Live in Europe 1979/80 - Bootleg LP

This triple LP bootleg was put out by Continuing Saga Records in the USA. If you look at the back of the album jacket it says International Records, which means it was probably put out by the same distributors of Rock Solid Records. These guys went under several different pseudonyms to avoid detection.

The record jacket is pretty nice, if somewhat flimsy. This is also the first vinyl bootleg to have a full colour cover. The spine of the record is the only area that lists the title of the album.

The back of the album jacket is also a prime example of how vague these early bootlegs really were. They listed the songs in most cases, but they didn't list the source of the content. The order of the tracks were usually random, and it wasn't until you actually got one of these things home that you could finally figure out which show or performance they came from. Many of these bootlegs have repeated material that you normally find on most other bootlegs, and the sound quality tends to be horrendous. The Light Blue album contains the BBC Christmas Special, the Dark Blue album contains the Hammersmith Odeon performance and the Red album is the German show.

The other interesting thing are the record labels. In many cases Kate's name was never mentioned anywhere on them. In this particular case they're listed as "THE WIZARDS QUEST". Bootlegs were hugely illegal back then. They still are today, but with the internet and all the technology we have today it's much easier to distribute this stuff. There was no internet in the '80s and early '90s, so putting dummy labels on these records was a clever way of illegally manufacturing them and exporting them.