New DS Live Box Set, 3rd November 2023!

[Dutchessy]

Also i have never liked the guitar sound from live at the bbc

[Robson]

Fact, Industrial Disease sounds different than the earlier Once Upon A Time... But Twisting By The Pool is better. Portobello Belle is great but after 7 minutes it ends too abruptly for me. All seven songs from On The Night are amazing. Rainbow is a pearl.

[herlock]

I actually think that some of the songs from the first 2 albums were best played in the expanded versions of the 1980/81 OL tour.

This is definitely the case for News (an epic and emotional dimension was added with the Hammond organ) and WDYTYRG in 1981 (the added crying guitar solo is gorgeous).

For Lions, the change of rythm is contreversal. I like it a lot in both versions. For the end solo, the earlier versions are definitely better, it is going to nowhere in 80/81...

For DTTW, this is a draw. OL tour versions are more suitable to big arenas with the keyboard, and in 81 (not 80) the piano in the end is a nice touch, but I feel that when David left the groove he had on rythm guitar was not well replaced by Hal, at least on this song...
Angel of Mercy is drastically different in the OL tour, but so good!

For In the gallery and Single Handed Sailor, the changes are so drastic that I tend to prefer the original versions...

For Sultans, OUATITW, Portobello Belle, Solid Rock... OL versions didn't age well, the keyboards are so crude, better listen to earlier or latter versions IMHO.

[Brunno Nunes]

This is for those who have watched the BBC ARENA documentary many, many times, that long speech by Mark before starting Down to the Waterline present in the video, where he says they will play new things tonight... listening to the audio from the Rainbow Theater 79 available now, we can see where this line comes from, in fact it is quoted at the moment the song Six Blade Knife ends, just before starting Once Upon a Time in the West, and not in Down to the Waterline, but whoever edited it The video made this montage to look like this for the TV show.

Still on the BBC ARENA video, there is a short scene in the song Les Boys where it shows David playing the entire time with a Sunburst Telecaster, (his main guitar during this period, he uses in all songs in the band's video live at the Rainbow Theatre, present at the BBC Arena), but there is a short scene in the same song which shows David using his black Thiline model Telecaster that he used for Wild West End and Portobello Belle, this was an editing error, but which reveals that more songs were filmed at the Rainbow Theater 79, in addition to those present at the BBC Arena. Who knows, maybe they'll dig deeper and find more interesting recordings, it's possible that complete footage of the show exists, that would be unbelievable, seeing Setting me Up, Southbound Again, or Portobello Belle live, it would be chilling...

[herlock]

This is for those who have watched the BBC ARENA documentary many, many times, that long speech by Mark before starting Down to the Waterline present in the video, where he says they will play new things tonight... listening to the audio from the Rainbow Theater 79 available now, we can see where this line comes from, in fact it is quoted at the moment the song Six Blade Knife ends, just before starting Once Upon a Time in the West, and not in Down to the Waterline, but whoever edited it The video made this montage to look like this for the TV show.

Still on the BBC ARENA video, there is a short scene in the song Les Boys where it shows David playing the entire time with a Sunburst Telecaster, (his main guitar during this period, he uses in all songs in the band's video live at the Rainbow Theatre, present at the BBC Arena), but there is a short scene in the same song which shows David using his black Thiline model Telecaster that he used for Wild West End and Portobello Belle, this was an editing error, but which reveals that more songs were filmed at the Rainbow Theater 79, in addition to those present at the BBC Arena. Who knows, maybe they'll dig deeper and find more interesting recordings, it's possible that complete footage of the show exists, that would be unbelievable, seeing Setting me Up, Southbound Again, or Portobello Belle live, it would be chilling...

Yes, it would be chilling indeed!
Regarding Mark's speech, I could not reconcile it fully. On the video Mark says "You just call them [the songs]. We'll try and play them". This is not on the Rainbow release, so where does this line come from? Besides, it so unlike Mark to welcome songs requests by the audience...

[herlock]

Also i have never liked the guitar sound from live at the bbc

You mean the bass sound? Too high in the mix... As if John had been doing the mix...

[Brunno Nunes]

This is for those who have watched the BBC ARENA documentary many, many times, that long speech by Mark before starting Down to the Waterline present in the video, where he says they will play new things tonight... listening to the audio from the Rainbow Theater 79 available now, we can see where this line comes from, in fact it is quoted at the moment the song Six Blade Knife ends, just before starting Once Upon a Time in the West, and not in Down to the Waterline, but whoever edited it The video made this montage to look like this for the TV show.

Still on the BBC ARENA video, there is a short scene in the song Les Boys where it shows David playing the entire time with a Sunburst Telecaster, (his main guitar during this period, he uses in all songs in the band's video live at the Rainbow Theatre, present at the BBC Arena), but there is a short scene in the same song which shows David using his black Thiline model Telecaster that he used for Wild West End and Portobello Belle, this was an editing error, but which reveals that more songs were filmed at the Rainbow Theater 79, in addition to those present at the BBC Arena. Who knows, maybe they'll dig deeper and find more interesting recordings, it's possible that complete footage of the show exists, that would be unbelievable, seeing Setting me Up, Southbound Again, or Portobello Belle live, it would be chilling...

Yes, it would be chilling indeed!
Regarding Mark's speech, I could not reconcile it fully. On the video Mark says "You just call them [the songs]. We'll try and play them". This is not on the Rainbow release, so where does this line come from? Besides, it so unlike Mark to welcome songs requests by the audience...

