As has already been noted the live show is not exactly a high fidelity affair. It seems ridiculously shortsighted that these big bands and their record companies who were generating millions in 1970s currency didn't bother to record at least 6-10 shows from each tour in professional quality sound for posterity.
Agree but these were the days... At least, JT are releasing some of their live stuff. Some others won’t for whatever reasons (Led Zep, Pink Floyd, etc).
Different times. You've got to remember that for a long long time Live albums were considered second rate fare. It just wasn't seen as being very important. Heck, there were times when old recordings were largely forgotten. Extensive back catalogs weren't a thing. It's only now - well over the last decade or so - that the industry has cared about such things. Easy to think now - if only!
according to who lol. The studio collection of Stormwatch remix is every bit as good as Aqualung and Thick. Warchild, horses and songs pretty similar too
Professional recording and filming would have been great for so many classic acts...but we didn't even have VCR back then. Also, record companies didn't want to invest in such a thing.
Well, plenty of fans are glad that Fripp, Zappa, and the Dead made the investment. And Miles fans too. But most of the other prog bands didn't record many shows in good sound.
My little tribute to Elegy. Working on a couple others, also updating my Home video to feature the new mix, but still cannot decide on which Orion I should do?
I'll be interested to see if any of the Burning Shed customers on this forum receive the hand-signed card from Ian Anderson.
I'm hoping but the promised "Jethro Tull Beer Mats"will be a nice consolation prize.Actually the best consolation prize will be getting to hear it.
He sounds a little robotic, doesn't he? Totally lacking any kind of emotion. A little strange. It's a nicely done video, but the presentation from the speaker is off.
The box finally reached my mailbox today with a couple of extra goodies inside. Busy weekend in sight.
King Crimson made a pretty great effort at times. Some of the open reel recorded archival releases are amazing, and there is a lot of it. They had a motivation though, at least for Starless and Bible Black - since they were basically recording a new album on the road via the performances. Dead did it out of their own initiative and pockets. I think the key connection between all these acts is an extensive amount of improv and variation between shows. You never knew what would happen (nor did the band), so yeah you want to capture it all on tape just in case. With Tull, they were basically recreating the exact same show and experience night after night, city after city, right down to Ian’s jokes and quips. Definitely would have made less sense to record everything in high quality.
As I said early, at the least a handful of shows from each tour professionally recorded would have provided some quality archives for posterity. And now that the future has arrived they have had to resort to live recordings of dubious fidelity for the anniversary re-issues.
My Burning Shed preorder finally arrived today. (No signature on my postcard.) I've listened to the whole thing and I'm importing chunks of it into iTunes as I type this. I really like it! I won't attempt any kind of track-by-track review. With regard to the live discs, they definitely don't sound great, but they don't sound as bad as the worst reports have indicated. The vocal sounds weird and trebly on "Dark Ages," but it sounds to me that's because of some kind of effect on Ian's microphone rather than noise reduction, because other vocals don't sound like that. The performance makes up for deficiencies in the sound, but it's a little sad that the classic lineup fizzled out just a few weeks after this concert. I recently read the Ballad of Jethro Tull book, and John, Barrie and Dee all say that they were really unhappy by 1980, so it doesn't look like that lineup would have carried on even if the notorious Melody Maker article hadn't reported that they had been fired. I haven't read all of the Stormwatch book yet, but they make it clear that the Anderson/Palmer collaboration The River's Edge was never professionally recorded, which explains its omission which some have lamented. Now to print up some cover art for the fatboy jewel case. (CDs go upstairs on the CD shelf, DVDs stay in the books downstairs where the TV is.)
Nothing dubious about it. It was prefesionally recorded for a radio broadcast. Despite it’s rough edges it sounds more exciting, to me, than any of the other dull sounding live shows that have been part of the book series. For duboiusly recorded official live albums (that wasn’t even an archival release) seek out Earthbound by King Crimson. But i’d like to know what shows that were pro recorded, for which tapes exsists, in good condition, that is in Ians archive?
