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!"

Show 153 - Bill Nelson's Red Noise - Live at Sheffield City Hall - 13 March 1979

A first gig for Bill Nelson on the Live and Loud! archive (hopefully not the last) with his short lived band Red Noise with a gig from their one and only tour in support of their album Sound On Sound.

This was an FM broadcast from the time, so isn't the complete show. It was, at some point doctored by someone else as the levels were high and there were signs of compression too (but only on the last track, strangely, so that needed treating separately). There were quite a few stereo imaging issues too, and some of the recording level was a little high, resulting in some clipping or distortion.

After running various toys over the audio, then EQ and a little noise reduction. plus correcting the stereo image where I could, this is the final result - loud bits under control, lots less distortion and far clearer. Red Noise were a powerful live band and I think this recording now brings that out!

You can safely download this restored, unique recording for free HERE as one 320 kbps MP3 file with no nasty pop ups or ads getting in the way. Alternatively, if you would like to support the site with a small donation towards storage, subscription and internet costs, in return you can have the remastered show as separate, properly tagged MP3s or lossless files in FLAC format; head on over to the Donations tab to see how you can do this. No obligation to do so though - either way - enjoy the show!

Setlist
Don’t Touch Me (I’m Electric)
Furniture Music
Stop Go Stop
The Atom Age
Possession
Substitute Flesh
A Better Home in the Phantom Zone
Radar in My Heart
Art/Empire/Industry
Revolt Into Style
Stay Young

Show 152 - Boomtown Rats - Live At The NHK Hall Tokyo - 1 May 1980

 

A long overdue return for The Boomtown Rats, who were one of the early bands featured on Live and Loud! in 2012 (see this page for an improved version of that one).

This was an FM radio broadcast which had been reworked (not very well) by someone at some point - everything very loud, all the way through. While listening to the gig to fix and clicks and tape dropouts, I realised the tracks were also in the wrong order! For some reason, someone had reordered the tracks with odd bits cut off where the edits had been made. Eventually, with the help of a friend who had an original copy of the taped bootleg, and referencing other gigs from that tour, I was able to put it all back together in the right order.

Once that was done, much sound restoration went into the final copy, to reverse what had been done before and also to improve what was there. So, rather more work than I expected on this one BUT... it sounds superb now, really pleased with this one. And just as an aside, this gig (as Geldof says) saw the first live outing for Diamond Smiles, which appears as the last song.

You can safely download this restored, unique recording for free HERE as one 320 kbps MP3 file with no nasty pop ups or ads getting in the way. 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 remastered show as separate, properly tagged MP3s or lossless files in FLAC format; head on over to the Donations tab to see how you can do this.

Setlist

Wind Chill Factor (Minus Zero)

Like Clockwork

Nothing Happened Today

(I Never Loved) Eva Braun

Nice 'n' Neat

Joey's On The Street Again

Someone's Looking At You

Keep It Up

I Don't Like Mondays

Rat Trap

Mary Of The 4th Form

Blind Date

Encore

She's So Modern

Looking After No. 1

Diamond Smiles