As everyone else has already posted, these new remixes are really great; Still Life, especially. Packaging pet peeve: it drives me nuts that the cds all have 'Van Der Graaf Generator' at the top, which is all that's visible when they're in their pockets. Hard to go right to a specific disc—not at all user-friendly.
Pawn Hearts has never been my favorite. Have always preferred H to He and Godbluff/SL. Granted I am looking forward to one day hearing this expanded full 5.1 of Plague.
Just listened to Vital again. Such a great live album. The Mastering sounds great! Totally agree there. Wish they would have put text on the cardboard underneath the slots. As a side note for those worried about scratching the CD’s. I purchased a pack of 50 of the rice paper sleeves for CD’s that have the rounded bottoms. Works great and will prevent the discs from getting scratched.
I was aggravated by that too but I'm happy with the audio. They made the right call with the budget they had.
You maybe right on that. It could depend on how much/often a disc is removed and replaced over time to see the effects of the disc being scratched if at all but as a suggestion it won’t hurt to put them in the sleeves that I mentioned for extra safe keeping for anyone who may be concerned about it.
It makes micro scratches clrearly visible under light. Of course they do not affect playback in anyway but it still does not look good.
I noticed a remix of ‘Boat of a Million Years’ on the iTunes version of the set. It comes after the remix of the 2nd album. Is this track on the blu Ray? (It doesn’t show up on the remix CD).
Really in a Top-3 of the worst packaging I have in my collection. Almost impossible to get out CDs without a damage. Of course now I'm keeping CDs in a separate boxes. Which takes more space (
It was a great thread, discussing the music, and thanks to SWT for his contributions, but now that the 'delivery' phase that hi-jacked the thread has been replaced by the 'packaging' phase, this thread is now just a place to off-load problems, so time to un-watch. Try to enjoy the music.
Apparently you witnessed a rather peculiar VDGG duo concert tonight! According to Peter Hammill on twitter, Guy Evans could not travel because of a problem with his passport... Duo concert tomorrow as well. They hope to be a trio again in Sweden. Sorry if this is off-topic (but still better than the CD scratches ).
Very true. And to think that only a few months ago, and for many years for that matter, no-one expected a VdGG boxset of this calibre...
I was there, just got home. Peculiar indeed but they survived. Some superb renditions like the encore "House With No Door". Hammill's voice is beyond belief.
Just getting to some parts of this box and... wow, the stereo remix of "Pioneers Over C" is stunning!
Up to the Live Maison. I'm not much of a live show guy but this is revelatory. Imagine not knowing much about the band and a friend drags you along, seats down front. What a way to be recruited....or condemned. This is the Witch Trials. Loved both offerings of Still Life and forgot how much I liked World Record. Now I'm actually interested in the 5.1s. Have to see what I can do about that.
They performed a completely different set last night. Good God, if I only had a chance to see that gig too... Van der Graaf Generator Setlist at Savoy-teatteri, Helsinki I bought only the "Still Life" 2CD/DVD set thinking "that'll do" as I have all the stuff on vinyl and cd etc. and guess what? Yes, now I need the other sets too. Better start to save for the Hammill set, just in case.
Even more amazing is that in two days they managed to play two completely different setlists without a single song played twice, with one third of the band missing.
