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!

If you want to email me, an email link is in my profile in a link in the side panel.

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).

Friday 26 July 2019

Show 137 - The B-52s - Live At Max's Kansas City, New York - 28 May 1978



An exciting early glimpse into The B-52s and how they sounded around the time Rock Lobster was first released on a local Georgia independent record label, before they got signed to a major and worldwide success.

This recording was originally recorded by a legend of the gig taping world, the Grape, using a Uher 134 cassette deck with an AKG A200D microphone. while in the audience - he actually recorded both shows the band played that night. The grape recorded many shows through the 70s and without these people, this site ultimately wouldn't exist, so big thanks to him and others who took the time to do it.

The recording needed a fair bit of tweaking - someone, once upon a time had put a brickwall limiter on it (in layman's terms, boosted loudness as high as it could go on every part of the recording to make it sound "better") which made it boomy and tiring to listen to all the way through. And still muffled. However, with a few studio tricks and EQ, it now sounds much clearer and far more listenable. Bear in mind it is still a cassette recording made from the audience over 40 years ago, but even so, it's a fascinating clip of how the band were early on.

The songs here comprise the first of 2 sets they played that night; the 2nd set replaces Hot Lava with Strobe Light and adds Running Around but is otherwise the same set. If you're interested in me reworking and putting that up as well, then let me know in the comments.

You can download all of this improved recording for free HERE as one 320 kbps MP3 file.

Or, if you would like to support the site with a small donation towards storage subscription and internet costs, in return you can have the remastered show as separate, properly tagged MP3s or even lossless files in FLAC format; head on over to the Donations tab to see how you can do this.

Either way - enjoy the show!

Setlist
Planet Claire
Hero Worship
52 Girls
The Devil's In My Car
Downtown
Hot Lava
Rock Lobster