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Monday, 3 October 2022

Show 181 - Front 242 - Live At Medusa's, Chicago - 28 September 1984

 

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 steal and take the credit. Thanks.

A first appearance on the site for Front 242, pioneers of Electronic Body Music (or EBM, as it's known these days). This was their debut gig in the USA in 1984; they started their support of Ministry on their "Wax Trax Singles Tour" the very next day in Trenton, New Jersey. The venue, Medusa's, was a "juice bar" (ie no alcohol served) for teens in Chicago which closed down long ago.

Taken from the mixing desk, this recording was donated to the site by a regular listener, who asked if there was any way it could be improved. It required a lot of work - breaks in the sound (some quite long ones), there were tape errors typical of old recordings, lots of noise, hiss...the original tape must have been in the wars a bit! So a good candidate for restoration even before actually trying to make it sound clearer.

So I set to work fixing tape dropouts, correcting the stereo image where possible (their live mixing was pretty extreme moving things left and right, so much of that also needed preserving, while fixing the tape errors), removing as much noise and hiss as possible, then finally cleaning up the muddy sound with EQ and other tools, and remastering.

The result is far clearer and more listenable - to quote the person who donated the original: "I know it was pretty rough in spots (especially that first song), but you did an outstanding job". I am indebted to the same guy for taking the time to write me a short biog of the band which has proved invaluable in writing this page and my intro to the show. Thank you!

 

You can now download this repaired, restored and remastered version of this show exclusively for FREE, right HERE as one 320kbps MP3 file. Please note - the first track is the worst in terms of sound quality, especially at the beginning. Quality improves quickly after that.

If you would like to support what I do, and this site, and obtain separate, fully tagged 320kbps MP3s or lossless FLACs of the restoration, head on over to the Rewards For Donations tab to see how you can obtain these for a very small donation towards the site costs. Absolutely 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 domain/storage costs, and helps the site stay open, and me do more shows.

Either way, enjoy the show! 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, Twitter and 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. Many thanks.

And finally... don't forget to SUBSCRIBE TO THE NEW FREE NEWSLETTER 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 I guarantee you no spam - and of course you unsubscribe at any time.

Setlist
No Shuffle
Lovely Day
In November
Body to Body
Take One
Commando Mix
Deceit
U-Men

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