This set
was uploaded on a famous torrent site at the end of May 2021 and consists of:
Disc One
& Two: 1984 Japanese vinyl bootleg
Disc Three
& Four: Three Yardbirds in The Hall (Beano-023).
Disc Five (bonus
disc): six bonus tracks from the Sept. 20, 1983 A.R.M.S show including
the lost
Steve Winwood track title mystery solved.
First, this
recording gives out not less than three upgrades:
1) Superior
transfer:
The Japan
vinyl bootleg that came out in 1984 was transferred using a considerably
higher-level Dual vinyl record player which digitises directly to lossless FLAC
files via USB-cable. Therefore, this is a fresh needledrop without the need of
using a cd-r in the lineage (which used to be necessary for digitising transfers
on my Philips cdr burner) plus polishing with Audacity that might provide at
least a slight upgrade for those who already own the 2008 version.
2) Additional
alternate source:
In late
2009 Clapton-focused Beano Records released their (slightly EQ'ed) version of
that recording as part of a silver 4CD set titled Three Yardbirds in the Hall,
which we already reviewed here. That fatboy box contained both the complete
Sept. 20, 1983 A.R.M.S and the Sept. 21, 1983 The Prince's Trust shows. From
that release, the latter was added as an interesting alternate source to
listen.
3) The six
bonus tracks:
Most part
(though not all) of the A.R.M.S show was released officially so it is not part
of this set. However, as appropriate for a desirable anniversary edition, this
time were added as corresponding bonus tracks those above mentioned six numbers
from the A.R.M.S. show that were never released officially and never torrented
either.
About this
show: most people will know that late ex-Small Face Ronnie Lane had organised
his well-known September 20th, 1983 show at the Royal Albert Hall with his
mates to raise funds for his A.R.M.S. (Action for Research Into Multiple
Sclerosis) charity organisation. That 150 min. show was broadcasted in 2000 as
a radio show by Westwood One Superstars in Concert Series and already in 1984
got its first official release on VHS and later on DVD.
This
concert though is from the 2nd night on September 21st with the same personnel
yet dedicated to another good cause, Prince Charles' The Prince's Trust; an
event appropriately called The Prince’s Trust Rock Gala. The Prince had just founded
his charity project earlier in 1983, and on July 20th Duran Duran played the
first fund-raising show. Therefore, he and the late Princess Diana of course
attended the show which for this occasion had to be cut down to about two hours.
Eventually,
Clapton dropped Wonderful Tonight from his previous night's set, Winwood
omitted his opener Hound Dog, the All Stars did without Tulsa Time and Ronnie
himself didn't sing Bomber’s Moon; only Beck and Page didn’t condense their sets;
with its 18 plus minutes, Page's was by far the shortest, anyway. On Clapton’s
Wee Wee Baby Ian Stewart is introduced to the audience as the Rolling Stones
Manager.
There sure
are many reasons anyway to appreciate this recording:
Though
insolently subtitled as The Complete Concert, that often re-released VHS/DVD of
the Sept. 20th A.R.M.S show has not less than frigging six(!) numbers left off:
Clapton's Wonderful Tonight, Winwood's
Waiting
For Orders and Hound Dog, Becks People Get Ready, The All Stars' Wee Wee Baby
and Bomber's Moon although initial VHS issues had either Jimmy's Prelude not
included or not listed as a separate track.
In turn,
Westwood One's 2000 Superstars in Concert 3LP radio show came with almost the
complete show though likewise without the two first tracks in Steve Winwood's
set, Hound Dog and Waiting For Orders (maybe at Winwood's explicit request
because they don't appear on the official VHS/DVDs, either), plus exactly
without Stairway to Heaven.
However,
that show luckily also makes its rounds as a pretty good sounding audience
recording and was Beano's source for the first two Discs in their Three
Yardbirds In the Hall box set. Thereby, this torrent here comes with all the officially
unreleased September 20th tracks taken from that radio show triple album and
the audience recording, coupled on one separate bonus disc.
In contrast
to the first night's rather questionable official release fate, The Prince's
Trust show was never released officially or broadcasted - and therefore it
qualifies for being torrented. The Japanese vinyl boot was manufactured from a complete
audience recording of really nice audio quality. The bootlegger's source tape
must have been recorded with high-quality equipment and either he flew over to
London to tape the show himself or was sent a very low generation copy - maybe
even the master or a copy taken directly from the master.
For their
2009 Three Yardbirds In The Hall box set, the Beano bootleggers obviously only
had a slightly lesser generation copy source tape at hand and seemingly tweaked
a little on that for their release; hence, it seems as though even after 35
years time a straight 1st gen. copy off-the-master still does not circulate.
It is
noteworthy that this torrent contains the Steve Winwood number Waiting For
Orders that he played on both nights. Now, this is a lovely song which is worth
the admission alone! There has always been some speculation and mystery about
that number's actual title which can be regarded solved, meanwhile: Steve and his
long-time partner-in-crime Will Jennings had written a number with that very
title for Steve's 1982 Talking Back To The Night solo album. However, as Steve once
said in an interview he didn't regard it as up to the other songs' standard so
he didn't use it for that album, and even left it unreleased to this day. Despite
his reservations towards this lost song, Steve luckily still decided to play it
at least on these two occasions, maybe trying to find out if it may sound
better live than in the studio - and with Eric embellishing it with some
intriguing guitar soloing, it sure does sound awesome. Too bad Steve didn't
give it a second thought. Along with Beck's People Get Ready it is oner of the
best numbers of the entire show.
As The Sun
made it clear on their front page the following day (depicted on the front cover),
the icing of this star-studded cake was silver-dressed Diana who of course
“outshone them all” hands down.
The second London
concert cane out as The Prince s Trust Rock Gala on a triple album from Japan
and on ARMS Concert 21 from Craze Ent. The ARMS line up ran through the U.S.A. after having premiered in London at the Royal Albert
Hall in order to support Ronnie
Lane fight against MS. A number of musicians friends
got together and made some concerts to raise funds, amongst them Bill Wyman,
Charlie Watts and Ian Stewart from the Stones, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and
Jimmy Page, Stevie Winwood in London, Joe Cocker and Paul Rodgers in USA and just
in New York Ronnie Wood joined company. Completely absent was Rod Stewart,
nowhere to be seen. The concerts were introduced by Bill Graham and contrary to
how the program was structured in the USA here to the three guitarist we have
to add Stevie Winwood that shares the stage with an equal number of songs before
the finale encores where they are all on stage together.
These are
great audience tapes that feature all instruments in wide stereo and with no distortion
at all, the second show has always been quite a bad recording and so this is a
real good improvement. Packaging is great; it comes with full-colour cover
artwork for:
Discs 1
& 2: re-used the 1984 Japanese vinyl bootleg cover artwork which in turn depicts
the handbill for the actual show and The Sun front page from the following day.
Disc 3
& 4: Three Yardbirds in The Hall (Beano-023).
Disc 5
(bonus disc): A.R.M.S. cast photos and logo re-used.
