Soundboard or audience recording?

"This one's for all you bootleggers. No bum notes, you'll make a fortune out of it" (Bernard before Hurt, Portsmouth 26/8/84)

So then peeps, which live recordings do you prefer, the clear but sterile sound of the soundboard recording, or the life and vibrancy of the audience recording? It's nice to have copies of both, but often not an option.

For me, the "perfect" audience tape wins out - but those are so rare....

(Thinks back mournfully on how as an impoverished adolescent he spent what little money he had on innumerable unlistenable New Order bootlegs.....)

Originally posted by Doctor Clayhead For me, the "perfect" audience tape wins out - but those are so rare....(Thinks back mournfully on how as an impoverished adolescent he spent what little money he had on innumerable unlistenable New Order bootlegs.....)

Which is what i did in my youth as well.

I can think of about a dozen audience recordings that are awesome in quality. Was listening to a couple of them last night.

Berlin 81 Stockholm 81

Originally posted by Nick Name I can think of about a dozen audience recordings that are awesome in quality. Was listening to a couple of them last night.Berlin 81Stockholm 81

You lucky bugger.

How do you make a boot leg? They they stop anybody with recording equipment from getting into the venue?

Glasgow 14/04/1983 is a decent quality audience and East Leagues '85 is very listenable too. Spent so many years listening to ropey quality tapes it's nice to hear the soundboards ( Fulcrum Centre ) being one.

I also remember Tolworth as always being available as a soundboard but I've never heard the audience version.

I was at Glasgow Tiffany's 83 when they did Blue Monday twice, good gig except for that.

Royal festival Hall 84 Tower Ballroom 83 , and Woolwich Coronet 87 for me

Audience for me

Mike

You can't beat shitey recordings, and the hope that one day you'll get a better copy of the same show. Most of my favourite tapes were shite when I first got them, it was the performances I loved. Managed to track down better copies, and I now think I've probably got as good as you can get for most shows. Perfect quality isn't important to me, but I'd rather be able to hear the gig than the noise of the tape winding or a set that sounds like it was recorded in a wind tunnel. I've always preferred European shows to American, nothing quite as annoying as some A-head septic shouting shite in between songs and singing along (with the wrong words)......those who've heard Jones Beach 89 will know exactly where I'm coming from!!

Originally posted by Ian MadManc How do you make a boot leg? They they stop anybody with recording equipment from getting into the venue?

Where there's a will, there's a way. Never forget that.

Originally posted by Ian MadManc How do you make a boot leg? They they stop anybody with recording equipment from getting into the venue?

Ian - your status as the cherub of this forum is confirmed: is your address 1 Innocence Place, Garden of Eden, Never Never Land, perchance???:)

Soundboard recordings are great to listen to but its the little extras that make the audience recordings come out on top, hours spent repeating the same section to try eavesdrop on a conversation. And then for some theres no repetition required, for example on the Central London Poly 6.12.85, it sounds like an audible orgasm at the start of atmosphere.

Originally posted by ShugZV© > Originally posted by Digital Mike Binoche> I was at Glasgow Tiffany's 83 when they did Blue Monday twice, good gig except for that.

CLASSIC. You not like BM then Mike? I have a cracking CDR of this concert - one of the nice Onliners sent me it, great gig.

Back to the topic - I find masel agreeing with Tim on the tape front, nothing like getting a better quality copy than you already have, at one stage I had 4 copies of Finsbury 6-6-87. I finally got a half decent copy last year....14 years after first getting my hands on the first shitey cassette copy.

Favourite tapes with a half decent sound other than Finsbury(above) would be Reading 89, Glasgow Barra's 6-2-85 which I've often mentioned, Paradise Garage 7-7-83 and Palace Hollywood January 86 (Shellshock opened that gig....I think)

Favourite absolute shite recordings would be Birmingham Tower Ballroom 2-10-86 (Gillian's favourite gig and also the famous we're a pop group you're a wanker quotes) Athens Arena 22-2-82, Norwich Pennies also 82 and Joy Division Effenaar 11-1-80.

Fuckin' hell - I had a copy of that fucking Finsbury gig which sounded like it was recorded by someone in fucking Berkshire. At best it was like a slight distortion in the tape hiss. Some bootleg merchants are/were twats of the highest order.

Originally posted by ShugZV© > Originally posted by Digital Mike Binoche> I was at Glasgow Tiffany's 83 when they did Blue Monday twice, good gig except for that.

Favourite absolute shite recordings would be Birmingham Tower Ballroom 2-10-86 (Gillian's favourite gig and also the famous we're a pop group you're a wanker quotes) and Joy Division Effenaar 11-1-80.

Shite recordings? These are two of the very best you can get in terms of sound quality. Birmingham 86 (also my favourite show) is a top notch audience recording.

Originally posted by Doctor Clayhead > Originally posted by ShugZV© > Originally posted by Digital Mike Binoche> I was at Glasgow Tiffany's 83 when they did Blue Monday twice, good gig except for that.

Fuckin' hell - I had a copy of that fucking Finsbury gig which sounded like it was recorded by someone in fucking Berkshire. At best it was like a slight distortion in the tape hiss. Some bootleg merchants are/were twats of the highest order.

I've still never heard a decent Finsbury 87. All my copies have come from the same two sources, a Lazlo crappy copy and one that was recorded very nearby but without the infuriating self-promotion after Touched.

Originally posted by Nick Name > Originally posted by Doctor Clayhead> > > > Originally posted by ShugZV©> > Originally posted by Digital Mike Binoche> I was at Glasgow Tiffany's 83 when they did Blue Monday twice, good gig except for that.

