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Saturday, 1 September 2018

Show 127 - Siouxsie and The Banshees - Live At The Vortex, London - 11 July 1977


I knew when I got this bootleg that it was one I'd like to have a crack at improving a bit - it being 1 of the first shows to feature John McKay on guitar, so completing the lineup that would get signed to Polydor in 1978 and record the first 2 albums, "The Scream" and "Join Hands". It was a muffled old recording but was just about listenable, although far from clear (the original is also on youtube somewhere if you haven't heard it).

For this one there was quite a bit of editing to clean up a few issues - "Mirage" is chopped off after a minute and a half, so I faded that out rather than just having it stop; a few parts had varying volume; a couple of tape drop outs needed fixing; the whole thing was quite hissy so I took some of that away without affecting the recording too much.

Then the whole thing was much louder on the right than the left, so that needed evening out, so I balanced the stereo image, such as it is. After all that, I whipped out the trusty 30 band EQ to remove some of the muddy midrange and harsh top end, as well as try and bring back some weight to the drums and bass (there wasn't any). While it's still not perfect and there's no way it would ever sound as clear as (say) a soundboard or FM recording, I'm pretty happy with the improvements I have been able to make. The beginning of the recording (as is so often the case) is probably the worst part.

You can download this improved recording for free here as one 320 kbps MP3 file.

Or, if you would like to support the site with a small donation towards storage subscription and internet costs, in return you can have the show as separate, properly tagged MP3s or even lossless files in FLAC format; head on over to the Donations tab to see how you can do this.

Either way - enjoy the show. 

Setlist
Make Up to Break Up
Helter Skelter
Mirage
Scrapheap
Psychic
20th Century Boy
Carcass
Love in a Void
The Lord's Prayer
Captain Scarlet

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