“Whipping Post - Live At The Fillmore East, March 1971” - Allman Brothers Band

One of my all-time favorite loud AF on headphones tracks – or on vinyl. Listening now with my fancy DAC and great headphones, it’s amazing how you can hear the crowd distinctly in your left ear.  Then when the guy says “WHIPPING POST.” it comes so cleanly in your right ear.  You’re on stage, bitch.

One cool thing about ABB was the use of two drummers. Now right after the guy yells the track and Gregg says “You guessed it”, listen with your left ear. You’ll hear a little warm up snare 1-2 right before “Barry starts ‘er off”. Then you’ll hear two hits on the ride, again in the left. Right as the bass comes in, two more snare hits on the left, then you hear the ride start on the left.  NOW LISTEN CAREFULLY to your right ear and you’ll hear the second drumset come in with a shuffle on the snare. It’s more apparent as the left channel has snare rolls while the right channel keeps the shuffle going.  Only possible with two drummers.

This is SUCH a rewarding listen on a proper audiophile setup and I get absolutely lost in it every time I listen.  One other thing I love about early ABB stories was how they became a jam band not by design but because they had so few songs… there’s only seven songs on the album but “Whipping Post” is 23 minutes long.  Why?  Well, they had to fill time until they wrote more songs!  Thus, the jam band was born.