| Discs 1 & 2 Soundboard 9.3 - Sounds to be professionally recorded possibly for a radio broadcast, but aside from very minor tape noise (I am nitpicking here), this tape is brilliant and has survived the passing of time in grand shape. Disc 3 Soundboard 9.6 - Superb, in almost every way! |
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Gong Collection Bonus on Disc 2 (track 6) Amougles Pop And Jazz Festival - Actuel Pop And Jazz Festival- Mont de I'Enclus, Amougies, Belgium-1969 Disc 1 Lyon January 19th, 1973 1. -Gnome intro 2. -Pot Head Pixies 3. -Zero the Hero & the Witch's Spell 4. -I am your Pussy 5. -Why are we Sleeping? 6. -Radio Gnome Invisible 7. -I Feel so Lazy 8. -It's The Time of Your Life 9. -Tropical Fish 10. -Dreaming it Disc two Lyon January 19th, 1973 1. -Flying Teapot - Improvisation 2. -More Teapot 3. -Lawrence The Alien 4. -Blues For Findlay 5. -Teapot Jam 6. -Rational Anthem (Amougies 1969) Disc 3 Sheffield City Hall 10-08-73 1. -Crystal Gnome 2. -Radio Gnome I & II 3. -Mister Pyxie 4. -Deep In The Sky 5. -Flying Tea Pot 6. -Wet Drum Solo 7. -Mange Ton Calepin 8. -You Can't Kill Me 9. -Titicaca -
Audience 8.7 - Is this the mother of Prince shows? It very well could be just that. A marathon to begin with, but even better, the band and Prince are in spectacular form as an audience that has waited some 19 years for Prince to return to their city literally explode as one hurricane caliber force. Perfect, intense, brilliant. Audio quality is VERY good too, some nice ambience and just enough of the crowd next to the taper to imagine yourself there at the show. Just a ton of fun listening to this, and missing Prince dearly. -
Audience 8.6 - A serviceable recording that I am thankful to have in that it captures an exceptional night where the band is simply on another level, especially Ronnie James Dio. The dynamics do not impress, and there’s a lot packed into that upper mid band frequency which is barely hanging on but the good news is that it does hang on, and you do get pretty much everything in a reasonably comfortable way. I welcomed this one, and the bonus is that taper recorded the opening act too, which is included here for completeness. -
Soundboard 9.1 and Audience 8.5 - Beautifully mixed, with some tiny over-sizzle on crash cymbals at times, which seems to get worked out on the mix, but more problems with vocals getting distorted, mostly is the “ssss’s” which isn’t a deal breaker because the problems are not a large percentage of the music. The second show is an audience recording that sounds a little distant until the guitars begin and then it sounds practically right next to you! Strange. -
Soundboard and Audience 8.7 – 8.6 – 8.4 - The first two discs are soundboard but show signs of age and lack brightness although both are clear. Disc 1 sounds like it was broadcast over the air, and is slightly better than disc 2. Disc 3 is an audience recording that sometimes peaks in volume causing some high end distortion (mainly present in the cymbal crashes) but is not bad overall.
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CD 1 - Audience 8.4 - Surprisingly good, I’d never had this one in my collection until recently and I enjoyed it. CD 2 - Audience 8.7 - A very strong contender to be one of the best ’71 Audience tapes (along with the Copenhagen show). CD 3 - Audience 7.5 - The weaker of the three shows in this set, but it’s not crap, just not super clear or dynamic. A show your ears will adjust to, and you’ll have it in your collection all wrapped up in a nice package. A set that I recommend to get your fix on less common but good early performances. -
Audience 9.2 - The final performance of the 4 night Halloween Marathon at the Palladium in NYC 1978. Also part of the FZ Halloween Canister, also being offered. -
Pro 9.0 - Everything in this set is very good to excellent, sounds mostly all Soundboard too. What a peculiar band, interesting, intense, angular (see title). -
Audience 8.1 - Do not be dismayed by this sound rating, in fact this has been re-mastered and is vastly superior to all other versions out there. The lineage of this recording was the cause of some confusion for decades – it was believed to have been from Rotterdam but is in fact Amsterdam. Why this show has been overlooked by collectors is beyond me, it’s a marathon concert and should be in the collection. Maybe it was the marginal sound quality of previous versions? Oh well, now we have this. -
9.5 - Professionally recorded with a mobile truck, open mic direct to reel to reel. Difficult to accurately describe this, you could call it so many things. Uli Trepte was the bassist in Krautrockers Guru Guru, this is what he did after that. I should say “after his brain cells all waved bye bye” because this Spacebox stuff is about as “out there” as “music” can possibly get. -
Soundboard 8.8 - A little tape hiss present but a good board with my only issue being a lack of purity in the mix, somewhat muddy for a soundboard but it has a high rating due to the overall enjoyability. -
Soundboard 9.8 -
All Soundboard and all about 9.2 to 9.4 -
Audience 8.7 - What you get here is a lot of large stadium ambiance, actual recording is pretty realistic from around the middle of the venue – not overpowering and good, clear, loud enough to get a sense of the event and of actually being there. It’s good – it’s not overwhelming – just good. Not a lot of 2016 tapes out there so I like having yet another one since the band played different songs at every venue. -
Audience 9.1 - Thrilling capture! Gives you excellent mid band punch, and really clear, direct to ears sonics -
Audience 8.6 - With the shortage of recordings spanning 2016 to now, anything is welcome including this rather spacious sounding capture. Bigger on atmosphere than super focused instruments, the vocals ring loud and clear but guitar chimes behind most of it all. Still, rather good, and I will take that!