A Certain Ratio - Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Serralves 2009/05/31

A Certain Ratio
Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Serralves
Oporto, Portugal
May 31, 2009 (Sunday)

Setlist:

Links: Official Website // Last.fm

God Is An Astronaut - Cinema Passos Manuel 2009/05/23

God Is An Astronaut
Cinema Passos Manuel
Oporto, Portugal
May 23, 2009 (Satursday)

Support Slot: The Allstar Project

Setlist:

01- intro / White Noise
02- Shadows
03- All Is Violent, All Is Bright
04- Tempus Horizon
05- From Dust To The Beyond
06- Fragile
07- Echoes
08- Radau
09- A Moment Of Stillness
10- Zodiac
11- Far From Refuge
12- Snowfall
13- Suicide By Star
14- Route 666 / encore
15- A Deafening Distance
16- Fire Flies And Empty Skies / encore 2
17- The End Of The Beginning
18- Boomsong / end

TRT: 01h:32m:08s

Notes: I admit I only went to this show for their live reputation, as I don't consider myself a big GIAA fan, but this show raised the roof. The sound was excellent, I was in a prime spot for recording, and this is probably one of my best tapes ever after some bass taming. If adding a bit of reverb wasn't out of bounds for me in the live recording mastering domain, this could almost pass as an official release. The band was really into the crowd, and I bet this was a very special night for them. They even played an extra new or unreleased jam/song which one the Kinsella Bros. named as "Boomsong", which wasn't on the official setlist. If you don't really think the world of GIAA in the studio, seeing them live is an obligatory step towards liking them (unless you're Björk). For the fans, I can't recommend enough that you get this, for a few different reasons.

setlist: here

download: 16bit

links: Official Myspace // Last.fm

Mogwai - Aula Magna 2009/02/05

Mogwai
Aula Magna
Lisbon, Portugal
February 5, 2009 (Thursday)
Support Slot: Errors

Setlist:
01- I'm Jim Morrison, I'm Dead
02- Ithica 27ø9
03- I Love You, I'm Going To Blow Up Your School
04- Summer
05- Scotland's Shame
06- Hunted By A Freak
07- Mogwai Fear Satan
08- Thank You Space Expert
09- Helicon 1
10- Friend Of The Night
11- Like Herod
12- Batcat / encore
13- The Precipice
14- 2 Rights Make 1 Wrong

TRT: 01h:44m:07s

Notes: First of all, I've loved Mogwai for a long time. They are one of my favorite bands and a paradigm of post-rock (whether they like it or not). It may sound weird or harsh to say this, but if there ever was a show that was a thousand times better than I expected, this has to be it. Not because they lack a live reputation, but I never really got into their latest album, "The Hawk is Hawling", and to be honest, didn't listen to it entirely more than once (maybe!). That said, after only sleeping a couple of hours the prior night, and the same old dull train trip to Lisbon, I had a major case of cold feet a few minutes before the Errors took on stage. Great band, great set, I liked their latest album way better than Mogwai's. It would have been a great morale boost, if I didn't find my preamp cable halfway out of my new recorder at the end of the set, instantly making me realize that the whole tape went to shit. Oh well... I was there for Mogwai, or at least that's what I kept telling myself to mitigate my "tape failure" blues. Mogwai started with "Jim Morrison", a not very impressive track live or in the studio, I'm afraid. They would have to try much harder if they wanted to impress this cranky taper. After a great segue of songs (even the new ones sounded great live), "Summer" and "Scotland's Shame" were two of the many highlights of the set. I was pumped from then on. They did Mogwai Fear Satan, arguably my favorite of their whole repertoire. Other highlights include: "Thank You Space Expert", "Helicon 1" and "Herod"/"Batcat" (they should have done both as the encore instead of the actual one). The sound was pretty good, no gross incompetence by the soundman, and it isn't a particularly good hall in the acoustics department. A little too much snare at the beginning, but the guitars were awesomely clear, and lord knows how you do such a great job in the post-rock genre behind the console. I've spent a whole day working on this recording. I can't even begin to tell you how muddy the master sounded compared to this. It's hard to find good Mogwai live tapes, but I feel this one will join that group. All in all, a stunning show, one for the books. Great live renditions of the new songs, proving once again that Mogwai is a band built for live. And I promise to give "The Hawk" another chance or two...

Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band - Cinema Passos Manuel 2008/11/01

Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band
Cinema Passos Manuel
Oporto, Portugal
November 1, 2008

Setlist:
01- intro / tuning up
02- 13 Blues for Thirteen Moons
03- 1,000,000 Died To Make This Sound
04- God Bless Our Dead Marines
05- Black Waters Blowed / Engine Broken Down Blues
06- Microphones in the Trees
07- I Built Myself a Metal Bird, I Fed My Metal Bird the Wings of Other Metal Birds

TRT: 01h:48m:30s

Notes: This show was mesmerizing, really one of the best I've ever seen. Also, probably one of the best recordings I've made this year, so if you like ASMZ and choose to download this, I think you're in for a treat. The room looked like a big cold cube (it was a Cinema originally), but the sound was great and the raw recording on it's own would have made a great listen. I did use a multiband compressor to enhance the loudness of the recording and balance it a bit (it's always a pain in the neck to master a recording with a double bass), and some parametric EQ to fine tune the frequency balance. Great in-between song banter as always, and respectful crowd (gotta love seated shows). Big thanks to the band for stopping by Oporto, and Efrim for being a sport and interrupting his post-show cigarette to deal with us pesky fans. This is an LMA release, so enjoy your MP3. That's right.. I allow you to.

Download: LMA
Links: Official Website

Sigur Rós - Alexandra Palace 2008/11/20 & 2008/11/21

Sigur Rós
Alexandra Palace
London, England
November 21, 2008 (Friday)
Support Slot: For A Minor Reflection

Setlist:
01- Svefn-g-englar
02- Glósóli
03- Ný Batterí
04- Fljótavik
05- Við Spilum Endalaust
06- Hoppípolla
07- Með Blóðnasir
08- Inní Mér Syngur Vitleysingur
09- E-bow
10- Sæglópur
11- Festival
12- Hafsól
13- Gobbledigook / Encore
14- All Alright
15- Popplagið

Sigur Rós
Alexandra Palace
London, England
November 20, 2008 (Thursday)
Support Slot: For A Minor Reflection

Setlist:
01- Svefn-g-englar
02- Ný Batterí
03- Fljótavik
04- Við Spilum Endalaust
05- Hoppípolla
06- Með Blóðnasir
07- Inní Mér Syngur Vitleysingur
08- E-bow
09- Sæglópur
10- Festival
11- Hafsól
12- Gobbledigook / Encore
13- All Alright
14- Popplagið

Sigur Rós - Campo Pequeno 2008/11/11

Sigur Rós
Campo Pequeno
Lisbon, Portugal
November 11, 2008 (Tuesday)
Support Slot: For A Minor Reflection

Setlist:
01- Svefn-g-englar
02- Ný Batterí
03- Fljótavik
04- Við Spilum Endalaust
05- Hoppípolla
06- Með Blóðnasir
07- Inní Mér Syngur Vitleysingur
08- E-bow
09- Sæglópur
10- Festival
11- Hafsól
12- Gobbledigook / Encore
13- All Alright
14- Glósóli
15- Popplagið

TRT: 01h:51m:44s

Notes: This would be on paper the live music event of the year for me, even before setting foot in the Campo Pequeno on this chilly November night. But due to the sub-par quality of their latest album (The Eleven Hoppipolla's), and the consummated long announced drop of my beloved Amiina girls from their live line-up, I was turned off quite a bit. I planned a trip to Milan in the summer just to get a chance to see a full-throttle Sigur Rós concert for the last time in a while, but my plans were foiled by conflicting schedules. As a result, I went to this show expecting nothing but disappointment, and carried by a nostalgic feeling of the band's golden AB/( ) years. Gladly, the band started to venture during the US tour into playing songs like E-bow (possibly my all time favorite SR song), and Festival (the only song on ...við spilum endalaust that's actually worth a bunch of spins), so there was plenty of reasons to give the band a shot to prove me wrong. Ticket bought since early August, and looking forward all summer to 11/11.

