On the tape flip-
The home deck I used extensively in the 80's and 90's was a Yamaha K720. Loved it, still have it. Made many, many mix-tapes on that thing, using some great features which also applied to live recording, but I only ever hauled it out to tape a live band once. Story on that in a bit. One of the features that enabled many others was a function that sensed start/end of the leader at both ends of the tape. One function that used that was a tape counter-calibration thing - you'd push a button and the deck would fast forward until it sensed the tail lead-out, the counter would reset to zero, then the deck would rewind to either the precise start of tape at the end of the head lead-in, or to whatever mid-reel position the tape was in when the function was engaged. It would then display a super-accurate countdown to the precise end of the tape. Additionally, it could be set to auto-fade-out about a second prior to reaching the end, stop, or auto-reverse with a gap of just milliseconds. The super quick auto-reverse was made possible by the tail-lead sensor, which would engage immediately as soon as the tail-lead out was sensed just prior to the leader actually reaching the heads. Cool stuff, and when enabled, the auto-reverse actually tracked really well on that deck. Combined with a couple other playback decks and a CD player that had a "search for and loop the highest peak" function, it was a mix-tape making dream.
I only once hauled it out to record a live band, 1987-ish. More often back then I was doing my own 4track stuff or recording bands in non-live situations using the 4track, mixing that down to this deck. The one time I did was to record a live show off a friend's band. I unwrapped a fresh XLIIS, plugged in a couple SM57's, set levels, engaged the DBX noise reduction I otherwise rarely used, had it do the FFW to end counter-reset thing, set it to auto reverse at the end of side A and not fade-out at the end of side B. I still recall the anticipation watching the counter count down approaching zero with my finger hovering over the "reverse" button awaiting the end of a song, but not actually pushing the button and watching the auto-reverse happen just after the song ended only a few seconds before they launched into the next. I then relaxed and enjoyed the rest of their set. At the end of the set I just let it run and it auto-faded out about 5 min later. Serendipitous. Listening later with the band, playing back the master using the same deck, I intentionally didn't mention the approaching auto-flip in the tiny gap between songs and it occurred so quickly that only one of the guys noticed the brief dropout. I think it was actually the noise of the transport reversing that called his attention to it. Amazed, we ended up listening the to flip a few times over.
Different era, different gear, different feel and approach, and the taper's connection to making the recording is different. Even though I'd not want to reverse the evolution of digital recording making it so much easier, better, and more cost-effective, mechanical analog recording was and remains cool. Even cooler now that its no longer the norm.
Enjoy the little vacation from digital. That Blues Traveler / Big Head Todd double bill seems a perfect match for it. Good strategy to use tape 1 side A + tape 2 side A for band 1 and side B for band 2, rewinding the side B's at set break.
