LIVE AT THE TROUBADOUR 1969

Chronologically speaking, this would've been Tim's second live album released a year after Dream Letter and compared to that one, this one would be fully representative of a average concert anyday in America. This one happens to have been recorded in one of Buckley's haunting place, close to his Venice Beach, where the Morrison (Doors) and Lee (Love) used to hang around as well. And his group is the one that had recorded Happy Sad, with one exception: as John Balkin had taken over bass (you can already feel his influence on Tim as most of the title are significantly longer and more experimental than the studio versions. I believe the drummer was also fairly new to Tim's group.

Outside different renditions of HS tracks, you also get a few never-heard before tracks like Venice Mating Call (I don't think this would've been released under that name) or I Don't Need It To Rain or Had A Talk With My Woman, numbers that probably changed titles according to his mood. You also get a shot at hearing some yet unreleased tracks that would come in Lorca (Driftin', Nobody Walkin') and Blue Afternoon (Chase The Blues Away, , both recorded in the very next months of this concert's date. As for ther directly comparable tracks that are on the HS album, Strange Feelin' is roughly the same, albeit abridged, while Gypsy Woman is relatively longer, but doesn't digress too much from the studio version.

Just these tracks that are heard nowhere else would justify the acquisition of this Live album, but the album is full of gems and filled to the brim as well. So far there hasn't been a posthumous live release of Tim's concerts between this relevant HS (late 69) step and his return to more consensual (did anybody say mainstream?) days of October 73 after Sefronia and Greetings, which would represent Tim's purely Buckley works that he's done with the Starsailor line-up. Hopefully someday, some label will have the guts to release this stuff, because it must've been phenomenal to hear. In either case, see this release as the starting point of Tim's journey to Starsailor.