Beatles "Live at the Hollywood Bowl" out on CD 9/9/16, Vinyl on 11/18/16 *

The Beatles performed IWTHYH just fine, the Washington performance is hot!

 

I had one of those boots at the time and for those who complain about the '76 or the current release, you would not have believed what was on that boot. One of the lowest fidelity records I have ever owned and ditched. Pure wall of mud sound.

 

Holy hell are the boys on fire here! Just picked up the vinyl reissue today and I'm super impressed. Very nice quality packaging, and besides a very slight edge warp, the LP is flawless. CD silent and really thick and heavy, is this 200 gram?

Really happy I picked this up.

 

But they could do it when things were right. I'm thinking when they could actually hear themselves sing and play:

 

*bump*

 

I know I'm late to the party, but I'm just listening to this now for the first time ever (having not seen the film) on vinyl and all I can say is wow. The pressing is quiet. The performances are electric. The sound quality is enough to feel like you're there ... maybe not in the front row but definitely in the Bowl. The music is good ole rock and roll. It's amazing to think these guys were around 22 when they made this. Wouldn't a reunion tour in modern times have been epic?

 

I have never heard a re-union performance by any group where they sounded better or played with more enthusiasm than when the band was fresh, new and hungry. In my opinion, any reunion tour would have been an event, but it wouldn't have been epic. But...at least the audience would have been able to hear the music.

 

As the buzz from "Eight Days A Week" and "Hollywood Bowl" die down, it is now February, if we are to get a summer "Sgt. Pepper" type 50th anniversary box I would assume some announcement by April would be necessary?

So far for this year we have:

George Harrison vinyl box set-February 24th-confirmed
Paul McCartney "Flowers in the Dirt" box set-March 24th-confirmed
Paul-2017 new studio album-June-unconfirmed
Ringo-2017 new studio album-TBA- unconfirmed

Plenty of room in there for a "Pepper" or some kind of "1967" box set-include some MMT material!

 

The only anniversary box for Pepper I want to see is a MFSL one step box.

 

Grab the CD and play it in your car and you will hear the difference......

 

thank goodness decca turned them down. the beatles as we know them would not have existed

 

The Cream reunion certainly wasn't epic. I went to one of the shows at the Garden in 2005. While it was very enjoyable, the fire wasnt there, in my opinion. Can you blame them? They were in their sixties at the time.

 

Just to qualify. I'm sure others will disagree with me.

 

Yes, that was my point. Part of Cream's appeal to me was it was new and different. 50 years later, it isn't new it is more like nostalgia.

Some people keep wanting a reunion, but one of the smartest things the Beatles did was NOT reunite once they had broken up. I think some folks want to re-capture their youth, but it never works. Not only have the band members aged and changed through their lives, but the audience has too. People always have the Paul and Ringo concerts if they want a Beatle live song fix, but those don't pretend to be a Beatles concert.

 

Agreed. Again, I'm sure people will disagree, but the Anthology reunion tracks didn't really work for me. Perhaps too much Jeff Lynne for my liking. They weren't the strongest songs either.

 

Based on what I saw of the DVD that was released from that tour, I somewhat agree with you. All I could think of while watching it, was that -- back in the day -- Clapton couldn't get away from those two quick enough, and he had gone on to have a 40+ year solo career afterwards. It was almost like he was doing them a favor (maybe they needed the money). I am not sure if that was really the case, but that was my overriding thought.

 

The Beatles were energetic but they were also introspective. Since they didn't tour once they got super big, and then they broke up, I think if all 4 revisited making music together they may have made some interesting music together. Especially after all living full lives.

I saw McCartney a few years ago and the dude was like a lightening bolt. Best concert ever.

 

I'm pretty sure I read that that WAS the case - Jack Bruce was coming from years of liver disease and finally a transplant, and Baker always had money problems. I think Clapton was being generous, plus he knew this was probably the last opportunity. I saw one of the London shows, and it was very exciting to be there, but in listening back to the audio and video recordings, the fire had definitely cooled. It felt enough like Cream to be very enjoyable, yet it didn't really feel quite like Cream. The choice of instrument sounds (Clapton's Stratocaster+Fender amp, and Bruce's muddy indistinct bass tone) was one factor, but even more than that, they didn't really bounce off of and react to each other in the way they used to when they played together all the time.

 

No need to quote me twice!
I agree with what much of what you've said. I think if the four had reunited in the 1970's they may have made some interesting music together. No disagreement there. But my comment was specifically answering your previous post about a reunion tour (live performance) being epic.

Anything related to a reunion by the Beatles would have been big news and a big event. I just don't think a live Beatles tour would have been all that epic in terms of our expectations vs their actual performance.

The Beatles certainly were "super big" in 1964, 1965 and 1966, certainly in terms of popularity in the news, in films, at concerts, with fans and in record sales too. Selling out 54+ thousand seats at Shea Stadium isn't considered "super big"?

And yes, McCartney puts on a good concert. We don't have any examples of solo McCartney concerts in his early years to compare it to, but what I wouldn't give to have seen him in his "hungry" years smashing through a stage in Hamburg or performing at Litherland Town Hall.

 

Excellent post! Thanks!

 

Is there information about counterfeits for this? I have just received one from a thir-party Amazon seller and the impression, quality of paper, etc seem completely off.

 

I haven't seen reports of counterfeits, but I can tell you the packaging quality of the one I bought on the day of release has very high quality packaging (both paper stock and printing) that's on a par with the 2009 remasters.

 

Did it come from China?

 

Care to post a photo or two?

 

I don't know how to post photos, sorry. But if printing quality of an original is as high quality as Clark V Kauffman said (on par with the 2009 remasters), I have a counterfeit for sure. The quality of the paper of the booklet and the digipack is worse, the colours are faded, the reproduction of photos is blurry. And most of all, there is some blue tint on the booklet from being inside the digipack. The CD looks OK, but it doesn't have the Universal logo in the runout matrix area.

I didn't buy it from a Chinese seller, but there are some European sellers that import Chinese counterfeits. You can't be sure these days. I'm returning it.