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  1. Clearly there's audience mixed in on the 26th recording, the screaming suggests it comes from mics in front of the frontrow. I don't know if it's possible to have such a good recording from a mic alone, I guess it's soundboard mixed with audience sound. Mixes for 27th and 30th seem to have less audience. Maybe someone else knows more about the history of these recordings or maybe some of the soundexperts on this site can shine their light on this.
  2. Listening to Rock's Hottest Ticket right now. Downloading this now and switching concerts.
  3. Originally posted by LikeASong:[..]
    I have always been an advocate of the theory that the 26, 27 and 30 Point Depot bootlegs are not proper soundboard recordings, AND they are not proper audience recordings either. I bet my money that these recordings were made with a professional external microphone (just like you'd make an audience recording), BUT from the mixing desk, by someone with the right contacts – or someone from the U2 camp directly. There are certain things that give these recordings away, like the presence of close clappers & ocassional chats, which is something you'd rarely (if ever) find on a pure soundboard recording. There are also more subtle and intangible things, like the "warm & balanced feel" that they have, as opposed to the classic cold-soundboard sound that you'd find in, for example, Syracuse '87 or Washington '92.

    One of my best friends -who is also a U2start member and an avid bootleg collector- is a sound engineer specialized in venue acoustics and he agrees with my theory based on his observations regarding the recording's echo, freqs and reverb – so I feel it's not far fetched at all


    well Syracuse and Washington were both mono boards recorded onto video tape if i am not mistaken. They might be in very limited stereo but they were recorded as the audio track to the VHS tapes I believe. They both sound like crap compared to the 89 Lovetown shows.

    By soundboard I don't mean some random dude plugged into the board or recorded the video feed and ripped the audio from the in house system. I am talking the recordings used by the broadcast people for the NYE broadcast. Just like the Paris HD video that was leaked in 2015. Those were practice recordings to work out the kinks. I mean I could be wrong, but I have never heard ANY audience recording professionally miked or not that sound as good as the Lovetown shows and I have been listening to live recordings going on 30 years now and have thousands and thousand of bootlegs. I admit I could be wrong and I am no sound engineer but even the very best of audience recordings I have heard from any band does not come close to those shows in clarity and mix.
  5. In 1993 a guy at a record store in Temple Bar, Dublin, told me that the Point Depot recordings were indeed given to various people/record store owners in Temple Bar by The Edge himself, as a thank you-present for support and for providing the band with rare recordings of their own work for archival purpose. The Point Depot recordings were intentionally meant to be bootlegged and sold in Temple Bar, where you could buy cassettes with live recordings back in those days.
    I'm not making this up, but I don't know if he did.
  6. Originally posted by Papo:In 1993 a guy at a record store in Temple Bar, Dublin, told me that the Point Depot recordings were indeed given to various people/record store owners in Temple Bar by The Edge himself, as a thank you-present for support and for providing the band with rare recordings of their own work for archival purpose. The Point Depot recordings were intentionally meant to be bootlegged and sold in Temple Bar, where you could buy cassettes with live recordings back in those days.
    I'm not making this up, but I don't know if he did.
    That is really interesting and hard to believe, although it kind of makes sense
  7. Originally posted by unclejosh:[..]


    well Syracuse and Washington were both mono boards recorded onto video tape if i am not mistaken. They might be in very limited stereo but they were recorded as the audio track to the VHS tapes I believe. They both sound like crap compared to the 89 Lovetown shows.

    By soundboard I don't mean some random dude plugged into the board or recorded the video feed and ripped the audio from the in house system. I am talking the recordings used by the broadcast people for the NYE broadcast. Just like the Paris HD video that was leaked in 2015. Those were practice recordings to work out the kinks. I mean I could be wrong, but I have never heard ANY audience recording professionally miked or not that sound as good as the Lovetown shows and I have been listening to live recordings going on 30 years now and have thousands and thousand of bootlegs. I admit I could be wrong and I am no sound engineer but even the very best of audience recordings I have heard from any band does not come close to those shows in clarity and mix.
    Agreed that Syracuse and Washington sound nowhere near as good as the Point Depot shows, but I was aiming more to the "colder feel" rather than the mono/stereo and dynamics of the recordings. There are other examples of cold soundboards that I could have provided (Tel Aviv, some of the TUF soundboards, etc) but I prefered to use examples closer in time to 1989.

    Admittedly, I haven't listened to the Point Depot recordings in quite some time so I might recall incorrectly, but I'm pretty sure that a pair of professional microphones placed at the mixing desk (=aka the spot where the venue sounds best!) and recording under controlled circumstances (=aka not with the hassle and problems that we concert tapers face as members of the audience) can sound just as good as the recordings we're discussing.

    That being said, the most likely option is that they are soundboard recordings but with strong presence of the audience microphones (either at the front rows or around the sound desk) just like Rick says.
  8. He also told me that the band had to face harsh criticism in 1989 for playing The Point and for the tickets being to expensive and he guessed that the band wanted to do something nice....
  9. Originally posted by Papo:[..]
    He also told me that the band had to face harsh criticism in 1989 for playing The Point and for the tickets being to expensive and he guessed that the band wanted to do something nice....
    Were tickets really that expensive? We know of a few attendees (notably, daymo1202 and treasure) that might want to chip in too
  11. Yeah, I mean for 1989 standards and of course these prices won't be comparable to today's standards - there's not even the same currency anymore (£ vs €)!
  12. Originally posted by Papo:[..]
    He also told me that the band had to face harsh criticism in 1989 for playing The Point and for the tickets being to expensive and he guessed that the band wanted to do something nice....
    the first part is certainly right, Bono is talking about that in the intro of 'I still haven't found' on the 26th.