Svefn-g-englar opens the main set, like it did during the most of the tour, and I was immediately floored. I thought the Glósóli's golden shadow-play intro during the Takk tour was impossible to beat, but Svefn proved to be up to the challenge. A surreally beautiful moment, that dissociates Sigur Rós from any other "breathing band" on the planet. It also underlines my bias towards the band's post-rock years, as opposed to the pop driven songs they've been producing in their most recent works. Such a waste.

Ný Batteri gets the second spot on the main slot, a song I couldn't enjoy because of the gigantic beer seller douchebag, who was asking to every single person he passed if he wanted beer. Someone in the crowd asks him to STFU, something I did through gestures, and soon enough, we had a stupid, loud, argument during the mellow part of NB. If it wasn't for the microphone wires attached to me, I think I would have lost it and dropped the guy right there. I didn't give much for the show up until that point, so what the hell... let's sleep in jail tonight. Luckily I didn't went that way, and the best was still to come. Ný Batteri rocked the last time I saw it, this time I can't remember any it because I my blood was boiling. I refuse to listen to it in the recording too.

Fljótavik, can't remember it, was still pissed. But, it doesn't suck on the recording. I also noticed the crowd completely missed the end of the song and didn't applaud it. Rather that than the opposite.

Við Spilum Endalaust, I can't remember much of it either. Bonus suck-points for being a song I loathe.

Hoppípolla is a song I never really liked, but listened to over and over live with Amiina and Horny Brasstards backing the song. Rendered as a four-piece, it doesn't deliver the goods. The hit-single catching crowd loves it, and promptly draws their cellphones to record this otherwise forgettable moment of the show. Same for Með Blóðnasir, now with a crowd chanting invitation by Jonsi who looks nearly as uncomfortable as I do, by pulling such a pop-like move on the crowd. I hate to be that "they were better when they started" guy, but that's something I would never, ever, dream of Sigur Rós doing in a concert in 2002. Inni Mér Syngur Vitleysingur fails to shine, and ends the first part of the show, which I will dub for practical reasons, as the "lame" one. Not because it was terrible, but because what followed next, was one of the best hours of live music I've ever witnessed.

Part two begins with E-bow, and that was the song I was looking forward the most to hear this night. ( ) is my favorite SR album, and E-bow happens to be my favorite song on it. I was out of my body during the whole song, and I rely on my recording to collect the sheer awesomeness of the moment. I was once again distracted by a collapsing lady in the crowd, which caused some stress on my end, but I wouldn't let a possible demise of a complete stranger distract me from this beauty. Just kidding (kind of)... I tried to make the most out of the moment, and had the moral alibi of being too dumb to be a medical student present on my mind, so just let someone out of the huge mass of people around her, who is more qualified than me, deal with her. She turned out to be ok, and came back to the game a few minutes later just in time for Sæglópur, which sounds a lot more aggressive without strings, and I'm not complaining. Jonsi just bows the crap out of it, and we have a new live classic. This one actually grew, instead of suffering from string-loss syndrome.

Festival is the only song on MSIEVSE I really-really like. Terrific crescendo based song, a trait which predominates on early SR, yet with a "pop" flavour in it that doesn't do any harm at all. This is the new Gong.

Hafsól... Hafsól!!!

Gobbledigook was fun as hell. I don't like it on album, nor live, but I was all smiles when FAMR and SR started pounding on those drums and playing that ridiculously out of tempo guitar. I will enjoy it for as long as my visual memory is fresh, and I will try to keep the confetti pieces I caught on my gear bag forever in an attempt to keep it that way.

I have so many things I'd like to say about All Alright. This shtick sounds a awful lot like Jennifer Lopez singing an original US single in Spanish, in an attempt to boost album sales abroad. And if you get past this, the song itself isn't particularly shiny (I would kill to have Smáskifa in it's place). Low point of the show and Sigur Rós career, bar none.

Glósóli is one of the best Sigur Rós songs of all time. I was very disappointed by the band's decision of dropping it from the set for this last leg of the tour. I thought I was not getting to have the pleasure of hearing it again in Lisbon, as Ný Batteri immediately followed Svefn (Glósóli usually follows Svefn, and precedes NB), but all of the sudden you start hearing Jonsi's modulated chants on the P.A. and you just go nuts. If you checked my Winamp stats, you'd know that a Glósóli live recording tops the most played chart. I'll leave you with that.