Fuckin' hell - I had a copy of that fucking Finsbury gig which sounded like it was recorded by someone in fucking Berkshire. At best it was like a slight distortion in the tape hiss. Some bootleg merchants are/were twats of the highest order.

I've still never heard a decent Finsbury 87. All my copies have come from the same two sources, a Lazlo crappy copy and one that was recorded very nearby but without the infuriating self-promotion after Touched.

You only have to ask, my master of Fins' 87 sounds just fine. Also prefer the audience to the strile soundboards, just for the craic

Originally posted by ShugZV© > Originally posted by Nick Name> > > > > > Originally posted by ShugZV©> > Originally posted by Digital Mike Binoche> I was at Glasgow Tiffany's 83 when they did Blue Monday twice, good gig except for that.

Favourite absolute shite recordings would be Birmingham Tower Ballroom 2-10-86 (Gillian's favourite gig and also the famous we're a pop group you're a wanker quotes) and Joy Division Effenaar 11-1-80.

Shite recordings? These are two of the very best you can get in terms of sound quality. Birmingham 86 (also my favourite show) is a top notch audience recording.

Yer kidding! You must have a different "source" tapes than my copies - mine's are foowkin terrible! I have a better copy of The Paradiso a week later than Effenaar. I purchased most of my stuff from a good lad in Scotland.

Aha - was he from Glasgow??? I used to get tapes from him - they got very cheap if you ordered in bulk, right??? He used to send me masses of info. about which were the best/funniest tapes scrawled on the back of New Order gig flyers - nice little mementos!! He was a good lad, though i am FOOKED if I can remember his name......

That'll be Dougie, from Kirkintilloch, no?

Douglas Pirie, wasn't it? Unless he has a brother called Andrew. Dougie always seemed to be a step ahead of many people. I've got some tapes at home where he's written on "cut in Temptation not my fault, was on tape when I got it" and stuff like that. A good man.

Pirie sounds right - though I can't decide between "Dougie" and "Andrew". Presumably he's still making it to gigs and stuff - I struggle to believe anyone that devoted would give up on them....??????

Definitely Douglas - just traced him.

A good audience recording but soundboards are gold IMHO. Fox Theatre 1985 where they really fooked up Chosen Time (although Sunrise and STYT are stellar). You can play these LOUD without hurting your ears.

But you are correct that they are a bit sterile--no chatty English bird that will not shut her mouth, no taper singing along. Both recordings seem to suffer form an inability to flip the tape at the right time. Not their fault, New Order goes form song to song like a machine gun.

Originally posted by twist A good audience recording but soundboards are gold IMHO. Fox Theatre 1985 where they really fooked up Chosen Time (although Sunrise and STYT are stellar). You can play these LOUD without hurting your ears.But you are correct that they are a bit sterile--no chatty English bird that will not shut her mouth, no taper singing along. Both recordings seem to suffer form an inability to flip the tape at the right time. Not their fault, New Order goes form song to song like a machine gun.

...no wankers shouting "bring back Ian Curtis" or "Zeig heil" (sp.??); no chatty students rambling away with no interest in the band whatsoever; no that-bloke-who-ALWAYS-shouts-for-EGG; no-one baiting Hooky or accusing the band of selling out.

Where would we be without audience tapes????

{As Shug has suggested further up, by the end of my bootleg collecting days I mostly just used to forward through each song to see if they said something funny/abusive between tunes....]

On a lot of the audience tapes there's some loony who keeps shouting WE ALL STAND.

Originally posted by PFD On a lot of the audience tapes there's some loony who keeps shouting WE ALL STAND.

That'll be one ATR/Stash ! I can still picture the scene, Ian the inflatable skeleton under one arm, pint of cider in other hand. Microphone delicately tucked away beside Ian.

Don't tell Spike the secrets.

Originally posted by PFD Don't tell Spike the secrets.

Spike won't get it. The real danger is the public outing on MadMancOnline, with a world exclusive that some people are smuggling illicit recording devices into concerts and making tapes of artistes and selling their wares for profit, thus eating away at the sanctity of the artist's copyright. The sheer temerity of Manchester United fans using inflatables, once a mainstay of the Maine Road faithful, to smuggle said recording devices into concerts is something that cannot be comprehended.

I remember being in touch with two Pirrie's. Must be brothers.

definitely prefer the soundboard recordings. haven't listened to an audience recording of theirs in several years.

those who've heard Jones Beach 89 will know exactly where I'm coming from!!

Oh yeah, the one with the French-accented guy singing along (badly) to the songs...

--Sam

Good audience always beats S/B for me, the atmosphere and audience banter make you feellike you're there. Having collected numerous dodgy JD and NO boots in the early 80's up at Portobello or Camden, it's a bloody relief to have shared and swapped quality AU recordings with so many of the NOOL crew. My faves?

Liverpool State - Mar 83 RFH - May 84 Caley Palais - Feb 85

Malvern's said to be good, but I haven't heard it coz TJ still owes me that one!!

I'm all with Marko on this one. A clean S/B recording, with barely any audience noise, is just too sterile for me. I want to be able to hear the full beer cup flying through the air before it hits Bernard or Hooky in the face and they make a remark about it. But, of course, the main thing is the sound quality of the audience recording. Many of them or dodgy and unlistenable, and in those cases I'd prefer soundboard anytime, but there are lots of very good ones circulating (the 1981 & 1982 European tours have produced some gems, and also lots of 1984 & 1985 shows) and those easily rival any soundboard recording for me.