Before The Dawn With Kate Bush To Get Digital Audio,CD, & LP Release In December

I don't recall noticing Berties backingvocals that clearly at the concert I attended. Must have been brought forward at the mixing stage?

 

Thanks for sharing, "The Morning Fog" makes me tearful as well.
I find the whole album extremely emotional it must have been very special to have been there.
Thank goodness passionate fans like yourselves got tickets.
I'm going to post a list of all the tracks with the studio album next to the track in the next few days for anyone (like me) who is still trying to wrap their mind around this masterpiece.

 

Well, back in the 60's a certain Paul McCartney used to have one

 

Yeah, right about the audience. They were actually very nice, respectful people. During the intermission when I was having a smoke in front of the Hammersmith this visibly intoxicated woman broke down and everybody rushed to help her. Now I have no idea why anybody would get wasted during a once in a lifetime event but I've seen people snarling at intoxicated people at other concerts. Not here.

 

It was George in '64 but maybe Paul had one too!

 

Picked up my vinyl copy today, extremely nice looking set but... my girlfriend told me not to play it without her. So until the next weekend this is all "Before The Dawn" is going to be: An extremely nice looking set

 

Nice

 

Or 1/2 a 1-Step.

Yes, he did.

 

I'm sure it was. He was the least experienced person on that stage by a decade or two, and I'm sure his mum didn't want him to embarrass himself during the show, he really did harmonize well enough to be brought forward.

A couple of things that didn't work as well as on the original record:

These background singer are great, but they'll never be the Trio Bulgarka.

I didn't like David Rhodes's guitar solo on Aerial. It was drenched in echo, and it just didn't work. Kate's husband Dan Macintosh's original was a thing of beauty, right up there with anything by Skunk Baxter.

 

I would agree with this.

 

I wonder if the LP is going to become a demo disc at trade shows like CES? Lord knows they need some new ones - if I ever have to hear Flim and the BBs again, I'll have to shoot someone. Probably only with firms demonstrating subs.

 

I had to wait until last night until I could hear it with my wife/fellow Kate Fan. You're lucky to have a "significant other" who enjoys Kate. One of my ex-girlfriends just couldn't stand her voice.

 

I knew George did...

 

Your girlfriend or the record?

 

I hear you, and am trying not to get upset by your assessment of my gear (although, only on forums like this could nearly £2k worth of stuff be "budget" - my mates think I'm insane for not buying a new turntable with built-in speakers from the supermarket...)

This begs the question though, if a record can only sound ok on £10K worth of gear, is that ok? How many people that buy it will have access to that kind of gear? Won't 95% of the buyers think it's defective?

Anyway, I need to listen to it again and see if I notice any difference with the CD. I very much enjoyed the experience with my vinyl box set anyway, regardless of this. It's a thing of beauty!

 

I've listened to the whole of it a few times now, both via digital download and on vinyl. Not only is it one of the best releases of the year (along with Blackstar of course), it might be in my top-3 live albums of all time. I still don't think the bass is overwhelming, but my amp is relatively neutral with no eq tone knobs, so it just about sounds perfect. When I turn it up and close my eyes I'm brought back to that weekend in September 2014 when a friend and I took a three-day weekend and flew to London and back to catch Before the Dawn.

I'll admit, I don't love the "radio drama" presentation of The Ninth Wave vs leaving the audience noise intact, but that's only because the rest of it sounds so damn accurate to how it sounded in the Hammersmith, at least where I was sitting, center balcony two rows up.

 

Just finished listening to this on vinyl and on my system I can totally hear the audience singalong loudly in the mix. In fact, it gets louder throughout the track.

 

Thank you for taking it in the spirit in which it was intended.

Nobody's needle is jumping, so it's not so bad that the company needs to do it over. But you read how many wish the lower end wasn't so overpowering. It was a somewhat common complaint on the Cream live vinyl.

I'm reading it about both the CD and the vinyl of BFD (though more for the former). If enough people thought it absolutely sucked and Concord Records got enough complaints, perhaps they would do it over. The record company responsible for Raising Sand did a redo of the vinyl, the Jimmy Page/Alison Krauss collaboration.

I think the question is whether these BFD releases are acceptable enough. They certainly are big and dynamic. They were geared to sound better on better systems and not on audio challenged systems.

I haven't yet read a review from an audiophile oriented reviewer such as Michael Fremer or Art Dudley. I'd be curious as to how these sound on very high end, full frequency systems.

 

I've never been a "golden ear" - I'd rather spend my money on more music than trying to reproduce the music I already own better.

But I used to have a housemate who was. I met Tim when he was buying multiple copies of UK imports of Kate albums, seeking to build a clean set of sides. He'd experiment with different VTA adjustments, writing down which angles worked best on which LP. He was constantly modifying his pre-amp, amp and Magnipan Tympani speakers.

He loved Kate's music, and said many times that great audio quality was there in the grooves, but that you might have to work a bit to extract it.

 

I'm not hearing any issue's with the bass on this, sounds good to me. I'm also using a 2M Blue but on a Rega Planar 3 with Marantz pm5005 via a Cambridge Audio phono preamp. However, as soon as I switched headphones from the Q701's to the Senn 598SE's it just fell apart - these normally sound good to my ears (I know they are not top end cans by any means) but this was night and day difference. The Q701's are I believe known as being quite flat and I always disable or set to zero any tone/bass controls (unless on my HT system using Audyssey). I'm using a Schiit Asgard 2 headphone amp.

 

Ariel was a disastrous pressing. I had three copies from Amazon and managed to cobble one clean copy from those. Issues with audible marks on vinyl and a double label on one disc. Keeping any sealed or buying a sealed copy is very risky with a high chance of it being a dud. Baffled why the catalogue hasn't had a vinyl reissue apart from the two AF titles. Kate's control of her work is indeed bizarre and unfathomable.

 

A thought on the question of a blu ray/dvd....

What I would enjoy, would be an excerpts from type release, just cut out the in between bits and have a great collection of the main tracks in surround sound, that way she could edit to her hearts content without trying to capture the whole experience (and we won't need to listen to the naff bits...)

 

I've had another listen on the headphones, cranked up loud, and yes I can hear them but it's not prominent - sounds mostly like the backing singers to me though. That said though that last listen was literally giving me goosebumps, not sure why as I don't normally react that way. This album will need many relistens I think, so much to love and hate about it so far and my opinion is constantly changing.

 

I need to decide whether to keep my copy of the CD (which means an exchange for a copy that didn't get its CD sleeve crushed in transit), or return it for a refund. I'm likely to get the vinyl anyway. The CD cost me $17.60. But I have a feeling that once I get the vinyl, I'll rarely, if ever, play the CD again. $17.60 is a decent deal for the CD, but only if I play it.

 

What I've noticed about the music is that it breathes! The music wasn't managed to every nano second which allowed the human to shine through. I love it. It sounds fantastic too. Are people having trouble tracking the records?