God Street Wednesday: A Wino In Paris

God Street Wine toured the US aggressively, but they only played overseas once. In 1997, the quintet headed to Paris for two weeks of gigs at the Chesterfield Cafe to work on the material that would become their fourth studio album. A few days ago, longtime GSW fan Eric Budke uploaded a pristine soundboard recording of the show the band played on March 7, 1997 at the Chesterfield to the GSW collection on the Archive.

The majority of shows on the archive are from 1994 and before so it’s really nice to have a crispy recording of a completely different set of songs. Unlike most of the Chesterfield shows, the band only performed a couple of new tunes on this night instead focusing on material from 1995’s Red. Songs like R U 4 Real, Chop! and Get On The Train had become crowd pleasers after the band spent years tinkering with the live arrangements.

In listening to the show it doesn’t sound like there were many people watching the band on this particular night, but that doesn’t stop GSW from turning in a solid performance. There’s not much in the way of improvisation until a scorching 12 minute Chop! comes out of nowhere in the middle of the set that features some nice interplay between guitarists Lo Faber and Aaron Maxwell with Jon Bevo asserting himself on the organ throughout the jam. Other highlights include a blissful cover of Dear Prudence, and an intense Into The Sea. Thanks to Budke for sharing this important piece of GSW history.

• CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD OR STREAM 03/07/1997