The Band - Stage Fright 50th Anniversary- Remixed, Remastered And Expanded*

I just opened up the 2/CD last night. Stage Fright is the same old Stage Fright. The track order I could care less about; I do like the SQ. Unlike most, I really do like Stage Fright and Cahoots as much as the first two.

The star of the show is disc 2. I never did care for "The Last Waltz" or "Rock of Ages". In my mind after enough overdubbing it kind of becomes fake. I was never inspired very much by the performances on Rock of Ages. I was not a fan of the horns.

The Albert Hall show is great. Levon is growling out the songs and the vocal interplay between Rick and Levon is outstanding. I'm doubtful that any cover band could come close to recreating it. This would make a great introduction to The Band for someone that doesn't have any. A great live show and a greatest hits package rolled into one. I was possibly hoping for a couple jams but you won't get it. The Band was not the Grateful Dead or the Allman Brothers. Not a lot of guitar or guitar solos. It was about the songs. If your on the fence, buy it, they never sounded better!

 

I don't know if it's due to the new remix of the title track but I keep thinking "Doctor My Eyes" while listening to it. I know which came first but it still seems a strange connection I hear!

 

It is fantastic live - it sounds awesome on Live At The Academy Of Music

 

Still a relatively new fan, but for me that's the live recording to beat.

 

Just received the two-disc set, and love the (ragged, ferocious, majestic) live disc. Why did they not release it way back when?

I'm listening to the remixed/reordered Stage Fright (my personal favorite Band album), and while I'm not a fan of it all, (as of right now) I do like the mixes for "The Shape I'm In", "Stage Fright" and "Time To Kill", and particularly appreciate the alternate mix of "Sleeping". It seems like a kind, deserving gesture to give Richard Manuel the spotlight in that way.

Long live The Band!

 

I like remixes, and in theory, but seem like they are a mixed bag of results. So far by and large, this stereo remix kind of solidifies my way of thinking that Stage Fright at worst is just a really solid album of songs and performances and at best is also yet another unique and terrific Band album? Not really a weak track on it, imo. While cast in the shadow of the previous pair of Band records, it stands on its own as a strong album, imo. I can't wait to hear it again. I think I made it thru almost 2 consecutive listens before getting interrupted near the end of the 2nd listen.

The only remixed track that sounded underwhelming to me or didn't seem to gel, on a few listens, was Strawberry Wine. I'm not sure why. Firstly I guess it reminds me some of Don't Ya Tell Henry and secondly the remix didn't sound to me like it was cookin' on all burners. Will give it another listen and hope my opinion changes for the better.

 

Indeed. I really didn't like this quote at all.

For me there is just no replacing The Rumor at the end. It's something I can't really substitute in my mind, and I enjoy Sleeping.

I don't think Sleeping is terrible at the end, and I feel like the new order is okay, it just seems mostly pointless to me. Strawberry Wine does not really very good where it is now, and I think the order needed an additional 2 or 3 songs to fill out and complete the end. Oh well.

 

"Stage Fright needs just one cut to really shake things up" wrote Dave Marsh back in 1970. After half a century Bob Clearmountain has shaken it. Instead of adding a track he's spiked the old ones. The barbed sound gives Stage Fright a liveliness that wasn't present in the overly careful sound of the original. In the remix's first half what grabs my ear are the enhanced sounds of Hudson's keyboards--their glorious weirdness really comes through--and Helm's drums, which I can only describe with the sort of adjectives used for a fresh salad: crunchy, crackling, crisp (you get the idea). In the second half Robertson's guitar gains prominence, spicing up the softer and/or less prominent songs. The overall result is a more muscular and powerful album.

The re-sequencing is also a triumph and consistently better than the old running order. "Strawberry Wine" never had any business as the opener, and following it with "Sleeping" tended to lull the listener. The new order frontloads the album's best songs and ends with the gentler songs. You start off by partying with W.S. Walcott and end with blissful sleep. Before hearing the 2021 version I wasn't sure about removing "The Rumor" from the end. It seemed like a natural closer because of the line "It's a-comin', a brand new day." But I came to the realization that was also the most facile and least convincing part of the song, and it belies the overall mood of the record. With "Sleeping" as the closer the final line of the album is "Why would we want to come back at all?" This seems more appropriate in its repudiation of the world outside the album, a return to a drugged dreamland of art, and it has an unsettling suggestion of finality.

