There's very little bootleg chat on the Stephinsongs mailing list. It's mostly fairly well-behaved. At a guess there have been perhaps three advertised in the eight years I've been a member. These two CDs were the only time I participated. It was one of those tree-and-leaf distribution things that the real nerds among tape traders get very exercised about. I was just a leaf. I'm very grateful to the kind 'branch' who copied and sent me the CDs for free (happily I was able to do him a small favour in return a couple of years later).
The two 1997 shows featured on the CDs are two parts enjoyable and three parts historically interesting. I've never seen The Magnetic Fields performing with drums, as they do here. The between-song banter is mostly cheerful and always eccentric. The playing and singing is not as good as I was lucky enough to see in the first part of this decade.
What's interesting — to me — is that several of the songs from The 6ths second album (which I believe was recorded in 1998, though not released until 2000) appear to be regulars in the set, but there are no songs from 69 Love Songs. Is it possible that all those 69 songs were written and recorded in less than two years, between November '97 and Summer '99?
For the record — as I can find no trace elsewhere on the web — the tracklisting is below. I've got tickets for all three London shows in a couple of months, but whether I actually make it to any of them will depend on whether I'm a daddy by then.
CD 1 — Live at the Black Cat, Washington D.C., 7 June 1997
Josephine
When You Were My Baby
Love Goes Home to Paris in the Spring
Aging Spinsters
Friday I'm in Love/The Damned Don't Cry medley
Falling Out of Love (With You)
All the Umbrellas in London
Suddenly There Is a Tidal Wave
Famous
As You Turn to Go
Lonely Highway
Young and Insane
Two Characters in Search of a Country Song
Why I Cry
The Saddest Story Ever Told
Looking for Love (in the Hall of Mirrors)
With Whom to Dance
I Have the Moon
Swinging London
Save a Secret For the Moon
100,000 Fireflies
I Die You Die
Born on a Train
CD 2 — D.C. encores
Deep Sea Diving Suit
Movie Star
Dream Hat
Take Ecstasy With Me
Live at the Westbeth Theater, New York NY, 2 November 1997
Lindy Lou
Love Goes Home to Paris in the Spring
Either You Don't Love Me or I Don't Love You
Aging Spinsters
Deep Sea Diving Suit
As You Turn to Go
Save a Secret For the Moon
All the Umbrellas in London
Looking for Love (in the Hall of Mirrors)
I Don't Believe You
He Didn't
Movie Star
Dream Hat
Falling Out of Love (With You)
Suddenly There is a Tidal Wave
Strange Powers
Two Characters in Search of a Country Song
With Whom to Dance
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