The Ventures at the Shrine Auditorium, Duluth MN July 1, 1965

While Ventures live recordings from Japan circa '65 and beyond were and are plentiful, domestic Ventures live recordings from the '60's have never been released commercially. For that reason, this is one fantastic sound document capturing the Ventures on one of their many mid-60's U.S. appearences. Most of the tracks are what we've heard on the Japanese live albums such as "All About the Ventures" (aka Live in Japan '65) but it does include an excellent version of "Summertime", a tune that can be found nowhere else as a Ventures live performance. Click on  Summertime to hear Nokie's blazing licks on this one.

The recording was captured by a stage tech who managed to smuggle in a reel-to-reel tape recorder and hide it under the stage. I'm not sure where the microphones were placed. This is not a professional sounding recording BUT it is not an audience recording either. Some "side-stage" technician talk can be heard on some of the songs as they struggle with the crapping-out of Bob's bass amp. Bob ended up finishing the show playing through a Fender Bandmaster amp.

Looking at the photo (which really is that fuzzy on my copy), it appears that the audience demographic is largely teenage white males.