Why so few audience tapes from May 1973?

[mrledhed]

Ten shows have no circulating audience tapes. I find it hard to believe there were no audience members recording on those nights.

The circulating board tapes are few and fragmentary.

So where are the audience tapes from this era? 

[JohnOsbourne]

How do you count 10?  I count 8, and some of the published tour dates are probably apocryphal (e.g. I'm skeptical that they actually played in Jacksonville in 1973, it's a dump now, can only imagine what it was like 40 years ago).  At any rate your question is interesting, and the pattern I see is that the early shows of that leg are not well-documented, it was only as the tour moved west (New Orleans/TX then onto Cali) that recordings surfaced.  So, I don't know, maybe there wasn't a well-developed taper culture in the deep South, for socio-economic/cultural reasons?  Although, I'm very surprised there is no recording of the Atlanta show.  A bit mysterious, definitely.