The ironically called Popplagið ends the show, a status it earned since the time the band first pitched it live, even before ( ) was released. I'm a hardcore fan of it, and it confirms what I suspected from previously hearing a few recordings from this tour: it misses the strings a lot, probably the most out of any songs played during this show. It's still rocks, and I wouldn't accept any other ending for a SR show. The band leaves the stage and has to come back twice to thank "their favorite country to play" in. For a moment I thought we were going to get a Viðrar second encore (it happened once!). Glósóli was the only surprise of the evening... Damn you guys for not going 200%!

And so I was wrong, Sigur Rós still wins at music, and I left the bullring with my faith completely restored, and yearning for my next Sigur Rós show, whether as the four-piece core or as the hair raising orchestral machine. The latter does give the band more room to play a wider range of their catalogue (i.e. Ágætis Byrjun), which is great. But I have no business complaining after such a performance. Bravo, you magnificent bastards.

Caspian - Porto-Rio 2008/10/06

Caspian
Porto-Rio
Oporto, Portugal
October 6, 2008(Monday)
Support Slot: The All Star Project

Setlist:
01- Lacerva
02- Ghosts Of The Garden City
03- Some Are White Light
04- Moksha
05- Quovis
06- Further Up
07- Further In
08- Brombie / Break
09- Asa
10- Sycamore

TRT: 01h:07m:08s

James - WOMAD Festival 1985/07/21

James
WOMAD Festival
Carlyon Bay, England
July 21, 1985

Setlist:
01- Ya Ho
02- Chain Mail
03- If Things Were Perfect
04- Johnny Yen
05- Withdrawn
06- Medieval
07- Not There
08- Skullduggery
09- Are You Ready?
10- Leaking
11- Thrash (a.k.a. Wonderful)
12- Uprising
13- Summer Song
14- Scarecrow / Encore
15- Folklore / Outro

TRT: 00h:54m:10s

Notes: I was scavenging on the dark corners of my old IDE HD, looking for stuff to archive to DVD and stumbled into this. As you can tell from the date, I had nothing to do with the recording of this tape. I've downloaded this off Dime one or two years ago. While a very exciting seed (James earliest complete soundboard in circulation), the tape's high noise floor, which was at -30dBFS, made it impossible for me to enjoy it. Good news is, the soundboard mix is awesome. WOMAD Festival was an outdoor event (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong), so a completely balanced mixing of all the instruments was needed for the P.A., resulting in a terrific, well EQ'ed mix of every element on stage. The tape fidelity didn't go past 11kHz, so I just filtered everthing off upwards on the frequency spectrum with a 3rd order LPF, which was just plain noise. The denoising process was not very hard, as this is a pure soundboard recording and had plenty of "dead tape" to get the noise profile. The first couple of songs strangely had a higher noise floor, so I just denoised more radically on those tracks. Another thing I worked on was the volume unbalance on the recording. There was a tape flip in the middle of the recording, and the 2nd part was louder than the first (and more saturated, might I add), and I adjusted the volume in a way it looks uniform throughout. Last steps were peak limiting, some compression and normalize to -0.3dBFS. You'll agree this is a much more comfortable listening after my remaster. This is of course a nth generation tape, and I can only imagine how great the master tape must sound. If you have access to the master tape or something that is just a few generations off it, please get in contact with me. Same thing applies to good old James rarities you'd like to see reworked and improved (wink). I very rarely remaster anything that is not mine, but this is a worthy exception. There's not much to add to the original seeder notes on how special this recording is. This is one amazing document of the band's Factory years, which includes a brilliant never released track (Trash a.k.a. Wonderful), the best in my collection by far. Personally I love 80's James, and I'm nuts for some of the songs played on this very set (too bad Stutter and Hymn weren't in it). They are indeed a very different band today for the best and the worst, but it's good to look back to the good old days of the band. And to think it only took a few hours to get this done... Pre/post sample is provided in the comment section. All credit goes to the original seeder (I forgot his Dime ID and the original info file wasn't tagged!).