The speech between 5:22 and 5:36 in the audio of Six Blade Knife at Rainbow Theater 79, they used this speech and put it in the introduction to Down to the Waterline in the video for the BBC Arena program. The part where he quotes in the video "You just call them [the songs]. We'll try and play them" is strangely nowhere in the box.

[Brunno Nunes]

Trying to understand what happened that the tempo of some songs is different in this Box, I'm referring to Alchem, for example, Once Upon a Time in the West in the old version present on Deezer it contains 13:00 min, in the box it is 12:47 , where did those 13 seconds go? Does the remastering process cause this? Did you make some cuts in bars of the song...?

R&J old release with 8:15 min, in the box 8:11, in TOL we already know what happens, in TR old release with 13:37 min, in the box 12:55 min, a big time disparity here, SL old release has 6:01 min, in the box 5:34 min, another considerable disparity, GH old release 6:05 min, in the box 5:05 min, (minus 1 min.)
Weird stuff...

[Robson]

aLCHEMY A.D. 2023 is a little quieter than previous versions.

[herlock]

Trying to understand what happened that the tempo of some songs is different in this Box, I'm referring to Alchem, for example, Once Upon a Time in the West in the old version present on Deezer it contains 13:00 min, in the box it is 12:47 , where did those 13 seconds go? Does the remastering process cause this? Did you make some cuts in bars of the song...?

R&J old release with 8:15 min, in the box 8:11, in TOL we already know what happens, in TR old release with 13:37 min, in the box 12:55 min, a big time disparity here, SL old release has 6:01 min, in the box 5:34 min, another considerable disparity, GH old release 6:05 min, in the box 5:05 min, (minus 1 min.)
Weird stuff...

The Alchemy original album contains a lot of clapping (e.g. on both sides of TR), SR clapping was also shortened in the end in 2023 to make an artifical transition to TR, at the expense of a "Thank you!", strange) and also some weird transitions: in OUATITW you can hear a bit of the the begenning of ID (this explains your 13 seconds), In EL you can hear quite a fair bit of the end of ID, and in TOL you can hear quite a bit of the end of PB. As ID and PB were not released, this was kind of strange. The new releases makes things more logical, with 2 small and 1 big screw-up:
- R&J has a "thank you" at the beginning that is nowhere to be found.
-TOL is missing a few seconds of intro, before Mel's sax is kicking.
-And most importantly, GH is missing the whole intro (The rock and the thunder), this is a whole minute less and this is unforgivable. As if the vynil (rather than CD) master was used by Guy!

Also, this is lost opportunity to reuse the excellent 2010 mix from Chunk Ainlay, and to restore Mark's speeches in TOL intro and in GH. Shame!

[dmg]

Also i have never liked the guitar sound from live at the bbc

A real bug bear of mine too.  Very unfortunate as it means I really don't listen to it due to this.

________________

Now my thoughts on the box set.  Something that hasn't been covered so far is the improvement to Mark's vocals in the OTN part of the box.  It now doesn't have that horrible over-processed sound and is more natural and organic.  TYL wasn't something I was particularly looking forward to but after hearing it it is a nice surprise.  OES has a good improvement.  ITILYTM, WICTY and FTB are great to have in soundboard at long last.  TOL and TR were never my favourite versions on this tour I'm afraid.  I had just longed for something from the BIA tour, but overall very happy.

[herlock]

Also i have never liked the guitar sound from live at the bbc

A real bug bear of mine too.  Very unfortunate as it means I really don't listen to it due to this.

________________

Now my thoughts on the box set.  Something that hasn't been covered so far is the improvement to Mark's vocals in the OTN part of the box.  It now doesn't have that horrible over-processed sound and is more natural and organic.  TYL wasn't something I was particularly looking forward to but after hearing it it is a nice surprise.  OES has a good improvement.  ITILYTM, WICTY and FTB are great to have in soundboard at long last.  TOL and TR were never my favourite versions on this tour I'm afraid.  I had just longed for something from the BIA tour, but overall very happy.

When you say OES, you mean the tour, not the song? I dont' think Guy touched the original OTN songs?

[Rolo]

Also i have never liked the guitar sound from live at the bbc

BBC has a HUGE tone. I love it.
A bit more saturated than the usual, but its ALIVE.

[Brunno Nunes]

Also i have never liked the guitar sound from live at the bbc

BBC has a HUGE tone. I love it.
A bit more saturated than the usual, but its ALIVE.

This sound is precious and lasted for a short period of time, between May and August 78, as Rolo knows, during that period the band still didn't use Musicmans, here they were Fender and Marshalls cabinets, this influenced the more saturated tone..

[Chris W]

NOT the way Sultans should have been played ?
Did you tell Mark during the tour or is it just a thought 30 years later ?

In the 90's I had a style that was based on the top American drummers of the time - Omar Hakim, Jeff Porcaro, Andy Newark. Simple, solid, confident.
My playing on Sultans was exacerbated by Mark telling me to play very hard during the show. Then after a few shows we brought in the small kit and I had to sit directly in front of Mark's guitar cabinets. So it was deafening.
Anyway - not '30 years later', when music tastes changed (late 90's) and a lot of popular music used drum loops from vintage vinyl, I discovered the value of playing much quieter, as many drummers had done in the 60's and 70's. That was when I thought I wished I had played Sultans lighter - like Pick. Pick came out of that lighter playing tradition of the 60's and 70's drummers.