Hi all.
This e-mail was sent to me by a friend in the old dart & I thought some readers here might be interested in reading it.
Now remember those who disagree I'm only the messenger here.

Eleanor, as you know I have been privileged for quite a while now to have heard the London SBD tapes used for the soon to be released Godfather 02 25th & 29th December 2012 silver CD's.
I can safely say ranging from the folks who desire to have these Godfather originals in their superb packaging, to those of the "wait till they're free & become available on torrent sites" crew
all will be impressed by the quality of the recordings. The sound to my ears is excellent, you can hear both guitars, drums & of course Micks vocals. These recordings also reveal how much
imput the two backing singers have over the course of the show, too much in my opinion. I wish that they went the same way as Blondie & the other horn players. More so if I'm honest.

Once these recordings are available for public consumption there is no need to listen to the audience recordings any more!
And no GF did not use Bols audience recordings (remastered or otherwise) as has been suggested, they had no use for them.

However there may be some people that won't be impressed by hearing these CD's & they are the group declaring that Keith's back, he's in top form, Keith's on fire, Keith nailed it, Keith is the man etc
Sad to say these recordings reflect & clearly show that Keith really isn't on fire or nailing it as they endlessly tell us he is.

Eleanor I did as you suggested & had a look at the Stones site run by that Norwegian chappie & read the 02 reviews & comments.
I was gobsmacked by the umpteen posts praising Keith's new found or reinvigorated guitar skills.

As you know I attended the 02 shows from the pit section. I could hear the endless bum notes, fluffed chords, out of tune guitar as they were unfurled. Also at times Keith genuinely looked lost.
I've good hearing so I was really surprised reading all the Keith's on fire posts & for the life of me I can't fathom why these posters were having a different listening experience to myself.
Perhaps, maybe these people were so caught up in the excitement of actually being there, seeing their musical heroes after a 5 year break that they actually weren't hearing the musical content.
That seemed to be secondary. I saw this for myself while in the pit, scores of people appeared to be far more interested in holding up their phones taking photos or filming (as can be seen in many photographs),
than actually enjoying themselves. Many others around me who paid big quids were pretending to be store mannequin's (but with less emotion) the exception in my general area were some beastly older women
who repeatedly screamed as if they were 14 yo One Direction / Justin Beiber uber fans. How embarrassment!

I was gobsmacked (again) how sedate these audiences were, I expected a far more wilder audience reaction for the two London shows.
I sincerely think that to the die hards (& to some degree the general public) these 50th Anniversary concerts figured more as events but the quality of the music passed them by.

To me yes Keith was posing far less than he used to, yes he was concentrating far more than in 2007 but the endless bum notes in these recordings prove that that old ancient art of weaving has now transformed into
the modern art of unravelling.
It's fantastic that they returned for these 5 highly enjoyable shows, they were a great triumph for the band & lets hope at some stage they decide to do it again, but please spare me the Keith's back, he's in top form, Keith's on fire, Keith nailed it comments. Unfortunately these recordings prove otherwise. Sad but true. IMHO he had deteriorated even further by the time of the PPV concert.

But don't let that stop you from listening to these CD's which ever ever way you come by them!


Now remember once again to those who disagree I'm only the messenger here.

Thanks for posting the review.

I think Keith sounded really good at the PPV. Live rock and roll is not meant to be listened to through hearing impaired board feeds. In '69 Keith's Dan Armstrong was never in perfect tune. Concerts are not performed for the purpose of making bootleg tapes. That's what records are for.

Thanks for review, yes Keith was "passable", not more than that - I also thought, based on the recordings. The IEM/aud matrix should be interesting

Quote
Eleanor Rigby
these recordings prove that that old ancient art of weaving has now transformed into the modern art of unravelling.

[/b]

>< In all honesty I kinda share the opinion expressed above. This handful of gigs were not "the best ever" it was rock music played by guys in their 70's, period.
Keith's not the only culprit Charlie's lost a lot too (imo).
And the return of MT added nothing to the versions of MR delivered at these shows.

But there's still some glorious moments to be taken from this shows... mainly the songs where the Stones shared the stage with guests. And that's saying something by itself...

for some shows 2007 KR was dessasterous, in O2 he was far better but far from carrying the show.

Quote
dcba

... it was rock music played by guys in their 70's, period.

You said it all. First thing we need to do is thank them for being around for 50 years and still exposing themselfs to wide audiences.

For sure the IEM/ALD/Soundbords/... will sound very clear and show all the bum notes and how Mick loses synch with the band, etc.

That's why, even if I get these glorious sounding CDs, I will probably listen more to the audience recordings, because these are the ones that will sound closer to what I would ear, had I been there, and God I wished I had been there.

Let the party continue, I'm going to listen to Exile in stereo.

