Thursday, 13 September 2007

REM - Live In London - 2005

This is the 'broadcast' part of REM live in Hyde Park, London, on the 16th July 2005.

It was the final date of their 2004/05 world tour, and had been put back one week due to the terrorist attack on London's tube system, just days earlier.

I have seen a number of bands and artists myself in Hyde Park. I recognise it has been used considerably as a venue in recent years.

A good number of charitable events have been televised in the UK. It is easy to get the impression that this is a fine venue to play.

Hyde Park is a very big place, a very large park.

For around ten years now, the gigs are performed with the stage at the Marble Arch end. The audience are placed parallel with Park Lane going south, between the internal roads.

If nothing else, I hope I have confused some New Yorkers at there own game now, regarding concerts in Central Park (this time last year I was in Manhattan so understand this is said with kind affection).

Put simply this part of Hyde Park is flat, easy to fit in 80,000 people, not so easy to ensure they all hear, or even see the event.

In all seriousness unless you are an absolute fan, you are better off listening to the radio broadcast of the event if available, rather than risking, not being a part of the audience, close to the stage. Like I said, I have seen a number of acts there, it is a challenging venue for crowd and artist. REM did quite well!

This is REM as broadcast on BBC Radio Two live. It is not the full concert, rather the final hour. The sound quality is FM stereo, at it's best. I think it fair to say despite the challenges of the venue REM had their hearts in this gig, what do you think?

Tracks are:

01 - Kenneth
02 - One I Love
03 - Drive
04 - The Outsiders
05 - Leaving New York
06 - Everybody Hurts
07 - Electron Blue
08 - Final Straw
09 - Orange Crush
10 - Walk Unafraid
11 - Losing My Religion
12 - Man On The Moon

Replacement download link in comments below (2nd April 2010).

REM merchandise HERE.

Wednesday, 12 September 2007

Genesis - Live In London - 1980

There was a time when Genesis would have automatically been included in my top favorite five bands.

When Peter Gabriel left, like many I thought it was the end, however although the sound and style gradually developed, it was still Genesis, and some good music was produced.

In 1980 the album Duke was released, and I was really impressed ! With hindsight this was the beginning of the end of my Genesis 'must buy - must have' era. After that for whatever reason only the odd song here and there appealed to me.

As regards Phil Collins solo material, sorry I have tried, but it ain't for me. I think early on, he made to much of an effort not to sound like Genesis, but with respect was never going to be a crooner.

To the point - This is Genesis towards the end of my 'Top Five Favorite' era.

The details - Genesis live at The Lyceum London (second night) on the 7th May 1980. The Lyceum was one of the smaller venues they played on this tour.

Set List:

CD 1:
01 - Deep In The Motherlode
02 - Dancing With The Moonlit Knight (Intro)
03 - Carpet Crawlers
04 - Squonk
05 - One For The Vine
06 - Behind The Lines
07 - Duchess
08 - Guide Vocal
09 - Turn It On Again
10 - Duke's Travels
11 - Duke's End
12 - Say It's Alright Joe

CD 2:
01 - The Lady Lies
02 - Ripples
03 - In The Cage And Slippermen
04 - Afterglow
05 - Follow You Follow Me
06 - Dance On Volcano
07 - Drum Duet
08 - Los Endos
09 - I Know What I Like
10 - The Knife

Sound Quality: From the BBC master recording of the show (pre FM, no static at all - if you excuse the pun). Put simply it is a professional recording, that merits superlatives such as awesome. It also helps that Genesis were really playing well that night!

Reloaded - 11/June/2015 - link in comments.

Saturday, 8 September 2007

Elvis Presley - Greensboro - 1972

This is Elvis Presley Live at Greensboro, North Carolina, USA, on the 14th April 1972.

I am not an Elvis aficionado, probably not even up to amateur standard, by any Elvis Presley fans measurement criteria.

I do not impersonate him though, surely this gets me some street credibility back ?

