Show 162 - The Human League - Live At Bar 2 Sheffield - 12 June 1978

A quick request. If you plan on downloading this and putting it on your YouTube channel or your own bootleg page - I don't mind. But a credit to this website where you found it, and a link back to this page would be really appreciated. It helps me gauge which artists are popular - ie more chance of other restorations coming. Don't just steal it and take the credit. Thanks.

The first live recording made of The Human League for you this time, done at their second ever gig. It recently came to light on YouTube, marked as their first ever show - and wikipedia lists it as such - but according to Martyn Ware  (and he would know) and other sources, it is, in fact, their second. The first gig was also at Psalter Lane Art College but several months earlier - on 16 February 1978. Even so, it's pretty wonderful it's now in the public domain after so long.

The original of this was recorded on a reel to reel tape recorder in a bar, with people milling about talking, getting drinks in, etc - the quality is pretty noisy and not very clear - partly due to THIS version being from a copy of a copy, in mono, and put on YouTube. The guy who originally recorded this still has his stereo original and plans to remaster it himself one day, so this is the best available at the moment. 

For those who are interested in such things, I reduced the room ambience, tape hiss, fixed as many dropouts and changes in volume as I could, then got to work with EQ and other studio toys to bring some clarity back and expand the mono sound a little.

Featuring early versions of some songs that would appear on Reproduction, both sides of their first single Being Boiled, and a couple of tracks that would be consigned to history and remain unreleased at the time, this is a fascinating listen, recorded just days before Being Boiled was finally released by Fast Product. While it was never going to be a crystal clear listen, I hope you enjoy this new version.

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 FLACs, head on over to the Donations tab to see how you can obtain these for a very small donation towards the site costs.Either way, enjoy the show.

And finally... don't forget to SUBSCRIBE TO THE FREE NEWSLETTER so you never miss news on which new gigs are going to be restored and uploaded here; any news will be delivered to your inbox and I guarantee you no spam - and of course you unsubscribe at any time. 

Setlist
Year Of The Jet Packs
Dance Like A Star
You've Lost That Loving Feeling
Disco Disaster
The Word Before Last
The Path Of Least Resistance
Being Boiled
Circus Of Death
Blind Youth

My special thanks to Paul Forshaw for allowing me to incorporate his cover design in mine (so much better than I would have done) and also to Peter Needham, who's photos from the gig appear in the cover design and below.
 

Show 150 - The Human League - Live At Rolling Stone Club Milan - 17 March 1982

A gig from this tour has been requested more than once over the years - and finally I can deliver. An interesting and rare recording of The Human League on the European leg of their Dare tour in 1982.

I've obtained more than 1 recording of this gig over the years of different quality - and also like the Japan gig I did recently, attributed to different places...including the gig of 14 March 1982 in Lyon, France...but given they are the same gig, Philip Oakey says "ciao!" and refers to them next time playing La Scala at the end of the gig, and (possibly) Jo Callis says "arrivederci!" I think we can assume they're actually in Milan. :-)

There's a bootleg called "Drumset Mystery" of this gig - and the copy I heard of that too was pretty poor quality and very hissy. I think this must be a different recording altogether of the same gig, it sounds like it was recorded nearer the front of the audience. In any case, I went through this and spent a few days on it - removed some of the room ambience, fixed gaps, errors, tape drop outs, clicks and odd noises, overloaded volume, changed the pitch and speed as it was running slightly too fast, then treated and EQed the sound to get as much as possible out of what was there.

I'm pleased with the result; I hope you enjoy it. Other sites are starting to take these restorations, butcher the artwork and put it up on their own site with filled with advertising and pop up links - only from here are you guaranteed no pop ups, no advertising, no viruses - just the show itself.

You can safely download this restored recording for free HERE as one 320 kbps MP3 file with no nasty pop ups or ads getting in the way. 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! And don't forget to check out the other Human League shows on the site!

Setlist
You're My Baby
Open Your Heart
Do Or Die
Circus Of Death
Darkness
Don't You Want Me
Seconds
I Am The Law
Crow And A Baby
Marianne
Love Action (I Believe In Love)
The Things That Dreams Are Made Of
The Sound Of The Crowd

Encore:
Empire State Human
Destination Venus

Radio Prog 8 - The Human League - John Peel Session Broadcast 16 August 1978

Live and Loud! Radio is an occasional series of free downloads, which started in January 2017. Radio sessions that never got an official release, sympathetically repaired and remastered and then released onto the internet, all for free.

