Live and Loud!: Show 154 - Japan - Live At Newcastle City Hall

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).

Sunday, 30 August 2020

Show 154 - Japan - Live At Newcastle City Hall - 1 Jun 1978

After the last Japan show I restored (HERE), I was contacted by Rob Dean, from the band and asked if I could have a go at restoring this recording, which had recently come to light. He put me in touch with Stephen Holden, who had been gifted a copy of the recording by the original owner. Stephen has recently written a book about his time following the band in their early days - see below for details on how to obtain a copy of that.

This is a recording of Japan, supporting Blue Oyster Cult on their UK nationwide tour in mid 1978. The band's first taste of playing larger venues, I guess. Their set includes tracks from their recently released first album, and their upcoming second.

The original mono recording itself was a typical 1970s cassette recording, quite murky, slightly distorted in places but also with a few weird fadeouts - during Suburban Love and the intro to Don't Rain On My Parade in particular. Fadeouts in particular I can't do much about but I tweaked them as much as I dared and they're less extreme than they were, now.

Otherwise plenty of work went into correcting sound imbalances, trying to make the sound mix clearer so you can hear the drums, bass etc clearer, and so on. I also created a pseudo stereo version from the original mono file and restored that separately - so I effectively did this show twice. Lots also went into that too and its a bit clearer to listen to (to me) but you get the choice - mono, stereo, or both. All in all, this all took a bit longer than usual but was more than worthwhile, given some of the awful recordings out there.

You can safely download this restored, unique recording for free below as one 320 kbps MP3 file with no nasty pop ups or ads getting in the way:

Mono restoration

Pseudo-stereo restoration

The remastered shows are also available as separate, properly tagged MP3s or lossless files in FLAC format; head on over to the Donations tab to see how you can support what I do and donate towards storage and web costs for less than the price of a coffee.

Absolutely no obligation to do so though; the free files will always remain free. Either way - enjoy the show!

Setlist
Love Is Infectious
Communist China
Obscure Alternatives
Heartbreaker
Suburban Love
Suburban Berlin
Don't Rain On My Parade
Adolescent Sex
The Unconventional

How to obtain a copy of Adolescent Alternatives by Stephen Holden

"Orders for my book are now being offered. There will be a limited run of 500 softback issues and 50 hardback issues available. Each book is full colour and has 144 pages.

I have self funded and I am self publishing the book which will feature lots of never before seen photos of the band both onstage and offstage. With a foreword by Rob Dean, and an afterword from tour manager, Nick Huckle ..... the book tell`s of a two year road-trip between 78-80 taken by myself and my best friend, Phil Lockett, and an essay by JAPAN biographer, Anthony Reynolds
Book design by Dominic Brookman.

Softback version @ £27.50 + £5.00 P&P (UK)

Hardback version Sold Out

Europe P&P £12.00 ROW £16.00

Paypal friends & family to srholden01@hotmail.com or alternatively on eBay:

Please note the costs are as low as I can make them being a self funded project.

I sincerely hope you will enjoy the trips!"