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).

What's Live and Loud! All About?

I've always enjoyed live bootlegs - unofficial recordings of bands in concert, right from when I started buying them on tapes in Camden Market in the 1980s. Fasting forwarding 30 years and the idea behind Live and Loud! was to take live concert recordings I could find, marry that with the recording software I use for my own music, in order to remaster these recordings, make them sound as good as possible and broadcast them. Then make them available for free. You do find people charging for live bootlegs still (and some still think because they bought it, it sounds better!), but there are many available now (unmastered/unrepaired, usually) for free on the internet if you know where to look - so why pay for them, other than to get a nice sleeve...

I should stress these are not available commercially - either from me or from the original artist - no money is made out of this at all. And if a gig IS released officially, then I don't do it. I've come across a couple of live recordings I wanted to remaster and broadcast, then found they were being released officially, so not bothered. And a couple of shows I've done have subsequently been remastered professionally and released officially - so the links are removed from the page for those gigs.

Almost every show I do is what are called either "soundboard" recordings - taken directly from the mixing desk used at the gig on the night, or FM radio recordings - somewhere the gig was broadcast on local or national radio. A few gigs, if they are of special historical importance, make an appearance even if they were recorded from the audience. Depending how bad it is, I can fix tape hiss, noise, tape drop out, clicks, speed variations - and that's before EQing the sound to bring out the instruments as well as possible.  Depending on the quality of the original recording, these can sometimes be made to sound almost like commercial recordings. The few audience recordings still sound much better than when I originally got them - even if they're not exactly "hi-fi" (ok ok , showing my age right there, I know).

Each show take several hours or even several days to put together - but if you love music, and especially live music, like I do, then its worth it. I have many shows in my collection but I'm always still searching for live recordings always - especially from before the 90s - I haven't done yet.

Incidentally, if you notice some shows are missing, you're right. Show 4 is missing as that was a Duran Duran show which had the wrong date on it - and then I worked on it a second time as I wasn't happy with the first one - it reappeared as Show 12. Also Show 14 was an Erasure show which someone who said he worked for Vince Clarke's management, didn't want to be made available - although he made sure he recorded the broadcast for himself, as I remember! Anyway, although his emails were a bit dubious to say the least, we erred on the side of caution and the Erasure show is no longer available.

8 comments:

  1. Great site, many thanks, do you have anything by the band Fashion?
    Or any other Japan concerts please?
    Cheers

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    1. Thanks, glad you found some gigs to enjoy. Haven't found any Fashion so far, no. Wheels are in motion to do a 5th Japan gig later in the year though, yes.

      Best way of getting the latest news is by joining the group or page on Facebook - just search for Live and Loud Shows on there. Cheers!

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  2. Hiya Flip, by sheer luck and happenstance I have stumbled upon your fantastic blog, lucky me.
    I'm going to have some great fun searching your site, many thanks in advance

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  3. Hi Flip,
    I've REALLY been enjoying 'Show 71 - Elvis Live At The International Hotel 1969'... I'm familiar with the sound of the original tape, and your improvements in overall sound quality is nothing short of miraculous!! Kudos (and thank you) for sharing it!

    Two of my favorite UNRELEASED concerts are both from radio broadcasts, and both are pretty sub-par as far as sound quality. If you ever want a really tough challenge, either one of these shows seem like they would be difficult; but hearing your Elvis 1969 improvement (among several others I've heard), you're just the guy who could resurrect them!

    Kansas: Alpine Valley 1979 (FM broadcast with lots of static)
    Frank Sinatra: Melbourne, Australia January 19, 1955 (broadcast but tape source is very old and wobbly)

    If you ever decide you'd like to attempt one or both of these, let me know -- I'd be glad to get lossless FLAC files to you.

    Anyway, just wanted to say how much I am enjoying your Live And Loud blog site! Keep up the GREAT work!
    --Keith

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    1. Keith, many thanks for your message. I'm very glad you enjoyed the Elvis show (I hope you found the 1956 show too). Static/FM noises are (to my knowledge) impossible to rectify well - if you think about it, the music drowned out by the static is no longer on the recording; so if you remove the static you still won't have much music underneath to bring back. The answer would really to be to find another source without the static. Continuous noise throughout a recording is something that takes endless patience and weeks to try and fix.

      You reminded me I do have a few Sinatra recordings - from 1958, 61 and 62. Happy to listen to your 1955 source and see if it's rescuable - just send me 1 track from it if you like and I can answer either way from that. You can find my email details via the "About Me" section top right.

      Appreciate you writing, thanks.

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  4. Hello Flip Martian. I want to congratulate you for the best work with restoring old concerts. The are fantastic. I would like to know if you restore concerts that i have and could be great to share with your blog?

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    1. Thanks for your message; glad you enjoy the site. Yes I can do sometimes - feel free to email me via the link in the "About Me" section and I will get back to you when I can.

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