-----------------------------------

Notes from original seeder: At this point in time James were on Manchester's Factory Records. Their last issue for the label, Fac 138 Village Fire, was released 3 months after this show. An epic performance here, much more interesting and dynamic than the later more commercially successful James IMHO. Good recording, possibly a SBD, but is several generations off the master. The exact lineage is unknown. My tape was received in a trade or is a copy of a tape recieved in a trade. Has spent the best part of 20 years sitting in a box unplayed. If you have an upgrade feel free to seed away.

Download: Dime

James - Largo 1º de Maio 2008/09/04

James
Largo 1º de Maio
Águeda, Portugal
September 4, 2008 (Thursday)

Setlist:
01- Born of Frustration
02- Oh My Heart
03- Ring The Bells
04- Waterfall
05- P.S.
06- Say Something
07- She's A Star
08- English Beefcake
09- I Wanna Go Home
10- Out To Get You
11- Upside
12- Whiteboy
13- Sit Down
14- Tomorrow
15- Sometimes
16- Laid / Encore
17- Hey Ma
18- Getting Away With It (All Messed Up)
19- Come Home

TRT: 01h:41m:04s

Notes: Now that's what I'm talking about! P.S., English Beefcake and a much more inspired performance from the lads compared to the somewhat disappointing Crato show. Still insisting in the festival setting, James played for nearly 100 minutes in another not very prestigious local festival, dedicated to the promotion of regional food and crafts. The only good explanation for these two recent shows is that they served as a warm-up for the upcoming US tour, starting in Boston on the 14th. There's no other way to say that James (a band that sell-out europe's largest indoor arena last year, and this year) played in a festival which literally translates as "Piggy Party", and make it sound cool. You can say James picked a setlist for this year, and it's hands down effective for casual and die-hards alike, even throwing in a few interesting songs for the former type of audience. P.S. made my jaw drop. I don't know how long it's been since the band played it, but that's a classic underrated James tune, the kind I keep saying they should play more regularly and should have a higher prevalence on the setlist. Not bad at all. English Beefcake is one off James most underrated piece of work amongst critics and fans alike... Pleased to Meet You isn't exactly the figurehead of James's sound, if you will, but it's one of my favorite albums of all time. Go figure. If it depended on me, they would play PTMY like Lou Reed plays Berlin on his most recent tour. Tim expresses his relief the crowd responded well to the song, stating he was "so glad you knew that one". And even if we didn't, what's wrong with that?! We already have 4 of your Best Of's, why the hell do we need to hear it every night while you're on stage? I wouldn't mind if the band reconsidered upon the setlist philosophy they've choosen for this year. When you have hundreds of songs, and roughly 90% of them are worth a shot live, you shouldn't say something like that after playing one that is less known. The rest of the show consists on a classic 2008 setlist, but charged with an intensity that blows away Crato, Oporto and Coimbra put together. This was the best James show I've ever seen, probably surpassing the crazy Braga show. Come Home ends the show with a stage invasion, something that the band only allows to happen in special occasions. Flawless victory! We need Coliseum (or indoor) shows for the Autumn tour, yada yada yada... Very nice recording all around. I'm not going to describe it thoroughly like I did for the Coimbra torrent, but what I did to this was pretty much the same thing. Sounds like it too (P.A.'s looked the same). A big "thank you" to Vitor and his crew for donating me Saul's setlist. PTMY.

Setlist: here
Download: Dime (16bit)
Links: Official Website

James - Campo 1º de Maio 2008/08/30

James
Campo 1º de Maio
Crato, Portugal
August 30, 2008 (Sunday)

Setlist:
01- Born of Frustration (95% not recorded)
02- Oh My Heart
03- Ring The Bells
04- Waterfall
05- Bubbles
06- Say Something
07- She's A Star
08- I Wanna Go Home
09- Out To Get You
10- Upside
11- Whiteboy
12- Sit Down
13- Tomorrow
14- Sometimes / Encore
15- Top Of The World
16- Hey Ma
17- Getting Away With It (All Messed Up)
18- Laid

