Welcome - About Live and Loud!

Live and Loud! began as a fortnightly internet radio show in 2012 taking old unreleased live concert recordings I could find and working to repair and improve them - fixing tape hiss, noise, tape drop out, clicks, speed variations, defects - before improving the sound quality by EQing the sound to bring out the instruments as clearly as possible. These are now made directly available to download for free to reach as many fans of the music as possible.

Depending on the quality of the original recording, these can often be made to sound almost like commercial recordings - but of course I can't guarantee that for every show. What I can guarantee is it will sound far better than the original files available which have been floating around the internet and on bootleg recordings for many years.

Almost all are either "soundboard" recordings (taken directly from the mixing desk used at the gig on the night) or old FM radio recordings. A few gigs, if they are of special historical importance, make an appearance even if they were recorded from the audience - these can also be made to sound better than ever.

Do your ears a favour and listen on headphones or good speakers to get most benefit - laptop speakers will always sound pretty poor by comparison.

All shows still available are listed, including a link to download the remastered show for free. If you want to support the site with a small donation, you can receive the shows as either separate MP3s or FLACs (your choice) - head over to the Rewards for Donations page and see how you can get a lot for very little!

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And finally... These are great fun to listen to but DO NOT replace original releases - support these artists and buy their music.
There is nothing you can go and buy in a regular record store here. If a gig is made available as a regular release, then it will be removed (as a couple have been already).

Sunday 27 November 2016

Show 85: Thomas Dolby - Live at Dominion Theatre London - 28 February 1984


This time, it’s a debut on Live and Loud! for Thomas Dolby with a show taken from his The Flat Earth tour of 1984.

I had 3 different versions of this recording, all at different bit rates. 2 of the recordings had some different tracks from each other but were higher quality than the 3rd version which had all the recorded tracks on. So I ended up piecing the best of the 2 together to form 1 complete recording. If you listen carefully you can perhaps play "spot the difference" and see where the joins are! But its all come together well so hopefully most of you won't be able to tell. :-)

Careful EQ of each source separately took some time, as did the editing of the tracks together so they're not glaringly obvious - but it sounds great now, superb stereo and crystal clear. 1 song, Airwaves, does fade out and back in at 1 point, thanks to the original cassette recording running out and needing to be turned over!

Is it all the tracks played? Information and pictures of that 1984 tour seem quite hard to find but maybe not; its about an hour and 10 minutes long. Its certainly all the tracks that I can find that were recorded though, including an unused, lower quality soundboard.  Information is so scarce that a source I often use to confirm tour information didn't have this gig listed at all (it does now; I added it).

The show is now available to download exclusively for free here as 1 MP3 file.

Or, if you would like to have separate tagged MP3s, or even lossless files in FLAC format, head on over to the Donations tab to see how you can obtain these for a very small donation towards the site costs.

Setlist
The Flat Earth (spoken intro)
White City
Dissidents
The Flat Earth
One Of Our Submarines Is Missing
Puppet Theatre
New Toy
Airwaves
I Scare Myself
Hyperactive!
Europa And The Pirate Twins
She Blinded Me With Science

Encore 1
Commercial Breakup

Encore 2
Windpower

21 comments:

  1. Any chance of finding the song "Marseille"? I have such fond memories of seeing this tour at the Chicago Theater.

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    1. Hi Mary, I've not found a recording with that on. HOWEVER, there IS apparently a live version as an extra track on the 2009 Remastered Collector's Edition CD of the Flat Earth album. Hope that helps!

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    2. Hey there...I saw Dolby's "Flat Earth" tour in Chicago at the Auditorium Theater on 5 Jun 1984. It was only the second concert ever that I saw (at the time). Great show as I recall! I wish I had a recording of it, but this recording from London's Dominion is awesome, Flip!

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    3. https://archive.org/details/thomasdolbyboulderco8may1984

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    4. Thanks for that link - Mary, if you ever see this again - that link goes to a copy of a US gig from that tour, with Marseille on.

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  2. So happy to see a show from this tour. I saw Dolby 3 times in the NY area. He had an amazing band that really fleshed out the studio work!

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    1. Coo, yeah he had a great band with him by the sound of it.

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  3. I recorded this concert off the radio when it was first broadcast, sometime in '84 from BBC Radio 1. I've just been listening to a lot of Thomas Dobly recently and started thinking about this concert (tape, long gone!)...great to find it again....sounds fab, Thanks Mr.G

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  4. I was at that concert and remember it as a great evening! As to your query as to whether it's the whole show or not, I can't answer as it's such a long time back but I don't remember it being a very long gig. Terrible support act called Decca-Dance!

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    1. Haha, cheers for that. Hope this brought back the good memories.

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  5. I was at this gig and have a strong recollection of Dolby leaving the stage during "Hyperactive" and then returning with the cube on his head (the one from the video) and did a solo on a key-tar. Then suddenly another Thomas Dolby returned to the stage and pulled off the cube of the imposter, to reveal Howard Jones.

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    1. Wow, brilliant! Thanks for sharing that. :-)

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    2. I was there too, and you are spot on.. Howard Jones was the man.. I remember being blown away with the bass playing in Hyperactive..., amazing.., actually watching someone play that complicated riff, and for such a long time...

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  7. "Is it all the tracks played?" I think that's all. I remember seeing him in Cologne back in 83 or 84 and it was one of the shorter concerts I have seen. Topped only by Propaganda being done after about 45 minutes.

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    1. Interesting! Thanks for that. I'm surprised Propoganda could get away with that...that seems far too short!

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    2. people were quite disappointed, but since Propaganda Mk I dissolved short time later not one could boycot a next tour. :)

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    3. in the same vein: Erasure played at WDR 2 GroĂŸer Sendesaal in Cologne, the show ran an hour and was broadcast live, and after 45 minutes all material had been performed so they started over again and played the first 15 minutes once more. :o) Never understood why didn't add a few Yazoo or Depeche Mode tracks.

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