Recorded Live in the Opera Halle in West Berlin Germany on Easter Sunday 1980. It's been in the vault for over 30 years and is notably the best recorded "live" performance ever by the Mitch Ryder band.

8 MP3 Songs in this album (51:30) !
Related styles: Rock: Detroit Rock, Rock: Heartland Rock, Type: Live Recordings

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Details:
Easter In Berlin - Live (1980)
Produced by Tom Conner & Mitch Ryder
For American Jade, Inc
Recording/House Engineer: Ron Cristopher
Mixed by Frank Fisher at Twenty Nine (2010)
Mastered By Stephen Baldassarre at GCM Studios (2010)
Recorded live on Easter Sunday April 6, 1980 at the Opera Halle
In West Berlin West Germany

Personnel
Mitch Ryder Vocals, Tambourine & Cow Bell
Mark Gougeon â Bass Guitar & Vocals
Richard Schein â Guitar
Joe Gutc â Guitar
Billy Csernits - Keyboard & Vocals
Wilson Owens â Drums & Vocals

Cover Photo: Martin Agosta

All Compositions Except âLibertyâ © 2010 American Jade, Inc ASCAP
(P) 1980/2010 American Jade Inc All Rights Reserved

Track List

1. Long Hard Road (Leon Mills) ASCAP
2. Ainât Nobody White (Can Sing the Blues) (M. Ryder/K. Levise) ASCAP
3. War (M. Ryder/K. Levise) ASCAP
4. Corporate Song (M. Ryder/K. Levise) ASCAP
5. Liberty (Cropper/Levise/Wells) BMI
6. Nice & Easy (M. Ryder/K. Levise) ASCAP
7. Tough Kid (M. Ryder/K. Levise) ASCAP

Liner Notes

"Youâre not supposed to play safe. Youâre meant to be as free as the wind. I didnât disappoint them.â

âAt this Berlin concert we opened the show up to the guitar players. If you give them enough space to solo, they often come up with something brilliant. So we had long guitar solos on all of these songs. The two guitarists shared the solos in a free atmosphere. One of the guys played slide and he was very good. So the songs on âEaster In Berlinâ are as different from the studio versions as it possible to imagine. Each song is like a rocket ship going off.

Mitchâs song âWarâ was originally featured on âNaked But Not Deadâ, but is presented here in a much longer version. âItâs so much better and whatâs interesting is that while a lot of these same songs also appear on both âLive Talkiesâ and âBerlin 1980â, you can hear a different kind of connection between the drums and the bass. Itâs as if the guys came out of the womb together yâknow? They really deliver.

âFrom the first note, you understand the energy level is superhuman. On that particular day in Berlin our band did something superb. We had a heavy attitude and we were very arrogant, which goes back to our early days when we were teenagers entering Battle Of the Bands contests. It was like âYou canât beat us!â

Says Mitch modestly: âThis was probably one of the best âliveâ performances by any band on earth!â
This explosive event took place at the Oper Halle in West Berlin, on Easter Sunday, April 6, 1980.
âWe were on the same bill with The Police and Dave Edmunds. So the band was psyched up, because we were opening for these other two acts. The Police were really hot, but our band rose to the challenge. They were like a soccer team that nobody believed has a chance, then suddenly the come from behind to smash everybody. We completely topped anything that was done on stage by the two more popular groups.

âIt was a powerful show and we did quite a few songs from my âVacationâ album such as âNice & Easyâ and âTough Kidâ, and âAinât Nobody White (Can Sing The Blues)â originally on âNaked But Not Deadâ. One of the things I was able to do during my early career in America that helped make me successful was we discovered a way to go into a studio and get a âliveâ sound.â

âOf course, on this album there were a lot more people and the hall was filled. Even though we were the âopenersâ, they still gave us a hearty round of applause. Weâd been to Germany before and played at the Rock Palast, which was a gig that made us legendary, so to speak. It was when I attacked the Government for being too conservative and went on some drunken rampage. The young people were expecting a level of professionalism and respect that I didnât exhibit that night.