This release will be my go-to version of Stage Fright from now on. I would have preferred to pay extra for a three disc release that placed the bonus songs and "Slipin' and Slidin'" on an extra CD, leaving the remixed album by itself. The bonus tracks are nothing earthshaking but it is interesting to watch Robertson re-introducing "Get Up Jake" and "W.S. Walcott Medicine Show" to Danko and Manuel. He definitely comes across as bandleader and songwriter here.

 

Well it is his. You’re assuming he means “only his” but we don’t know that for a fact.

 

Does anyone know roughly how this was remixed? Any analog tools (or vintage gear), particularly what compressor Clearmountain used?

 

The more I play the remix the more I enjoy it. And the hotel fly on the wall recordings are charming, I really like them. When this album was first released it was Time To Kill on the radio and that song drew me in to buying the record. I would often play side 2 first to get to the meatier songs. So the new order suits me fine. I love all the songs on this album.

 

my favorite LP is the brown album, and the last remix was great, I LOVED IT, but I've been playing this remix like a madman, Stagefright wants to be my "NEW" favorite band LP

 

Really enjoying the new mix, the revised track listing is much better too imo

 

Agreed. The remix reveals Garth Hudson's "glorious weirdness" beautifully. That's what's left the strongest impression, so far.

Overall, I'm really enjoying this set. But the CD cover art is abominable... a low-budget embarrassment. I do a much better job with my personal limited editions of 001.

 

Greil Marcus weighs in:

The Band, Stage Fright 50th Anniversary (Capitol). For $19.98, you get Stage Fright remixed by Bob Clearmountain to bring out startlingly acute and yet warming accents, with a booklet of photographs, effectively brief liner notes, and Robert Hilburn’s original Los Angeles Times review. There’s a new, deeply more effective track order, supposedly the once-intended arc of the album (opening with the now almost stomping “The W. S. Walcott Medicine Show,” the head-on “The Shape I’m In,” and the spinning “Daniel and the Sacred Harp” instead of the far more modest “Strawberry Wine,” “Sleeping,” and “Time to Kill”). On the same disc there are “Alternate Mixes” of “Strawberry Wine” and “Sleeping” — which are in fact irresistibly rough solo demos, as full of feeling as anything here, the first with Levon Helm on acoustic guitar, the second with Richard Manuel on piano. There are Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko, and Manuel in a hotel room, working out songs and fooling with a few oldies, but what you really hear is friendship, trust, fun — music that doesn’t have to mean anything, that needs no consequences, new songs that could be left off the next album, as the small, glowing “Get Up Jake,” which they try to get twice, was. On a second disc you get a very hot 1971 Albert Hall show — the singing is diminished by a recording that doesn’t approach Rock of Ages or The Last Waltz, but you can ride the music by itself. For $129.96 more, you get that plus a cardboard box that may hold up better than a CD case, a Blu-ray, the revised album as an LP, a 45, a larger-size booklet, and a slipcase of three suitable-for-framings.

I always liked The Godfather Part III, but it wasn’t until last year’s revision — a few cuts, a few scenes transposed, a slightly different ending — that it too felt like a masterpiece, that it escaped the first two movies and spoke in its own voice, told its own story. The burden of the epic hung over the 1990 original, making it seem tacked-on and contrived. The new version lets you watch the film as a chamber movie, or Chekhov as opposed to Verdi, each actor moving around another with small gestures, which now took on affection, fright, foreboding. After Music from Big Pink, full of epic songs, and The Band, an epic in itself (“We could have called it ‘America,’” Robertson once said), Stage Fright could feel constricted, the songs separated from each other, and as mostly a set of solo or separated vocals, diminishing each other — without the community of voices in a single line, or Huey, Dewey, and Louie finishing each other’s sentences. The new version of the album (with what now feels like a nearly religious ending of “The Rumor,” the whole congregation shouting out for the good and the right) says, yes, that’s all true — but step back, and see if a walk down the street might not be just as interesting as climbing a mountain and jumping off. And the remastering of the one epic song here — “Daniel and the Sacred Harp” — brings out a totality in the indecipherable parable of the tune, a great melodic sweep. It was always there — but as an idea, not a body. Now it gets up and runs.

 

Finally listened to the 2 CD version last night, I'm a fan of the first two album's remixed editions that came before this one, I thoroughly enjoyed both of them and haven't gone back to the originals since, but Stage Fright was certainly a mixed bag. I'd say it's about half and half with nothing I liked greatly improving on the original mixes to be worth it, what was worth it is the second disc, possibly their best live album.