Thank you for the review

this review may comes close to the truth.
honestly I was excited to hear keith's playing on youtube clips.
but it was just the clips, not a perfect recording. I was especially excited
about some solos, like on going down.

I think everybody was excited to hear that keith was much better than expected.
that caused lots of people to get overexcited, while others were just happy
that it didn´t turn out to be a desaster.

the truth is somewhere in between. a 68 year old, still being able to deliver some nice riffs & solos. we should be happy about that and enjoy the shows.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012-12-22 14:53 by falo01.

Looking forward to these...

I heard 3 samples from these releases.
The sound is very dry, almost no audience at all.
It remains me Paris 98 or something from Japan (forgot the year).
So you can hear the most little (littlest?) mistake.
For example, the intro of HTW (1st show) : Ron tries to play with Keith but it's a little bit delayed : aftermath, it sounds "awful".
You can hear this delay on the audience tape but on the sample it's very present.

Quote
Eleanor Rigby
Hi all.
This e-mail was sent to me by a friend in the old dart & I thought some readers here might be interested in reading it.
Now remember those who disagree I'm only the messenger here.

Eleanor, as you know I have been privileged for quite a while now to have heard the London SBD tapes used for the soon to be released Godfather 02 25th & 29th December 2012 silver CD's.
I can safely say ranging from the folks who desire to have these Godfather originals in their superb packaging, to those of the "wait till they're free & become available on torrent sites" crew
all will be impressed by the quality of the recordings. The sound to my ears is excellent, you can hear both guitars, drums & of course Micks vocals. These recordings also reveal how much
imput the two backing singers have over the course of the show, too much in my opinion. I wish that they went the same way as Blondie & the other horn players. More so if I'm honest.

Once these recordings are available for public consumption there is no need to listen to the audience recordings any more!
And no GF did not use Bols audience recordings (remastered or otherwise) as has been suggested, they had no use for them.

However there may be some people that won't be impressed by hearing these CD's & they are the group declaring that Keith's back, he's in top form, Keith's on fire, Keith nailed it, Keith is the man etc
Sad to say these recordings reflect & clearly show that Keith really isn't on fire or nailing it as they endlessly tell us he is.

Eleanor I did as you suggested & had a look at the Stones site run by that Norwegian chappie & read the 02 reviews & comments.
I was gobsmacked by the umpteen posts praising Keith's new found or reinvigorated guitar skills.

As you know I attended the 02 shows from the pit section. I could hear the endless bum notes, fluffed chords, out of tune guitar as they were unfurled. Also at times Keith genuinely looked lost.
I've good hearing so I was really surprised reading all the Keith's on fire posts & for the life of me I can't fathom why these posters were having a different listening experience to myself.
Perhaps, maybe these people were so caught up in the excitement of actually being there, seeing their musical heroes after a 5 year break that they actually weren't hearing the musical content.
That seemed to be secondary. I saw this for myself while in the pit, scores of people appeared to be far more interested in holding up their phones taking photos or filming (as can be seen in many photographs),
than actually enjoying themselves. Many others around me who paid big quids were pretending to be store mannequin's (but with less emotion) the exception in my general area were some beastly older women
who repeatedly screamed as if they were 14 yo One Direction / Justin Beiber uber fans. How embarrassment!

I was gobsmacked (again) how sedate these audiences were, I expected a far more wilder audience reaction for the two London shows.
I sincerely think that to the die hards (& to some degree the general public) these 50th Anniversary concerts figured more as events but the quality of the music passed them by.

To me yes Keith was posing far less than he used to, yes he was concentrating far more than in 2007 but the endless bum notes in these recordings prove that that old ancient art of weaving has now transformed into
the modern art of unravelling.
It's fantastic that they returned for these 5 highly enjoyable shows, they were a great triumph for the band & lets hope at some stage they decide to do it again, but please spare me the Keith's back, he's in top form, Keith's on fire, Keith nailed it comments. Unfortunately these recordings prove otherwise. Sad but true. IMHO he had deteriorated even further by the time of the PPV concert.

But don't let that stop you from listening to these CD's which ever ever way you come by them!


Now remember once again to those who disagree I'm only the messenger here.

Anal retentives shouldn't be admitted at a Rolling Stones show, no need for party poopers at those prices !!
Rock and roll,
Mops

Finaly some objective thoughts here, cool !

HMN

OKAY the second GF boot has just been shared at Dime!

Ah let's go take a look!

Dunno about that "Keith plays bum notes all the time"...I'm pretty aware of bum notes generally and I didn't hear too many in the pit on the 25th, at the Trabendo, in Bondy on the 8th or at the PPV...yeah there were a few : 25th (HTW and GS was not great, a lot better at the PPV), Bondy (THSMLI) and PPV (solo in Satisafaction) but you read that review it sounds like it would be painful to hear at the show, this is just as ridiculous as saying that Keith plays like he did in 1997 and it's been beaten to death.