âOn top of that, the band was fantastic. So the fans were drawn to this disrespectful attitude, which is exactly what rockânâroll is supposed to be about. We completely topped anything that was done on stage by the two more popular groups.

âI love âCorporate Songâ because itâs got two different melodies and lyrical lines happening at once. Itâs not a new message and it doesnât tell us anything we donât already know. Itâs just calling Congress a bunch of gangsters in bed with big business.

The fifth track âLibertyâ is an incredible version of a song written by Steve Cropper.â
Mitch tells how when he was in Memphis recording with the Booker T & The MGs guitarist, Cropper took him to a hospital to meet a white farm worker who was dying. âSteve had read some of the songs heâd written. He wanted me to introduce myself to the man, because I was going to be recording one of his songs. I was a big star in America at that time and the old guy was thrilled Iâd come to see him, albeit a little late. Steve made a deal with him for the song. Steve would add the music, Iâd interpret the melody and weâd keep the farm workerâs lyrics of course. Thatâs how the song âLibertyâ came to light. It was written by a poor white sharecropper dying in bed and it talks about all the things that were on his mind, liberty and equality.â
Ryder recalled how it was once common practice in the South after the Civil War for people to write their own songs and talk about their experiences.âMy mother used to do that when I was growing up. She was always singing new songs sheâd written.â

The next track âNice & Easyâ is an original composition by Mitch and says that although the âliveâ version here is good, it was a tough assignment to beat the studio version when we had a guest appearance by guitarist Wayne Gabriel, whereas we didnât have him on stage in Berlin. Wayne does all these magnificent guitar things. He was in Elephantâs Memory, John Lennonâs band. So that made a big difference, but theyâre both powerful versions of âNice & Easyâ for different reasons.â

âTrue Loveâ is a song from Ryderâs âNaked But Not Deadâ (1980) album. âI wanted to explore the reggae genre, so I created the drum beat and the tempo to get a reggae feel. I was actually thinking about suicide when I wrote this song, an unusual thing for me. Iâm just a student of it. I donât want to be a practitioner. The beauty of this whole âBerlin 1980â thing is we could have done âMary Has A Little Lambâ and it would have worked. We had so much energy and commitment to trying to steal the show from those artists, who were better known than us. That was the driving motivation.

âYou could sense the tension in the air. You can hear the crowd noise and anticipation when weâre setting up the microphones, before we start playing. We looked very serious and determined. No toothpaste smiles! We were men on a mission. And our mission was to just destroy that audience.

âWe finished the show with âTough Kidâ because thatâs the fastest number we had and we wanted to end on a high note. It was originally on âHow I Spent My Vacationâ and this âliveâ version is even faster, maybe as fast as the one on âLive Talkiesâ.â

Mitch is proud of both albums and the Berlin concert in particular: âDuring all the years I worked with that band, thatâs the best recording we ever made together. We actually made seven or eight CDs and this one really made me realise just how great they were.â

If the concert wasnât a big enough ruckus, there was even more fun going on outside the venue. Says Mitch: âThe Communist party was having a street demonstration, which turned into a riot right outside. So whoever was at the concert couldnât leave the building, because the police had sealed off the streets.â

Despite the success of the show and subsequent tours, Ryder eventually broke up the band in 1983.

Itâs now 30 years since those exciting days in Hamburg and Berlin, but Mitch remains a busy man. He still fronts his own band, has recorded a new album âDetroit Ainât Dead Yetâ with world class producer and friend Don Was and has written a soon to-be published autobiography.

But life in the rockânâroll fast lane can still be tough.
âItâs hard keeping the band together because of the amount of work that I have. I did a tour recently with a bunch of other artists, where I sang two or three songs and then the next singer came on. It was like a revue. It paid me well, but it meant I had to leave my own band sitting at home. Theyâre loyal but theyâre looking for me to do something new. Everybody is counting on me!â

CHRIS WELCH, London, England, December 2010