venerdì 21 febbraio 2020

U2 - 1997-04-28 - San Diego, CA (AUD/MTX/FLAC)




(Audience Matrix FLAC)

U2
April 28th, 1997
San Diego, CA @ Jack Murphy Stadium

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Matrix of two recordings.

Recording one:
IEM Scanner > DAT @ LP Mode
Taper: Supermarket Superman

Recording two:
NAK 700 > D8
Taper: JEMS

Mixed, Produced, and Mastered by Hoserama/Sharebear
Time aligned in Adobe Audition 6
Mixed in Neundo 4, using extra waves, ozone, slate plug-ins
Flac'ed using Trader's Little Helper

Thanks to Butterking for the hook-up on the source, and TS for all the feedback, and SH for being just awesome.

01. Pop Musik
02. Mofo
03. I Will Follow
04. Even Better Than the Real Thing
05. Do You Feel Loved
06. Pride
07. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
08. Last Night On Earth
09. Gone
10. Until The End Of the World
11. If God Will Send His Angels
12. Staring at the Sun
13. Daydream Believer
14. Miami
15. Bullet the Blue Sky
16. Please
17. Where The Streets Have No Name
18. Lemon Remix
19. Discotheque
20. With Or Without You
21. Hold Me Thrill Me
22. Mysterious Ways
23. One

This show takes me back. I remember being a rambunctious eleven-year-old exploring on the internet for U2 sites. Pop had just been released and I had been listening to that for a while. I ran across a site that had some downloadable U2 bootlegs...in glorious 16kps RealAudio. From that site, I downloaded crummy audience recordings of this San Diego show and the DC Popmart show. Hoots and hollering, crowd noise, and distant vocals galore. Having never been to a concert before, I legitimately wondered if concert sound was loud enough to hear in the back! But I was more than intrigued. I kept downloading + acquiring shows, eventually started taping, and been at it ever since.

So when Butterking of JEMS and I were talking one evening, he casually mentioned he had a fresh new transfer of a nice audience recording from 1997 San Diego, my interest popped up. Another dear friend had just given me a handful a Popmart IEMS to clean-up for possible release (some have been released, some not), and San Diego was in the fold. A fairly one sided Bono feed that could use a little love for San Diego, unlike the crew feeds that made up a majority of the Popmart pulls. When I countered Butterking with the IEM in my possession, we both got very excited about the possibility of excellent matrix. Two months later after numerous revisions (special thanks to TS for the extra feedback!), we have the current mix.

It's not a perfect recording. The IEM was very Bono heavy, so most of the instrumentation came from the audience recording. It's tough to get a right balance in this case, and required many revisions. The IEM was pretty clean overall, while the audience has some chatter/cheering. The overall PA mix seemed inconsistent; sometimes the guitars seemed too low, and sometimes Bono's voice washed out in a wave of guitars. Easy to bring out the Vocals with the IEM, not so much the guitars. Give it a whirl, see what you think.

Several of these older Popmart ear monitor feeds have some dubious legacies. Some were stolen and released following the infamous shower heist; some were traded then cut up/introduced noise, etc. Shady trade shenanigans by folks who burned the original tapers. Some of these old recordings have been restored and released from a known lineage...and more may be coming. However, I burn out fast on doing these shows! Setlist variety is not synonymous with Popmart. This San Diego show has been thought to be one buried in the hands of the same folks, not exactly sure what has been done with it trade wise. But moot point now--time to flush out the system!

The show itself is a fun trainwreck. They were clearly underprepared (especially if you take the time to listen to the 23 CD set of the Popmart rehearsals), and it showed in the first 15 shows. As second night of the tour, there were some very amusing moments of mis-cues and mistakes. I love the version of I Will Follow...I'm sure the band would cringe at hearing that. But any true fan of the band finds a special love for the trainwrecks. After all, you need the mistakes to make the perfection that much better!

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