Quote
Honestman
Finaly some objective thoughts here, cool !

i object. the object of my objectiveness has always been to do that...

Wow sound is stunning with headphones! Clapton's leads on C&R :

I've heard IEM's that were dry and metallic but this one's not. It reminds me of the Buenos Aires'95 "Voodoo Cult" boot CD. Great full sound, no static or distortion, only the drums sound a bit thin.

Jagger dominates but the guitars are not buried in the mix. Keith has a fat juicy tone that's a delight to listen to.
Alas the bass is mixed low... so no Bill on IORR.

"A TRUE SENSATION!"



Edited 7 time(s). Last edit at 2012-12-22 18:29 by dcba.

As mentioned, available for download on Dime. [www.dimeadozen.org]

The Rolling Stones
02 Arena, London, England
29 November 2012

Bootleg Title: Champagne, Reefer and a Red Headed Woman
Label: The Godfather Records G.R. 832/833
Source: IEM/AUD Matrix
Lineage: My silvers>EAC(secure mode)>FLAC


CD 1

01 Video screens intro
02 Show intro
03 Get off of my cloud
04 I wanna be your man (The Beatles cover)
05 The last time (First live performance since 18 july 1998)
06 Paint it black
07 Gimme shelter (with Florence Welch)
08 Lady Jane
09 Champagne & Reefer (Muddy Waters cover) (with Eric Clapton)
10 Live with me
11 Miss you
12 One more shot
13 Doom and gloom
14 It's only rock 'n' roll (but I like it) (with Bill Wyman)
15 Honky tonk women (with Bill Wyman)

CD 2

01 Band introductions
02 Before they make me run (Keith Richards on lead vocals)
03 Happy (Keith Richards on lead vocals)
04 Midnight rambler (with Mick Taylor)
05 Start me up
06 Tumbling dice
07 Brown sugar
08 Sympathy for the devil
09 You can't always what you want (with the London Youth Choir)
10 Jumpin' Jack flash
11 (I can't get no) Satisfaction

So that's it ? I'm not impressed, I guess it's a decent mono recording with some added crowd noise buried deep...not a very pleasant listen on headphones. I'll take the PPV in full stereo over that any day with the full separation on the guitars. Only of interest to hear what was unique to that night, i.e. Clapton and Florence Welsh.

It makes the alarmist "review" (Keith plays zillions of bum notes a second) in the first message all the more "silly" as it's rather hard to tell who's playing what.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012-12-22 20:18 by gotdablouse.

Seems like Godfathers wanted to hype up this recording. To me it sounds like a simple un-distorted feed, which is pleasant, but should have been put into a matrix. The idea that they 'has no use' for Bol's recording, is silly.

Great to see this is out. Wish they had done this for the show on the 13th.

Quote
gotdablouse
it's rather hard to tell who's playing what.

With headphones it's easy : Keith is the fat guitar on your right, Ron is the thinner-soundign on your left...

Err...well it's 95% mono, there is virtually no left/right to speak of, very unnatural to listen to on headphones. Going back to the 15/12 PPV now that I've listened to Clapton, Lady Jane and Florence.

BTW, I gave it a complete listen. As one of the more critical individuals on this board, I have to say this is genuinely fun. Guitars are fairly upfront. You can hear Ronnie and Keith doing their thing. Sounds like a board feed, and not one of those lousy assisted-listening device feeds from the No Security tour. Apparently someone at the board decided to do a proper feed out of the console (matrix feed out of an omni output on a LS9 anyone?).

Yes, all the 'mistakes' are there, but we'd all say the same thing about most any concert in a format this raw. I will be mixing it with Bol's recording for my own collection. Glad they put it out untampered with so that I can mix it myself.

Can't wait for the Nov 25th version to show up !

[doctorstonesblog.blogspot.com]

Quote
flacnvinyl
Glad they put it out untampered with so that I can mix it myself.

easy on the vermouth, now

Quote
Eleanor Rigby
Hi all.
This e-mail was sent to me by a friend in the old dart & I thought some readers here might be interested in reading it.
Now remember those who disagree I'm only the messenger here.

Eleanor, as you know I have been privileged for quite a while now to have heard the London SBD tapes used for the soon to be released Godfather 02 25th & 29th December 2012 silver CD's.
I can safely say ranging from the folks who desire to have these Godfather originals in their superb packaging, to those of the "wait till they're free & become available on torrent sites" crew
all will be impressed by the quality of the recordings. The sound to my ears is excellent, you can hear both guitars, drums & of course Micks vocals. These recordings also reveal how much
imput the two backing singers have over the course of the show, too much in my opinion. I wish that they went the same way as Blondie & the other horn players. More so if I'm honest.