 

Interesting.

I did not enjoy the remix of Music From Big Pink. For me, that album comes from a mystical place. Changing the sonic lighting or editing in any way, even ever-so-slightly... it erased the magic, to my ears. I couldn't be objective about it at all.

I was somewhat ambivalent about The Band remix.

I'm enjoying the Stage Fright remix and new sequence immensely. With the combination of Todd Rundgren and Glyn Johns mixes on the original, and The Band's non-participation, I'm more receptive to a fresh take - it feels justified.

I'm still shocked at the crappy purple-tint CD cover art. I mean, if you don't spring the big bucks for the box, Do Not Pass Go! Go Directly To K-Tel City!!!

 

It does look surprisingly cheap. They basically took the crappy version used on the first U.S. CD's and found a way to make it even crappier.

I'm with you on the mixes - there was nothing wrong with the first two LP's, and the new mixes seemed kind of pointless. Not bad if you want a different view, but I just went back to the originals. I'm still on the fence about the new Stage Fright mix but I don't blame them for trying again. It's not a bad mix, and the whole ridiculousness of how it was mixed back then (one set from Johns, two sets from Rundgren) did contribute to the feeling that it was never really finished to anyone's complete satisfaction.

 

A troubled album: three different versions, two different running orders.

The Band "Stage Fright"different mixes questions..

 

Great Stage Fright at Albert Hall, albeit missing the guitar solo coda they added later. Listening to Loving You Is Sweeter, it's apparent that's where they added it from. The former song borrows its signature opening progression from the latter's verses & choruses. And those one-note lead guitar stabs of Robbie's (famously adorning the start of Last Waltz's Stage Fright) appear here on LYISTE. Seems like at some point (maybe when they dropped it from regular rotation?) he transferred his basic lead guitar approach to LYISTE over to Stage Fright. Fully realizing the latter's live potential with that stroke.

Really loving this early performance, though, too.

 

FWIW, the mixes used for the 1990 Capitol CD and the DCC gold CD seem to leave the vocals alone, with very little echo if any. Sometimes they really sound "dead" (pun not intended) like they were recorded in a padded booth. The new mix has a lot more echo, but there's one track where the vocals really stand out - "Sleeping." On the DCC mix (a misnomer, but it'll make things easier to identify it as such) the lead vocals were already pretty upfront, but on the new mix, it pushes Richard up even further and pushes the rest of the band down even more. The vocal is kept pretty dry on both mixes, but the new mix definitely makes it sound more like an "intimate" mix and it makes that track sound all the more poignant.

I just wish there wasn't so much compression on the new mix/mastering. It does sounds like a lot, especially on the first track, whereas the DCC mix sounds a lot more open - it just breathes a lot more while the new CD feels pretty congested in comparison. There are a few moments where the DCC mix can feel like a raw, monitor mix, if that makes any sense, but otherwise the DCC mix does put the album closer to their previous two where the mix was less processed, especially on the self-titled album.

 

I got the 2-CD deluxe edition. Opened it up to rip the first disc. Couldn’t get the disc off the crazy tight spindle. It cracked in half! I’ve never broken a CD before, and I’ve been buying them since 1991.

 

Ditto fwiw. I went back today purposefully fwiw, to the Pink remix and the Brown remix. Stereo. Found them either pointless, lacking, or just so neutral I was disinterested, bored, and as a whole they seemed more like an exercise or un-noteworthy and I felt uninspired or attentive to them, on a visceral level. But not this Stage Fright. This remix plus this concert disc has recast the 3rd album with some panache and afterglow that enhances its legacy, its time, and bellies up more cozily to their heap of praised first 2 records, imo.

 

I almost did the same thing. I finally took the second disc out first and then the first disc loosened up for removal. What a horrible case design.
The Royal Albert disc is incredible - the Band is really on fire.

 

Well said.

Some of the performances on Stage Fright have a great density of instrumentation. I can understand how the mixing was a bit of a challenge back in the day. On the other hand, the mixes on the first two albums sound perfect. I don't need a few extra seconds tacked-on to hear the final breakdown of piano-tinkling. And I did not need to know that The Weight was Take 13. There are very few albums that have such a sacred aura about them. Maybe that perception deserves to be debunked, but personally, I didn't want it debunked.