Thank you for this. I've been wondering why there has been such scant attention paid to 'The Rising' tour... this would explain it... Tragic stuff. I saw that tour in Kansas City and feel like the Helsinki show was a weak representation of what was a fabulous tour.
Listening now. The sound is pretty muffled during the louder sections, I can't see them officially releasing this. Back in my early boot collecting days, this would have been considered great!
I read that some of the folks involved with this release feel that they missed the mark in that there's too much noise reduction so it wouldn't surprise me to see a subsequent release of this same show from these guys. If you remember the Great Dane bootlegs from the late '80s and early '90s, I guess it would be akin to their M+ editions.
Tempe 11/05/80, Passaic 09/20/78, Detroit 03/28/88 and New Jersey 08/20/84 Am I missing any other above-average sounding mixes in this archival series so far? Would love you read people’s opinions on this topic.
IMHO you can add the just released Philly 99 to that list. A great mix with a good separation of instruments and you can hear the audience clearly.
I tend to agree with your perception. Discussing the sound quality of the archive releases on the Backstreets forum is an exercise in futility. A segment of the fan base posting to that forum cannot explain the difference between a soundboard and a multi-track recording. Similarly, many seem to be unable to explain the difference between mixing and mastering. It's virtually impossible to try to explain headroom to that crowd and some tune out the instant the word "brickwall" is uttered. At least in my personal experience, any attempt to express reservations about modern mastering techniques is likely to be met with snark. My impression, especially from hanging out in that forum, is that audiophiles are summarily dismissed by the general public as elitist malcontents. If it's the case that most people don't care about sound quality and "louder-is-better" so that the music can compete with car engines, wind, and road noise, why not employ a tiered strategy in which the MP3 and My Stash streaming versions utilize the brickwalled masters while the higher resolution formats employ more sensible mastering (like what Tom Petty did with his recent An American Treasure box set)? As an aside, while I also cannot argue against the "I used to pay a fortune for terrible sounding field recordings..." comments, beating the bootleg should not be the barometer by which the series is judged. This series is, at least in some cases, memorializing legendary performances that deserve a standard of care that they're not receiving.
I actually stopped posting on BTX for a while because I was getting called a liar and making a big deal over nothing when I would comment on the mastering issues and how some of these releases were causing me pain personally when listening to certain shows (Roxy 78) for any length of time. I even got PMs from members cussing me out, calling me fake and to stop spreading lies and falsehoods since (they) had no problems so it must not be true. That I was just complaining over nothing and the issue didn't exist. Now while I have made a few posts since, I am not gonna get into debates or go back and forth with ignorant members over there who refuse to accept that people experience things differently and if they personally don't experience it then it must not exist. While some members here will debate the issue or just say they don't notice it so it doesn't bother them but I have never been attacked personally like I was there. Pretty sad as I do like the site and do enjoy it most of the time.
It is what it is. Ask anyone who have an old CD of the Live 75/85 set to play it at a loud listening level of their choice. Then compare it with a download of for example Roxy 1978 on the same rig, at the same volume. I don't know if that would help though, they probably just turn it down and don't get it. My point being. You can rock the Live 75/85 set really loud and it's not getting annoying. I would love to play Roxy '78 as loud but it's not as pleasing.
I actually used that exact example when trying to explain. Believe it or not some complained that Live 75-85 was too soft and needed to be turned up too much to be listenable. Frustrating. I can understand people not hearing it the same. What I cannot stand is people dismissing when they are told in black and white that others are not experiencing the same thing as them. Can you imagine calling someone who is color blind a liar just because you have no such issues? No different. People's ears work differently and when someone says something is an issue, listen to them even if you don't have that issue.
All I hear is complaining, but fact of the matter is that there are exceptions to this series, shows that actually do sound quite good and I’m not even including the excellent Clearmountain mixes.
I hope that will be a lesson for you to never be involved in a fan forum again. The dumb sheeplike mentality of these forums / facebook pages is unbearable for me.
