on it, were the Meat Puppets contributing to the delinquency of minors? I guess so, but they were a rock band! That was one of their jobs!

UPDATE – Hello and welcome all MP fans. Please to enjoy my humble offerings and amusing anecdote!