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).

Thursday, 30 November 2023

Show 195 - Elton John - Live At Hammersmith Odeon London - 24 Dec 1974

 

 

INSERT IMAGE FIRST

A quick request. If you plan on downloading this and putting it on your own YouTube channel or 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
A full show recorded and broadcast at the time on FM radio and TV - however, it seems some was broadcast on FM radio in stereo and some was on TV, in mono. Somewhere along the line, somebody put the whole show together from the FM and TV recordings, so hats off to them for that. I was asked by a client to restore some Elton John live recordings, including this one. This was the last of several nights Elton played at the Hammersmith Odeon that week. Listen out for Rod Stewart, who makes an appearance for White Christmas, at the end of the show. And enjoy the band, they are phenomenally good.

What Was Done
I found a couple of spots in the show where the original recording levels were too high and distortion was introduced so I've done what I could to reduce the effect of that. There were some dropouts which I fixed. Also some clicks here and there throughout the recording were removed. Some high pitched FM interference whistling at 1 point was taken out, and an odd rumble noise at 1 point. 

Once that was done, the recording was then split up again to allow stereo and mono parts of the gig to be treated separately. I got to work with EQ and the usual studio toys to bring some clarity to the sound mix. The TV mono parts were processed separately to blend better with the stereo parts, and then once everything was merged back together. the complete recording was mastered to make it clearer and more powerful. It sounds like a really great recording now and hopefully is the best version of this gig yet.

The All Important Download Link

You can now download or stream this repaired, restored and remastered version of this show as one 320kbps MP3 file exclusively for FREE by clicking right HERE.

Setlist
Skyline Pigeon
I Need You To Turn To
Border Song
Take Me To The Pilot
Country Comfort
Holiday Inn
High Flying Bird
Burn Down The Mission
Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding
Candle In the Wind
Grimsby
Rocket Man (I Think It's Going to Be a Long, Long Time)
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
Daniel
Grey Seal
Bennie and the Jets
Lucy In the Sky with Diamonds
I Saw Her Standing There
Don't Let the Sun Go Down On Me
Honky Cat
Saturday Night's Alright (For Fighting)
Crocodile Rock
The Bitch is Back
Your Song
White Christmas



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 CDRs, 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. 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 domain/storage costs, and helps the site stay open, and helps me do more shows. Either way, enjoy the show.

Subscribe And Share

Don't forget to SUBSCRIBE TO THE FREE EMAIL NEWSLETTER (spam free) 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 your email address won't be sold on by me as a result.


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, Mastodon, Twitter, 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.

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