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).

Friday 4 October 2024

Show 210 - A-ha - Live At Hammersmith Odeon - 16 Dec 1986

 

 



A quick request. If you plan on downloading this and putting it on your YouTube channel or your own bootleg page - I don't mind. But a credit to this website where you found it and a link back to this page would be really appreciated. It helps me gauge which artists are popular - ie more chance of other restorations coming. Don't just steal it, cut out the intro and outro and take the credit. Thanks.


The Show
Considering A-Ha have been playing for almost 40 years it seems crazy there aren't more live recordings by them - but there really aren't that many; this is the earliest I could find. An audience recording from the time, featuring a very excited female audience (by the sounds of it)! This one was taken from 1 of many gigs over 2 months in the UK, roughly half way through their world tour (that seems to have lasted over 12 months).

What Was Done
There were some random gaps, tape dropouts and a glitch - all those got fixed so the gig flows without interruptions. Then I removed some of the venue reverb (the ambience) that's always present in audience recordings, so there was more of the band's sound to work with, then started EQing and tweaking to make the band and vocals clearer and more "present", and the bass and drums more audible. Then I mastered the results to finish off. The band now are rather louder than the screaming girls and it's far more listenable as a result. A very decent gig and performance and a good representation of the band live at that time!

The All Important Download/Stream Link

As always, the restored and remasterd show is available to download or stream for free as a single 320kbps MP3. Just hit the link:

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD OR STREAM


Setlist
Train Of Thought
Love Is Reason
Living A Boy's Adventure Tale
Cry Wolf
The Blue Sky
The Sun Always Shines On TV
Driftwood
Here I Stand And Face The Rain
We're Looking For The Whales
And You Tell Me
Hunting High And Low
I've Been Losing You
Scoundrel Days
Take On Me


Supporting The Site

If you want to support the work I do on these recordings, and the site, and (if you wish to) obtain separate, fully tagged 320kbps MP3s of this restoration for less than the price of a coffee in return, or lossless FLACs or even a lossless copy on CDR, head on over to the Rewards For Donations tab to see how you can obtain these for a very small donation towards the site. There is NO OBLIGATION to do so of course - you can take the file on this page absolutely for free - but every single donation does go towards this site and helps me do more shows and update some of the software I use as time goes by. Either way, enjoy the show.

Subscribe And Share

Don't forget to SUBSCRIBE TO THE FREE EMAIL NEWSLETTER (spam free) so you never miss news on which new gigs are going to be restored and uploaded here; any news will be delivered to your inbox. And your email address won't be sold on by me as a result.

And if you like this recording, please spread the news and share the page link to anyone you think might be interested - Facebook fan groups, web forums, Mastodon, X, Threads, Instagram are a great way of spreading the word - that way, I always find out which bands are popular and can do more shows by them in the future. So please tell ya mates about the site and this page! Many thanks.