Fireflies

[David]

I do not believe these "Fireflies" performances were from a soundcheck (where do people get that idea?). But I do believe they were from a July rehearsal for the final leg. Stevie's voice does the gangster thing, which she dropped into on the latter part of that tour. Both of these songs have simple arrangements -- they're both very straightforward instrumentally (pace Strand), & the band could have pulled them together in a half hour. The question is, Why did the band bother doing "Fireflies" & "One More Night" for a rehearsal when they probably didn't have any intention of adding them to the set.

... or maybe they did. But we do have a recording of the Lakeland gig on Aug. 5 (the first night of the tour leg), & it's just the regular August set.

The other puzzle is, Why would they rehearse at Santa Monica Civic Auditorium instead of their usual soundstage environment?

So the puzzle remains for me & perhaps for others. Perhaps they wanted to film or record the audio of the auditorium rehearsal -- treat it as somewhat of a pre-show show -- in the interests of a live album (which might also explain the use of a theater with nice acoustics & visual layout instead of a movie soundstage). Maybe they had already decided (by July) to release a live album. I think perhaps they had: when the Hollywood Bowl ads started appearing in the L.A. Times, the press was already reporting that the band intended to record those shows for a live album. And we know (from the material we got from Frank/Maureen) that many if not most of the August shows were recorded from the soundboard.