Once these recordings are available for public consumption there is no need to listen to the audience recordings any more!
And no GF did not use Bols audience recordings (remastered or otherwise) as has been suggested, they had no use for them.

However there may be some people that won't be impressed by hearing these CD's & they are the group declaring that Keith's back, he's in top form, Keith's on fire, Keith nailed it, Keith is the man etc
Sad to say these recordings reflect & clearly show that Keith really isn't on fire or nailing it as they endlessly tell us he is.

Eleanor I did as you suggested & had a look at the Stones site run by that Norwegian chappie & read the 02 reviews & comments.
I was gobsmacked by the umpteen posts praising Keith's new found or reinvigorated guitar skills.

As you know I attended the 02 shows from the pit section. I could hear the endless bum notes, fluffed chords, out of tune guitar as they were unfurled. Also at times Keith genuinely looked lost.
I've good hearing so I was really surprised reading all the Keith's on fire posts & for the life of me I can't fathom why these posters were having a different listening experience to myself.
Perhaps, maybe these people were so caught up in the excitement of actually being there, seeing their musical heroes after a 5 year break that they actually weren't hearing the musical content.
That seemed to be secondary. I saw this for myself while in the pit, scores of people appeared to be far more interested in holding up their phones taking photos or filming (as can be seen in many photographs),
than actually enjoying themselves. Many others around me who paid big quids were pretending to be store mannequin's (but with less emotion) the exception in my general area were some beastly older women
who repeatedly screamed as if they were 14 yo One Direction / Justin Beiber uber fans. How embarrassment!

I was gobsmacked (again) how sedate these audiences were, I expected a far more wilder audience reaction for the two London shows.
I sincerely think that to the die hards (& to some degree the general public) these 50th Anniversary concerts figured more as events but the quality of the music passed them by.

To me yes Keith was posing far less than he used to, yes he was concentrating far more than in 2007 but the endless bum notes in these recordings prove that that old ancient art of weaving has now transformed into
the modern art of unravelling.
It's fantastic that they returned for these 5 highly enjoyable shows, they were a great triumph for the band & lets hope at some stage they decide to do it again, but please spare me the Keith's back, he's in top form, Keith's on fire, Keith nailed it comments. Unfortunately these recordings prove otherwise. Sad but true. IMHO he had deteriorated even further by the time of the PPV concert.

But don't let that stop you from listening to these CD's which ever ever way you come by them!


Now remember once again to those who disagree I'm only the messenger here.

So with a handle of Eleanor Rigby why did you feel the need to post? you missing the Unfab Four.? Is it not a pity the Beatles finished when they did? Imagine the scrutiny their songs / albums. would have endured in the 70's 80's 90's 100'S. At least the Stones had the balls to carry on. Oh what a legacy the Stones left!!! I am going to listen to all their Studio Albums with pride.

Quote
StonesTod

Quote
flacnvinyl
Glad they put it out untampered with so that I can mix it myself.

easy on the vermouth, now

You misspelled merlot.
(btw, my comment could be read as sarcastic but I am genuinely glad they released it in a raw state)

Quote
flacnvinyl

Sounds like a board feed, and not one of those lousy assisted-listening device feeds from the No Security tour. Apparently someone at the board decided to do a proper feed out of the console (matrix feed out of an omni output on a LS9 anyone?).

So this could have stemmed from a guy working for the band?

Cold hearted review. This was a better Keith than ABB. Go back to the New Barbarians era, he was better last month than that. What EVERYONE seems to miss, Richards like Lennon is a songwriter first. Designer of the worlds greatest hooks and intros. Yeah he owns 3000 guitars but like Page and even Hendrix the proof is in the songs written, the performances have always been hit and miss with those who are so rich with creativity. It may sound funny but guitar is not Keith's real instrument, the songs he wrote on those guitars is his vehicle the guitar comes along for the ride.

@dcba - Unlikely. The folks who work for the band can prettymuch be sued up n down for letting anything leak. In-ear mixes require a receiver (simple belt-pack unit should suffice) and simply scanning the frequency to find the right channel. I tried doing it in Atlanta in 05 but couldn't find it in time. Made a nice recording of the gig despite that! It is also possible that someone working for the venue was able to access it.

@DoomandGloom - What you said. The best Keith moments are when he simply 'feels' the music. He is not a technically proficient guitarist, but rather has a style and substance all to himself. The highlight of this entire tour is Respectable with Woody and Mayer taking turns with Keith on solos. Absolutely priceless moment when Keith lays down those killer guitar licks. You know EXACTLY who is behind that tone. No one plays like him, on a good night.

Thx FV! So we're back to the IEM trail... I'm impressed by the high fidelity of these things.
Must be a treat to be onstage and hearing your fellow band members that well!
The old "wedge" system is gone for good, no?