I tried to get some background on this concert and failed miserably. I know Elvis toured in 1972, he sold out Madison Square Gardens for four consecutive nights, and a video of him touring won a Golden Globe for best documentary that year.

What is curious for me, is that the very limited notes that accompanied this concert say it was his first performance of 'Burning Love' on stage.

This was released in 1972 and was his last top ten hit in the U.S. single charts, so from that perspective there is a little bit of Elvis history here.

Oh well onto the main reason I am posting this, easy one as usual, not being a major Elvis fan, I swallowed the hype, and decided to give it a play, next thing I know, I am enjoying the whole concert, and as the audio quality ticks all the 'Beehive Boxes', so I thought ho hum, lets share it!

It goes like this:

2001?
SEE SEE RIDER?
PROUD MARY
NEVER BEEN TO SPAIN
YOU GAVE ME A MOUNTAIN
UNTIL IT'S TIME FOR YOU TO GO
POLK SALAD ANNIE
LOVE ME
ALL SHOOK UP
TEDDY BEAR/DON'T BE CRUEL
HOUNDDOG
HEART BREAK HOTEL
A BIG HUNK 'O LOVE
BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATER
LOVE ME TENDER
BAND INTRODUCTIONS
FOR THE GOOD TIMES
AMERICAN TRILOGY
BURNING LOVE (1st TIME PLAYED ONSTAGE)
RELEASE ME
FUNNY HOW TIME SLIPS AWAY

Apologies if the set list is appallingly wrong, like I said limited info, not an Elvis expert...

This was a stereo soundboard recording.

Replacement link in comments below or 'click on the pic' - 13th December 2009.

Always happy to learn, if you can add to this please leave a comment.

Elvis Cd, options HERE.

Kraftwerk - Live In London 1981

This is Kraftwerk live at the Hammersmith Odeon, London, on the 3rd July 1981.

This is one of those annoying 'I was there' posts, yep that may be me somewhere in the crowd cheering, applauding or yelping, and why not, it was one of the best live concerts I have ever attended - not a comment I make lightly!


Everything about them was refreshing.

Ralf Hutter's occasional ad lib's and his sheer intensity at times as he sung.

The use of electronic drum pads, and the whole tightness & rhythm of the band.

The simpler & very different lighting for that period, a generous helping of neon would you believe?

The uncanny resembling dummies, or was that robots?

Letting the audience join in during the encore using handheld devices (circa pocket calculator).

Most of all it was the underlying humour, the knowing smiles between each other that became laughter if one of them got something wrong. I expected technical efficiency, I got a band playing live and rocking in their own style.

This was part of the Computer World tour, and is summarised well from the current Wikipedia entry - "the band effectively packed up its entire Kling Klang studio and took it on the road with them. The band also developed an increasing use of visual elements in the live shows during this period. This included back-projected slides and films, increasingly synchronized with the music as the technology developed, an experimental light-beam activated drum cage allowing Flür to trigger electronic percussion through arm gestures, use of hand-held miniaturized instruments during the set, and, perhaps most famously, the use of replica mannequins of themselves to perform onstage during the song "The Robots."

I actually only received a copy of this specific concert recently, I am delighted with the sound quality. The set list is:

1 Intro - Numbers
2 Computer world
3 Computer love
4 Home computer
5 The model
6 Neon lights
7 Radioactivity
8 The voice of energy
9 Ohm sweet ohm
10 Autobahn
11 Hall of mirrors
12 Showroom dummies
13 Trans Europe Express
14 Pocket calculator
15 The robots
16 It's more fun to compute

I do not have details of the source, its very good audio quality - click on the links to download.

Some Kraftwerk Cd options HERE.

New file link in comments below - Re-uploaded 2012 (Stealth project).

Cactus Lee - Sons of Sevilla - Gwenno

Cactus Lee - Got A Heart Like Rainwater Blues. This spring Cactus Lee released a new self-titled album (with R. Crumb artwork) via the este...