Those shows have been praised many many times. The shows that sound good does not dismiss or excuse those that do not.
I did not know that. Thanks! This release has kicked the sentimentality into high gear. So, I became a massive Bruce fan around 1997-98. It wasn't a 'cool' thing to do at that time, but I dived headlong into the obsession. More than two decades later it's still going strong. Back in the late 90s, I was a student with no friends close by, so I spent my time online in message groups around the time of the reunion tour (rec.music.artists.springsteen was the main one, I think), and I'd follow along with these shows as the setlists would creep out post by post. Every show was an exercise of "what song will he bring out tonight" and discussions of what songs would be best suited to pre-and-post the "five spot" (Youngstown thru 10th Ave). I can still remember this show from that standpoint. Show started and there it was: INCIDENT ON 57TH STREET then (later on) NYC SERENADE About two weeks later, I'd get an awful sounding bootleg copy of the show sent to me by some guy in Sydney who got it off a guy in NJ. I'd print off bootleg covers and treasure the show, sound quality and all. Just on this release, and I know this is a forum named after an outstanding engineer, but my ears aren't as finely tuned as some, so I don't tend to involve myself in discussions regarding the details of sound quality. So, getting these shows from the Reunion tour might not be too exciting as others from the archive, but having these shows in this sound quality is fantastic, especially to the teenage kid from 20+ years ago who settled for anything.
The Reunion tour was my last go-round buying Brucelegs. I remember one in particular, highly recommended by the posters at rec.music.artists.springsteen; I think it was from what was then called the Fleet Center in Boston. The hook was that it was recorded directly off the venue's assistive listening system & supposedly had perfect, crystalline sound. Saw it for 45 bucks (3 discs) on a trip to Greenwich Village & couldn't wait to listen to it back home in Philly. Well, it was crystalline, all right — it was like Bruce shouting in your ear for 3 hours! Goodbye, 45 bucks (closer to $50 with tax). At that point, I switched to trading CDR's with folks on RMAS. That said, I'm also old enough to remember buying plain white label vinyl boots back in high school in the 1970s, which was almost always a caveat emptor situation. So, yes, this teenage kid from 40+ years ago definitely understands your teenage kid from 20+ years ago.
That same Boston '99 ALD-sourced recording, Crystal Cat's Boston Night, was the last "silver disc" I purchased as well. By the end of '99, snail mail CD-R trading enabled me to inexpensively amass a larger collection and, by the launch of the Magic tour, I had fully embraced file sharing, which, for better or worse, was like giving a kid the key to the candy store.
Yep. While there were definitely a few a-holes on RMAS and rec.music.dylan, there were also some incredibly generous people (shoutout to St. Clair Steve on RMAS). On several occasions, I negotiated a CDR trade, then received a parcel containing the agreed-upon discs plus a bonus disc or two, with a note from the sender saying something along the lines of "You just gotta hear this!" Good times.
A bit OT, but if you get a chance, listen to last weeks Sirius show with Bruce, Steve and Southside Johnny. Enormously entertaining.
Disappointed by the 9th July 1981show, East Rutherford. The Bruce 's voice was in bad shape, terribly hoarse. Not among the better River shows in my opinion.
Same with the Roxy '75 show. Not a really a problem for me though. I take the classic E Street Band with Steve anyday over anything that came later
Skipped it for the same reason. FWIW, I actually think the released Wembley show is even better than the New Year's Nassau show performance-wise (and yes, the mix and mastering is better too). In terms of The River tour, between the New Year's show, the Tempe show on Blu-Ray or DVD, and the Wembley show that's been released, most listeners can safely skip the 12/29 show with the out-of-tune piano and the July 9, 1981 show at East Rutherford, they're more for original attendees and die-hard collectors. (Helps that "Jersey Girl," one of the highlights of the 7/9/81 show, has already been officially released elsewhere.)
