Posted by Marco

The Velvet Underground played on the following dates: April 14-16, 21-23 & 28-30, 1967, at the Gymnasium, New York City, New York, promoting the Exploding Plastic Inevitable shows. The only known surviving tape from these performances was from the one on April 30th. The bootleg of the performance I got it from was called "Psychedelic Sounds from the Gymnasium". Great quality, as it's a soundboard. It came in FLAC format; I present it to you today in the same format. Track Listing: 1. I'm Not A Young Man Anymore 2. Guess I'm Falling in Love 3. I'm Waiting For the Man 4. Run Run Run 5. Sister Ray 6. The Booker T. The version of "I'm Not a Young Man Anymore", here, is the only known VU version of the song, both in the studio and live. In that right, it's a rarity and definitely worth note. This version of "Guess I'm Falling in Love" is the one on the Peel Slowly and See box set, but apparently, there are two different versions of the song. On one, Lou sings 'I got MY fever'. On this one and the box set one, he says 'I got fever'. I'll see if I can find that other version. I love this song; too bad in only survived in the studio as an instrumental (released on "Another View"). Supposedly, this version of "Sister Ray" is the original debut of the song. I find that extremely awesome. The song itself is magnificent (almost 19 minutes long, with different lyrics than the studio version, making it even more interesting), though there's some feedback in the first two minutes. Luckily, the guy running the soundboard realized the problem and started fixing it. You know, unlike how people would run soundboards whenever Joy Division performed live... "Booker T." was an improvisational instrumental, following Sister Ray. When recorded in the studio, it ultimately became "The Gift". This version was also released on the Peel Slowly and See box set, but that version cut the first 8 seconds of the song and had it fade in. More info can be found here (scroll down until you find info on the Gymnasium): http://olivier.landemaine.free.fr/vu/live/1967/perf67.html