No theme tune, no intro from me - just the original session, repaired and remastered and available in a downloadable zip file containing each separate track.

Live and Loud! Radio Prog 8 - The Human League - John Peel Session Broadcast 16 August 1978

Tracklisting
1. Being Boiled*
2. No Time
3. Blind Youth
4. You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling

"No Time" is an early version of "The Word Before Last".

* Being Boiled was released on the 2011 Various Artists compilation album "Movement: BBC Radio 1 Peel Sessions 1977-1979" and is therefore excluded.

Recorded over a year before the release of their debut album Reproduction, this session features 3 of the 4 tracks recorded (the 4th having been released officially).

Sourced from 2 separate sets of lossless files, this took a lot of work (especially just for 3 tracks) - I fixed several dropouts and clicks and used both sources to get the best quality (copying and pasting parts of songs to remove faults, missing bits, if needed, then blending back together).

Once all that was done, the recording just needed a gentle EQ to improve clarity and boost the low end.

The zip file for this session contains remastered MP3 versions. You can download it HERE.

Show 125 - The Human League - Live at Derby Assembly Rooms - 21 May 1980

Probably a final gig on Live and Loud! for the Mk 1 lineup - there aren't many recordings of them and the best one, from Amsterdam, I've already done (here). The others (including this one) are audience recordings and mostly not very good ones; this one is the clearest I've come across and even this has taken a lot of work to clean up. Still, it''s a full set and so well worth preserving!

So...this is an audience recording of The Human League - warts and all. Analogue synths occasionally (!) go out of tune, there are bum notes...some great backing vocals on some songs from Martyn Ware - this is a proper live recording. I tidied up some differences in volume and used a lot of 30 band EQ to bring back some bottom end (you can hear the kick drums and bass synths far better now), toned down the harsh top end and made the recording clearer. I also worked on the sound to widen it - this was originally recorded back in 1980 on a little mono tape recorder, so kudos to the original taper for getting a clear recording for me to work on 38 years later... Hopefully if he ever comes across this, he'll like this improved version.

You can download this improved recording for free here as one tagged 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 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
The Black Hit Of Space
The Touchables
Dreams Of Leaving
Girl One
Life Kills
Almost Medieval
Perfect Day
Crow And A Baby
Only After Dark
Being Boiled
Blind Youth
W.X.J.L. Tonight
Encore:
Marianne
Empire State Human
2nd Encore:
Rock'n'Roll

Show 86: The Human League - Live at Festival of Fools Amsterdam - 10 June 1980

This time it’s a welcome return to Live and Loud! for The Human League. There aren't many live recordings of the first incarnation of the band and I’ve been trying to track down this particular recording for some considerable time. And then within a month, I had 3 copies!

Unfortunately all 3 are quite flawed 1 way or another. Despite this being such a short recording (originally from Dutch radio), this may well have taken me the longest time to repair and restore! However, I think its been well worth it. It is, quite simply, now clearer and better than any other live bootleg of The Human League I've come across to date.

This performance, at a mixed arts festival in Amsterdam, was (I think!) the last to feature the original lineup. On that basis alone it needed a decent copy of it preserving; I hope this is 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
Dreams Of Leaving
Almost Medieval
Perfect Day
A Crow And A Baby
Marianne
Empire State Human
Rock 'n' Roll


** As it happens, it wasn't the last show as I believed back in 2016 when I did this - I've since come across 2 other bootlegs from June and July which are very poor quality recordngs of shows in London and Germany

Show 48: The Human League - Kant Kino, Berlin - 23 November 1980

A show that proved very very popular on broadcast, and afterwards. There are very few quality live recordings of The Human League and almost nothing from their early days. This one in particular is one of those where the historical value of the gig makes it worth presenting, even if the sound quality is less than perfect. This took a lot of tweaking, to say the least - but its popularity I guess means that people enjoyed it! I think its the best you'll hear them from this time.

Please note that unfortunately the last encore track, Empire State Human, wasn't present in the files I received and is therefore missing from this set.

UPDATE 2018
While preparing this old show as separate files for a donator to the site, I found I could now improve the sound quality further, over what I’d originally done to the recording several years ago. You can now download this new version (as of 2018) HERE as 1 new 320kbps MP3 file.

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

Setlist
Take On The World
The Path Of Least Resistance
Only After Dark
Dreams Of Leaving
Austerity Girl
I Am The Law
Boys & Girls
Morale
Life Kills
The Word Before Last
Crow And A Baby
The Black Hit Of Space
Almost Medieval
Marianne
Circus Of Death