TRT: 01h:29m:19s

Notes: Show #4 of the year, and I admit this setlist is getting rather boring, but they seem to think a couple of non-singles on the setlist are enough to satisfy the elite fans as myself, and to keep us following them around in festivals of dubitable reputation. Not really, I was expecting some interesting changes on the set on the eve of their first American tour in 11 years. Besides Top Of The World, which was the highlight of the show, and it even wasn't meant to be played according to the band's setlist, there was NADA. This was not what we were promised last year when James got back together (i.e. diversified and unconservative setlists). I understand they have a album to promote (as they should), but that doesn't mean they should neglect the pearls in their back catalogue, which they vowed to revisit. Don't get me wrong, this would be a great show for the Average Joe, and for me, if I hadn't seen it 4 times... in 3 months!! [Rant ends here]. On the technical end, this is an excellent recording, marred only by some sheer stupidity by yours truly. Problems with my external Li-Ion battery meant I had to bench the MT, my main recorder. I use the iRiver as my MP3 player, and I usually got it filled with my crap 'til the KBs. The band takes on stage, and I'm still debating which one of my awesome bands complete discography will I delete just for this evening to make sure I got space for the whole show, as I forgot to do that on the 2 hours I've spent playing with my thumbs while watching football. Ok, I've only missed the opening bars of the song, no problem. Push record, try to enjoy the show. But... I forgot I had to press the record button twice on the iRiver in order to start recording, and I only noticed that it wasn't rolling a few seconds before the end of BoF. Ta-dah. It breaks my heart that I've missed the song almost entirely because of my training-is-for-suckas attitude. But it is what it is... A great sounding tape of yet another James 2008 show (roughly 94,7% of it, actually).

James - Praça da Canção 2008/05/10

James
Praça da Canção
Coimbra, Portugal
May 10, 2008 (Saturday)
Headlining: Queima das Fitas 2008

Setlist:
00- Intro (lol Saul)
01- Born of Frustration
02- Come Home
03- Oh My Heart
04- Whiteboy
05- Ring The Bells
06- She's A Star
07- Bubbles
08- I Wanna Go Home
09- Out To Get You
10- Getting Away With It (All Messed Up)
11- Hey Ma
12- Upside
13- Sound
14- Sometimes
15- Laid / Encore
16- Sit Down

TRT: 01h:30m:02s

Notes: This show will always be remembered as the first time I saw the Seven-seven live, now that Andy became a full-time member of the band. Musically speaking, I'd rather have "The Oxaal" instead of "The Diagram", but Diagram's interaction with the crowd makes a lot of difference. Coimbra was not the greatest James show I saw, especially after seeing the Braga show on the next day, which I consider one of the greatest live music events I've ever witnessed. Lots of new songs, and the first time I'd heard Hey Ma was in my car on the way to the show, so I wasn't very acquainted with them. Bubbles was undoubtedly the strongest of this group, and a future classic James track, whereas Upside is my strongest James pet peeve. Terrible choice to include that on the album instead of the fabulous Not So Strong. The band seemed somewhat distant and underwhelmed throughout the whole concert, probably marred by Tim's leg injury which forced him to remain sit for the most of the show on a futuristic chair designed by our own Larry Gott. Despite his condition, Tim couldn't remain still for long, and quickly found a very risky way to dance hopping up and down on his chair. It still was a great show, Coimbra is as close as James are going to get to my hometown, and I'm only complaining because I get to contrast with the Braga show (I don't need to see more than 5 James shows to know that was one of their best ever). The recording is great for an outdoor effort. The tape was a little bassy as it was, and Jim's bass had some crazy EQ that made some notes sound *awfully* loud, something I addressed with my own EQ. The crowd was unusually quiet, except for some lady which was clapping along at everything. I used limiters and a multiband compressor to raise the loudness levels of the recording. This is my best James tape so far, and the one I picked for torrent release. Watchout for James upcoming US tour. Dates available at http://www.wearejames.com/

Setlist: here
Download: Dime (16bit)
Links: Official Website

Cat Power - Coliseu dos Recreios 2008/05/26

Cat Power (w/ Dirty Delta Blues Band)
Coliseu dos Recreios
Lisbon, Portugal
May 26, 2008 (Monday)
Support Slot: Appaloosa

