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, 12 September 2014

Show 21: Depeche Mode - 1981 and 1980


2 for the price of 1 this time - I found these gigs and couldn't resist trying to restore them. Depeche Mode just before they hit the big time. The 1981 gig is a real gem - a gig 2 weeks after New Life, their first single to breach the charts, was released. I think this was a soundboard recording, its polished up really well - an exciting, raw performance with nothing but a reel to reel tape recorder and analogue synths.

And if you ever wondered how Just Can't Get Enough would sound starting with a bossa nova rhythm...well, you came to the right place...

The Croc's gig is quite short so back in 2013 I broadcast it along with an even earlier gig I found - one of their earliest gigs that exists on tape - from the Bridgehouse in London from October 1980. This was several months before the release of their first single, "Dreaming of Me".  The version I had then was an audience recording and had been "restored" by someone already to remove tape hiss - not too well. So while I was able to make it pretty listenable, it still wasn't great, hence it being a bonus here and not the main show. Even so, its fascinating and still entertaining to hear DM play several unreleased tracks and early versions of other songs which would become well known later.

2019 UPDATE
While preparing this old show as separate files for a donator to the site, I found I could now improve the sound quality of the Croc's gig further, over what I’d originally done to the recording back in 2013. I also found a different recording of the Bridgehouse recording! Which revealed the copy I had in 2013 was missing a song, and was in the wrong order! So I set to work on this other recording, starting from scratch. It had been "mastered" by someone in the past but had distorted bass through much of it and sounded quite murky. I've been able to remove most of that bass distortion and also widen the sound a bit, so it seems quite a bit clearer! It's a vast improvement on the earlier version I had from 6 years ago.

You can now download these new versions of the 2 shows HERE as 1 new 320kbps 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.
 
Setlists

Croc's, Rayleigh, Essex, 27 June 1981
Television Set
Dreaming of Me
Big Muff
New Life
Boys Say Go!
Tora! Tora! Tora!
The Price of Love
Just Can't Get Enough
Photographic

Bridgehouse, London, 30 October 1980
New Life
Television Set
Tomorrow's Dance
Reason Man
Photographic
Tora! Tora! Tora!
Big Muff
Ice Machine
The Price Of Love
Dreaming Of Me
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6 comments:

  1. Anonymous22 January 2016 at 03:50

    Thanks for the 2 for 1 Flip, much appreciated.
    CC, England

    ReplyDelete
  2. Richie J17 May 2016 at 09:11

    Hi again, I really love your posts - would be very greatful if you could reupload this one also. Perhaps changing the file name slightly will stop mediafire from blocking it ? Thanks very much in advance.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Flip Martian18 May 2016 at 01:59

      Same as with the OMD show I'm afraid - something the host has done has removed the files on some shows. Will reinstate all just as soon as I've tracked down all the ones that need replacing. Thanks for letting me know!

      Delete
    2. Flip Martian20 May 2016 at 11:29

      Link now reinstated!

      Delete
  3. Danimal7710 September 2020 at 22:34

    Thanks again!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Chwill16 January 2022 at 15:35

    Thank you my friend!

    ReplyDelete

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