May 2, 1971
Aquarius Club
Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.

I saw Badfinger were playing at The Aquarius Club, which was called The Aquarius Club because it was sort of underwater. They had fish tanks all over the place. I was just a kid. It was my first rock'n'roll concert. It was a real rush for me. I was one of those people that had heard "Come And Get It" and at first I thought it was The Beatles under a different name.

I was an incurable Beatlemaniac and had bought The Magic Christian album and had just really grooved on it, so I wanted to see them. You kind of felt it was kind of a rising-star concert. The opening band of the show wasn't really a band, it was the former lead singer of The Kingsmen, who did "Louie, Louie"; He was a local icon. And he couldn't sing at all. That's one of the charms of "Louie Louie" is that the guy can't carry the tune. And then Badfinger came on and did just a remarkable set. They seemed to have made a real kind of connection to the audience. They played "I Can't Take It" twice. Once at the end, and then as encore. They did a couple of cover songs, too. They did "Feelin' Alright.," which is on the BBC CD, but they did it faster. Some of the songs, I thought, 'Well, that didn't sound like the record'. They played "No Matter What" letter perfect. They did "Carry On Till Tomorrow," dead slow. It was almost funereal. It wasn't really a long set. They did "Midnight Sun" and it was great. They didn't do an acoustic set. It was kind of a small stage and they didn't have a lot of room to move around. Pete was off to the right but almost in line with the drums. He didn't have a lot of room to dance around there.

They played a very long version of "No Matter What" ." I also remember "I Can't Take It". I don't remember hearing "Day After Day."

They did do a couple of really long solos and I thought, this is just really something. At that time everybody thought that kind of stuff was mind-blowing. There was a lot of energy. What I remember about it the most was after the show was over they said, "thank you, goodnight," and the house lights came up and they just stood at the end of the stage and talked to everybody in the place that came up to them. They didn't rush off backstage. Some people actually brought their albums in to get autographs. The Aquarius Club is kind of known for that. It burned down in the late '70s. It was kind of known for the intimacy the act could have with the audience.

Roger Von Oosten

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