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).

Wednesday 22 February 2017

Show 92: Sisters of Mercy - Trojan Horse The Hague - 26 May 1984


A first appearance for The Sisters of Mercy, with a gig recorded in The Netherlands in 1984. There are several versions of this recording around but I believe I was sent an excellent copy of the naked soundboard recording which was a joy to work on - it's benefited from some sympathetic EQ which has improved separation between each of the instruments as well as improving the sound of each - guitars shimmer and sparkle, the drums are crisp and punchy, the bass is more distinct and Eldritch rises from the shadows. I'm really pleased with how this one turned out.

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
Burn
Heartland
Body and Soul
Anaconda
Walk Away
Emma
Floorshow
Adrenochrome
Alice
Body Electric

Encore:
Gimme Shelter
Sister Ray

I can't pretend to be an expert on The Sisters but I am indebted to Ollie, who is! - and it was he who lobbied for me to remaster this recording. He also asked if he could write a piece about this show for me and this is reproduced below (thanks Ollie!). Incidentally, there's an interesting blog piece written by a Sisters fan about this very gig which you can find here.

Now, this is Ollie's piece:

The Sisters of Mercy have a long, wild history. You may think may 1984 is an early stage of their career, but in fact several line-up changes were behind them already.The then popular singles and EPs like "Alice" or "Temple of Love" (the original version, without Ofra Haza of course ;-) ) had been recorded with guitarist Ben Gunn, who joined the group in early 1982 and left in late 1983. So founder members Andrew Eldritch and Gary Marx, supported by Craig Adams on bass since 1981, replaced Gunn with Wayne Hussey, ex Dead or Alive.

Now in early 1984, quite a lot is new for the Sisters: new line-up, new single ("Body and Soul"), a major deal with WEA records, and even Doktor Avalanche, their drum-machine, got a make-over. Compared to 1983, the sound changed. The songs are played straighter, and Wayne Hussey adds a new guitar style by playing a 12 string...here we have the birth of what would become the sound of the "First And Last And Always" album.

The setlist is the standard one for this tour. They serve a mixture of early singles ("Body Electric", "Alice") B-sides ("Heartland", Adrenochrome"), the new single "Body and Soul" and an early version of "Walk Away", the first written by Wayne Hussey, as well as their famous cover versions "Gimme Shelter" by the Rolling Stones, "Emma" by Hot Chocolate and their dark and driving interpretation of The Velvet Underground's "Sister Ray". The Velvet's song finished their encore in a guitar orgy, the highlight and climax of a Sisters gig in this era and The Sisters at their best, captured here perfectly now in this remastered soundboard recording.

Unfortunately this line-up, regarded by many fans as the definitive one, didn't last long. They did three long tours and released one legendary album, then in June 1985 did their famous last gig at the Royal Albert Hall in London. Wayne Hussey and Craig Adams formed The Mission, and Andrew Eldritch entered the charts in 1987 with his "Floodland"- album.

The rest is history...


11 comments:

  1. Did you apply some compression in certain frequencies too and a little reimaging? There is some guitar channel flutter on the master source and it's less evident in this.
    Job well donw.


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    1. There is some mastering compression before I uploaded, yep. Any reimaging was done in EQ before the final mastering (EQ is my main tool). Thanks, glad you enjoyed it - already heard a few different remasters of this and was challenged to do better.

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  2. Thanks for the posting. Downloaded for listening later in the car. Cheers

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    1. No problem - hopefully another Sisters show later this year, so do come back for more ;)

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  3. As much as I would prefer to replace my former version with this, I really hate cutting a large mp3 file into several pieces. I am just too lazy to do it.

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    1. When it comes to live recordings, I like to hear the gig as it was - so that means no gaps for me. People are free to chop them up if they like but working on separate tracks takes me far longer so would end up having to charge for my time. Hope you enjoyed it anyway!

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  4. Thumbs up for posting as a continuous track - thanks

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    Replies
    1. Cheers. Just goes to show some prefer it, some don't I guess! Thanks for commenting.

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  5. Hi, I'm Giuseppe and I'm writing from Italy. I am a rolling stones collector. Is there a possibility to update the link for this?

    ReplyDelete