Di Meola/de Lucia/McLaughlin - The Day After

Di Meola/de Lucia/McLaughlin - Der Tag danach

Al Di Meola's, Paco de Lucia's and John McLaughlin's 1981 release "Friday Night In San Francisco" is one of the most famous and important acoustic guitar albums in music history. Some 41 years later, "Saturday Night In San Francisco" has now been released, a recording of another concert by the three guitar reros on the following day. In an interview, Al Di Meola told how it came about and what it was like back then

eclipsed: With "Saturday Night In San Francisco" you release a sequel to the terrific acoustic speed metal recorded at the Warfield Theatre on December 5, 1980. Do these recordings really come from the Saturday after that Friday?

Al Di Meola: Hardly anyone knew that there had been this Saturday concert - everyone only knew the one on Friday. Not even John McLaughlin had any idea that there had also been a Saturday gig. After I found the tapes with the recordings, I had to remind him. We played the same program on Friday as we did on Saturday. On the Saturday album there is now the music from the set that is not on the Friday album

eclipsed: In the age of CDs and streams, it would have been easy to release the entire concert recording. Why did you decide against it?

Meola: We are currently thinking about a box set. This should include the two complete evenings as well as the two studio albums that we recorded as a trio. I would like to present all the music that this formation has produced in one edition.

eclipsed: In our last conversation, you said you never look back, only forward. But for this new release you did look in the rearview mirror.

Meola: The tapes don't get better with time, so sooner or later we had to approach this project. In early 2020, when this whole Covid thing started, I called John to ask him how he was doing. I caught him at a moment when we could also talk about a few other things, and mentioned these tapes. I told him that the sound was as good as on the Friday album and that I was investing my own money to have them professionally restored. He was very surprised. I sent him a few tracks, he almost fell over and gave me the green light. Since John couldn't travel because of the pandemic, I did all the editing of the recordings

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