Setlist:
01- Don't Explain (fades-in)
02- Woman Left Lonely
03- Silver Stallion
04- New York, New York
05- Lost Someone
06- Dreams
07- Lord Help the Poor and Needy
08- Song To Bobby
09- The Dark End Of The Street
10- She's Got You
11- Metal Heart
12- Making Believe
13- Aretha, Sing One For Me
14- Ramblin' (Wo)man
15- Blue
16- Where Is My Love
17- The Moon
18- The Greatest
19- Lived in Bars
20- Tracks of My Tears
21- "Band Introductions" / Could We
22- Satisfaction
23- Black Angels (Angelitos Negros)
24- I've Been Loving You For Too Long (To Stop Now)

TRT: 01h:48m:20s

Notes: Chan Marshall is one of my favorite female performers of all time, but I was a little on the fence on going to the show for financial reasons. I'm glad I did, despite the heavy rain and the tickle on my throat. This woman has to be seen on a stage to fully comprehend her artistic name. I love the self-absorbed Diva vibe she sends, and the "hilarious-embarassing-cringing-hilarious" outro of dancing, hopping and bowing that lasted for 15 minutes, made up for one of the cutest things I've ever witnessed. The rest of the show didn't have many of her infamous Diva antics, she was very shy actually, and her performance was way more focused and sober than I had ever dreamed of. The band setup was pretty tight too, it reminded me of the Patti Smith concert I'd attended 8 months before. I'm very pleased with this recording. The cymbals were a little tinny on the recording, and some bass notes were way to prominent, so I corrected both these issues with some soft EQ'ing. I also boosted the mid range area to obtain a little more warmth and loudness maximization methods were used, such as compression, multiband compression and peak-limiting. I accidentally pressed the pause button on the MT during the pre-show music for level checking, and i've only noticed it a minute or so into the first song's instrumental intro, but Chan hadn't even entered the stage at that point so you don't miss more than a couple of minutes. I needed to start a new file at the end of Black Angels, but thankfully everything was done quick enough to not miss any action. I crossfaded both files and you can barely notice the transition. As for the crowd: A+. No mass hysteria, no rhythmic clapping, no whistling nonsense. Seating shows rule.

Download: Dime (16bit)
Links: Official Website // Myspace

Appaloosa - Coliseu dos Recreios 2008/05/26

Appaloosa
Coliseu dos Recreios
Lisbon, Portugal
May 26, 2008 (Wednesday)
Supporting: Cat Power and Dirty Delta Blues Band

Setlist:
01-
02- Intimate
03- Sinister
04- Fantasy
05-
06-
07-
08-
09-
10- The Day (We Fell In Love)

TRT: 00h:34m:09s

Notes: This was one of my all time favorite unknown openers. I didn't even know there was going to be a opener prior to see a computer rig on stage, and apparently nor did anyone at the show (at some point in the recording you can someone asking me who was playing, and just gave her the mandatory taper shoulder shrug). Appaloosa is a French-English electronic duo composed by the "very leggy" Anne Laure, and laptop musician Max Krefeld, respectively. If you like electro, you can't afford to miss this. I don't think they have any official releases that you can buy at this time, but I couldn't resist to buy the demo CD they've been selling on tour from the merchandise stall, and it's equally impressive. I didn't apply any EQ on the recording, per se. I just used a multiband compressor to balance high and low frequencies, and a HPF on sub-bass frequencies to spare your subwoofer. I applied a peak-limiter at -9dBFS to take greater advantage of the dynamic range (there was very few information over this value, mainly the bassy beat in Sinister, so you won't notice the compression). I will seed Cat Power sometime in the future... I'll work on it in my laptop, when I go on vacation next week. Help with the rest of the set would be immensely appreciated.

Download: Dime (16bit)
Links: Myspace

Caribou - Santiago Alquimista 2008/03/12

Caribou
Santiago Alquimista
Lisbon, Portugal
March 12, 2008 (Wednesday)

Setlist:
01- Sundialing
02- Brahminy Kite
03- Melody Day
04- Skunks
05- After Hours
06- Crayon
07- The Barn
08- She's The One
09- Bees
10- Twins
11- Eli
12- Hello Hammerheads
13- A Final Warning

