Welcome - About Live and Loud!

Live and Loud! began as a fortnightly internet radio show in 2012 taking old unreleased live concert recordings I could find and working to repair and improve them - fixing tape hiss, noise, tape drop out, clicks, speed variations, defects - before improving the sound quality by EQing the sound to bring out the instruments as clearly as possible. These are now made directly available to download for free to reach as many fans of the music as possible.

Depending on the quality of the original recording, these can often be made to sound almost like commercial recordings - but of course I can't guarantee that for every show. What I can guarantee is it will sound far better than the original files available which have been floating around the internet and on bootleg recordings for many years.

Almost all are either "soundboard" recordings (taken directly from the mixing desk used at the gig on the night) or old FM radio recordings. A few gigs, if they are of special historical importance, make an appearance even if they were recorded from the audience - these can also be made to sound better than ever.

Do your ears a favour and listen on headphones or good speakers to get most benefit - laptop speakers will always sound pretty poor by comparison.

All shows still available are listed, including a link to download the remastered show for free. If you want to support the site with a small donation, you can receive the shows as either separate MP3s or FLACs (your choice) - head over to the Rewards for Donations page and see how you can get a lot for very little!

If you want to email me, an email link is in my profile in a link in the side panel.

And finally... These are great fun to listen to but DO NOT replace original releases - support these artists and buy their music. There is nothing you can go and buy in a regular record store here. If a gig is made available as a regular release, then it will be removed (as a couple have been already).

Tuesday, 9 August 2016

Show 73: Ultravox - Live at The Whisky A Go Go, Los Angeles - 30 December 1979


Its been a while since we last featured one of my favourite bands from the 1970s and 1980s, Ultravox. So I’ve remastered a gig from an interesting point in their history! And broken one of my own rules to do it...

This is an audience recording! But apart from some very brief moments when someone is close to the mic (especially at the beginning), you can barely tell. Its a great performance, very raw and exciting. This one has been subject to some judicious EQ, level balancing and noise reduction and has polished up really well.

Original singer John Foxx left after they began 1979 with no record company, after being dropped, and after a short tour of the USA (there’s a remastered gig from Philadelphia on that tour on the Live and Loud! Archive already HERE). It seemed Ultravox were finished until keyboard player Billy Currie, who had been working with Midge Ure in Visage, persuaded him he should become Ultravox’s new singer (it may actually have been Ure persuading Currie!). Without a record deal, Ultravox reconvened, wrote some songs and arranged to play some live dates in America in November and December 1979 - and we have a recording of the last show from that tour for you this time.

It’s not quite the full set - Hiroshima Mon Amour and, I think,  King's Lead Hat are missing, sadly - but what IS there, from set opener Astradyne to set closer I Can't Stay Long, is a great record of a band enjoying themselves and gelling - they went on to sign a record deal in early 1980 and included many of the new songs played at this gig on their first album as a quartet, Vienna. The set also features a few tracks from the last album with John Foxx (Systems of Romance) as well as an early version of a song which didn’t make it onto record at all (at least, not as a studio recording).

There are more Ultravox shows to come, so be sure to come back! In the meantime, this show is now available for free download HERE as 1 MP3 file.

Or, if you would like to have separate tagged MP3s, or even lossless files in FLAC format, head on over to the Donations tab to see how you can obtain these for a very small donation towards the site costs.

Setlist
Astradyne
New Europeans
Quiet Men
Sound On Sound
All Stood Still
Mr X
Western Promise
Slow Motion
Sleepwalk
I Can't Stay Long
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8 comments:

  1. Unknown15 August 2016 at 15:56

    Fantastic gig.....any more Ultravox with Midge?

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    Replies
    1. Flip Martian16 August 2016 at 00:38

      There certainly will be! At least 1 more in the next few months.

      Delete
  2. genepool28 August 2016 at 06:20

    Great show. It's really interesting to hear the Foxx material with Ure singing. I do prefer the Foxx versions but it was fun to hear it. I'm also really surprised at how complete the Vienna songs are. I would have thought they'd have a lot more differences at that point.

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    Replies
    1. Flip Martian3 October 2019 at 07:38

      Yeah I think Midge's voice suits the new material better than it does the "Foxxvox" material. Like having 2 great bands for the price of one though :)

      Delete
  3. Mark Radbourne18 December 2016 at 12:44

    "A version of "Sound On Sound" appears on the b-side of "Passing Strangers" but it's retitled as "Face To Face".

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    Replies
    1. Flip Martian18 December 2016 at 14:01

      Indeed it was. SOS was definitely the early version of FTF.

      Delete
  4. Rusty Egan15 December 2019 at 22:26

    I WAS THERE King's lead hat was the encore

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    Replies
    1. Flip Martian21 December 2019 at 13:52

      Lucky beggar - great gig! Amazing energy they had back then.

      Delete

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