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Friday, 14 February 2025

Show 215 - Japan - Live At Rock City Nottingham - 7 May 1981

 

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
This is a fairly muffled and "distant" mono audience recording of the first night of the "Art of Parties" tour of the UK in May 1981, featuring the first live appearance of their new single at the time - The Art Of Parties. It was sent to me by a listener, asking if it could be cleaned up. I was initially dubious (quality really wasn't too good) but after sending him a free sample of 1 of the tracks done, this was then done as a private commission. My client was so pleased with the final result he offered it for the website as well, so that others could enjoy it! So here it is.

What Was Done
The recording was, like many old audience recordings, muffled and sounding quite far away, with a few odd cuts and gaps here and there. Quite a bit of feedback in places too.

All those gaps and cuts were removed and blended, so the recording is whole again. Feedback I was able to remove for the most part. A big part of the hall ambience was then reduced, which gave me more of the band sound to work on. I could then get to work with EQ and my box of studio tools to make the band clearer and far more audible. Once that was done, I mastered the whole thing to give the recording some power and width.

The result is a big improvement. I hope fans of the band will enjoy it as much as my client has.

The All Important Download/Stream Link

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

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD OR STREAM

Setlist
Intro (Burning Bridges)
Swing
Gentlemen Take Polaroids
Alien
...Rhodesia
Quiet Life
My New Career
Obscure Alternatives
Taking Islands In Africa
Methods of Dance
Ain't That Peculiar
The Art Of Parties
Halloween
European Son
Life in Tokyo
Sometimes I Feel So Low
Fall In Love With Me

Be sure to check out the other gigs from Japan I've restored HERE - all similarly downloadable for free.

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

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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, Bluesky, 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.

4 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing that (both you and the original listener!). It's an interesting set list. Personally I prefer the first two Japan albums so the inclusion of a few tracks from "Obscure Alternatives" is nice to see ... I imagine they'd start to disappear after this tour!

    Another great addition to your list of gigs! Thanks for the work!

    ReplyDelete