| Gilmour, David - Blue Lights (PRRP029) |
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Notes |
| Recorded at the Open Air Theater, San Diego State University, San Diego, California, USA. Very good audience recording. From the info file: Never Buy or Sell a PRRP Visit http://prrp-music.com PRRP029 - DAVID GILMOUR BLUE LIGHTS June 20, 1984 (Open Air Theater, San Diego State University, San Diego, California) 1.1 Until We Sleep 7:03 1.2 All Lovers Are Deranged 6:28 1.3 Love On The Air 6:11 1.4 Mihalis 10:19 1.5 Cruise 8:34 1.6 Short And Sweet 8:00 1.7 Money 12:07 2.1 Out Of The Blue 4:05 2.2 Let's Get Metaphysical 6:32 2.3 You Know I'm Right 8:27 2.4 Run Like Hell 7:24 2.5 Blue Light 9:32 2.6 Band Introductions 2:27 2.7 Murder 9:49 2.8 Comfortably Numb 10:20 DAVID GILMOUR David Gilmour - Lead Guitars and Vocals Mick Ralphs - Guitars and Backing Vocals Mickey Feat - Bass Guitars and Backing Vocals Gregg Dechart - Keyboards and Backing Vocals Raff Ravenscroft - Saxophones Jodi Linscott - Percussion Chris Slade - Drums From The Pink To The Blue The departure of Roger Waters from Pink Floyd was both a blessing and a curse for David Gilmour. Some Floyd fans and critics at the time thought that Waters had completely taken over the band, stifling the musical expressions of the others. After The Final Cut, Waters was gone and David Gilmour elected to move forward with his second solo album called About Face. This venture allowed Gilmour to showcase his talents outside of the sphere of Pink Floyd and freed him to explore different styles of music. This time, David Gilmour asked Bob Ezrin to help with the production of the album. Mr. Ezrin had produced The Wall and later was instrumental in returning Pink Floyd to the stage in 1987. Dave then formed his band by bringing together musicians from many different spheres of music. These included drummer Jeff Porcaro from Toto, Anne Dudley from The Art of Noise and even contributions from Steve Winwood and Pete Townshend. Pete Townshend helped David Gilmour write both Love on the Air and All Lovers are Deranged. When asked about this collaboration David made the following statement: 'I had lyrics for those songs but I really didn't like them. I asked him for help because I was running short on time and even shorter on inspiration for improving the lyrics. I was very pleasantly surprised when I got the cassette back for Love on the Air. I like where he had put the line and how he had done the vocal. I had heard the vocal line in a completely different place and deliberately sent Pete a tape with no melody on it. It was just a completed backing track with no lines on it at all and no ideas as to what I thought the lyrics should be. He didn't have any restrictions. Of course in some places which I intended to be instrumental, he put words on. Lovers was the same situation, only I changed the placing of his melody and lyrics a bit'. -1985 David Gilmour began the About Face tour with a brief appearance on British Television on March 30th, 1984, playing just two songs from his new album. This was followed the next day by the first full concert in Dublin, Ireland, at the National Stadium. Gilmour's set consisted of a collection of the best songs from his two solo albums and, inevitably, a few Pink Floyd songs as well. The European leg of the tour consisted of 23 performances including 4 nights at the Hammersmith Odeon in London during which a concert video was recorded featuring a surprise guest appearance by Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason. The group then went to North America where 48 more shows were played. Beginning in Quebec on May 9th, this part of the tour took the troop across the United States to California, back East to Florida and ended with a final performance on July 16th in New York City. The show we bring you here was recorded in San Diego on June 20th, 1984, their first day in California. With an open air venue the sound will be a bit different than most audience recordings presented by PRRP. However, we feel that this performance shows David Gilmour and his solo band to be polished, versatile and a musical force in its own right; no small feat given the reputation of a band like Pink Floyd. The taper of this show remembers it well and provided us with the following details of that performance, 'As for the mix, the way I taped that show was with a stereo Sony that had built in microphones. I used to hang it around my neck and let it hang around my chest area to get good lines with the speaker. If security would arrive, I would slightly lean one way or the other to keep the recorder out of view. You can hear the sound shift when I did that, but it is only brief and occasional. Since I was in the second row, I most likely got a bad mix anyway, monitors mostly, the PA system was too far on the sides to get the full blast of the mix. I remember that I had a great time. The show was phenomenal. Jody Linscott was just starting to show her pregnancy and Mick Ralphs just tore up his solos. My buddy went up and placed a one dollar bill on the stage right in front of David Gilmour as he was wailing away on (the song) Money, he broke his concentration briefly, looking up at our group and smiling with the head nod, it was a hi-five all around. To stand in front of Gilmour, 3 feet away, and watch this guy for two hours was a dream come true'. There were those who were concerned that the departure of Roger Waters from Pink Floyd would leave that band without a stable musical driving force. With this year of solo work, David Gilmour answered those concerns and showed that even without Waters, Pink Floyd was still well endowed with musical talent and that they could carry on despite the loss of one of their most noted members. Notes from the Re-master This show comes to us as a master cassette tape. It was digitized using 32-bit format and 24-bit resolution. Analysis revealed music signal up to 11,000Hz. The complete show is here so no patches were necessary but the tape flips and change from tape 1 to tape 2 needed to be mixed. The taper provided us with the details regarding his location in the audience as noted above. Hiss was a moderate problem that was reduced using selective techniques. Crackle was also present throughout the show and needed separate techniques to be reduced. Given the frequency response of the recorder, the midrange was too harsh so filters were applied to reduce this excess. An imbalance between the two channels was present and a 12% correction was necessary. The mix does change through the show. During the first few songs the sound, and in particular the vocals are a bit distant even though we know the taper was in the second row. This improves by the time Cruise is played. Applause was attenuated where necessary and other noises such as feedback, clicks and pops were removed. The show was then tracked, converted to 16-bit and placed in audio format. PRRP Staff |