TRT: 01h:18m:53s

Notes: Ugh, I can't remember much from this show, because my visual memory resembles the one of a goldfish. All I can remember is a very psychedelic ambience, with trippy projections of colorful geometric patterns and a very quiet/clueless audience. I barely had listened to this, but today I rediscovered the raw recording in the depths of my hard-drive, and it was the first time I've really heard this recording, which sounds very good. Maybe it was because I was tired or alone, but I didn't find to show to be very vibrant. I went to the show mainly in hope to see the Fuck Buttons, but I found out at the venue that this particular show of the tour (the last one) didn't have an opening band. But now, I'm in awe. There's nothing better than listening to a forgotten "old" master and actually finding it more interesting than the show itself. I'm hooked on Caribou now, something that certainly wouldn't happen if I didn't tape him. This is a psychedelic/ambient rock project from canadian musical mastermind, Daniel Snaith, whom performs live accompanied by two live-only band members (Brad Weber and Ryan Smith). I confess I didn't know much about it except for what I've heard on Myspace, but now I fully realize it was worth the gamble. The sound was very well done, maybe a bit too low on the vocals, but everything else sounds very clear. I did some multiband compressing and a pretty basic EQ'ing to find the missing "sparkle" of this recording. I had some 9V battery issues during the last song, something that is impossible to deal with restoration, so I just did some patching of the affected L channel with the R channel. These are 5 second portions at max, and it's barely worth mentioning when describing the overall quality of this tape. Fitting on a single CD, I find this show worthy of a spot in my car door, and that's saying something.

Links: Myspace // Official Website

Rufus Wainwright (Solo) - Casa das Artes de V.N. Famalicão 2008/06/28

Rufus Wainwright (Special Solo Show)
Casa das Artes de V.N. Famalicão
Vila Nova de Famalicão, Portugal
June 28, 2008 (Saturday)

Setlist:
01- Grey Gardens
02- The Maker Makes
03- Beauty Mark
04- Nobody's Off The Hook
05- Sansoucci
06- Beautiful Child
07- I'm Not Ready To Love
08- Going To A Town
09- Who Are You, New York? *
10- A Woman's Face With Nature's Own Hand Painted (Spoken)
11- A Woman's Face With Nature's Own Hand Painted $
12- California
13- Greek Song
14- Little Sister
15- Zebulon
16- Cigarettes And Chocolate Milk / Encore 1
17- The Art Teacher
18- Leaving for Paris No. 2
19- Hallelujah / Encore 2
20- Foolish Love
21- La Complainte de la Butte

TRT: 01h:38m:38s

* new song
$ new song - 20th sonnet, by William Shakespeare / world premiere

Notes: This is the first of Rufus's two night run in Vila Nova de Famalicão. These were billed as "special solo shows" and having seen Rufus with his band before, where he plays for nearly three hours, this was something completely different. Some nice surprises on the setlist, including two new songs. The first one is "Who are you, New York?", which Rufus rightfully complains it's very difficult to play. It sounds very melancholic, and it sure is a very complex piano piece. The second is the 20th sonnet by William Shakespeare, which Rufus adapted into a song, envisioning a theatre project he's been working on, and this was the first time he ever performed it. This show features a lot of Rufus banter, which are so characteristic of a Rufus solo show. You could tell Rufus was trying to explore the rivalry between Portugal and Spain. This was the eve of the final of the european football/soccer championship, so there are some spanish references throughout the show (Famalicão is pretty close to Galiza, and there were surely some spanish fans in the midst of the crowd). I wasn't able to attend night two, as ticket prices were pretty high and I had no guarantee he would fool around with the setlist enough to justify the investment. To top that, I didn't really have a place to stay for the night. This was my first time visiting V.N.Famalicão, and as any Portuguese northern city, it's very beautiful. The venue was really nice looking too, and has been attracting quite a few renowned artists recently. As for the recording, this was a tough one to work on. I didn't really like the house EQ'ing, Rufus's voice was a bit too bright, and proceeded to add some lower vocal range presence with EQ. I should have set the preamp levels to the max, as in between crowd cheering is *way* higher than the music program, so this involved quite an effort on dynamic processing, including something I would call "multipass hard limiting" to prevent compression artifacts on the recording. The crowd was very polite during the songs, and that's all it matters. Incidentally, this is the first Rufus recording of 2008 to be put in circulation, as far as I'm concerned (and quite a nice one, I might add).

Download: Dime (16bit)
Links: Official Website