Weather Report unreleased Mr. Gone live '78

Although there are a few bootlegs floating around of Weather Report's 1978 live version of this tune, to date, the only "official" public release was the group's "Live In Offenbach 1978" DVD / CD that was taped about a month prior to this Washington concert, but not released until 2011.

Like the Offenbach version, the quartet's live "Mr. Gone" was far superior to the band's somewhat drab studio track, which suffered from Joe Zawinul's somewhat labored synth bass part, as well as the fact that drummer Tony Williams is overly buried in the mix. Zawinul often said that their studio version was basically his own home demo of the tune with just a few overdubs later on from the others.

This version is a full two minutes longer than Offenbach (which was itself three minutes longer than the original studio track). Of particular interest is watching Wayne Shorter lay out at the 9:15 mark to let Jaco's walking bass take the main tune out over the final minute. And, like Offenbach, Peter Erskine's playing on this live version is just phenomenal.

I added some animations here to partly distract from the grainy audience-shot video (by Peter's dad), and based the AI prompts on Lou Beach's back album cover design (which he tells me was originally supposed to be the front cover). Incidentally, the Mr. Gone studio album graphics were all Lou's idea; the band had no input. "I wanted it to have a big city feel," says Lou of the Mr. Gone graphic.

I hope you enjoy this video... more to come on this channel in the near future!