set the levels to the music and then fade the edges of each song between songs. not ideal but better than nothing.
I agree with this tact setting levels best for music and then edit down distorted applause because of the 16 bit limitation. If recording deck allowed 24 bit depth, then little or no loss of audio detail recorded at lower level.
In other words, to record clean WAY-over-the-top loud audience response to quiet performance, greater bit depth recording is indicated.
Personally I miss the rotary knob level adjust. Recorded 100's of hours of live audience acoustic jazz. Found it's almost easy to feel-adjust back to the 'music' setting after manually fading down the loud applause. Watched the VU once to know amount of working knob rotation distance, and eventually got so good using cassette WM-D6C deck the out/in fade was mostly inaudible. Having all those solos really gave me a lot of practice opportunity to fine tune the technique.
Now it seems only a few larger, power hungry digital decks come with rotating knobs, everything else has up-down buttons you have to keep a careful eye on. Obviously this works against enjoying the music and looking down to adjust something on a regular basis will attract unwelcome attention.