DEEP BENEATH THE WAVES vol 53

Subject: DEEP BENEATH THE WAVES vol 53
From: xyx 
Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 09:23:04 +0500

   Some things need a bit of TLC and then they pay you back in spades, for
instance.......

ANCIENT ODES  2CD (Watchtower WTP001/002)  8 July 1996  Udine, IT whole
   show plus (4) trax Pistoia, IT 7 July 1996
TRACKS: 19   Times: 74+/64+   Source: Audience  Quality: Hmmmm (see below)
  I suppose some of you out there have already purchased this set and
either traded it back in or sold it back at a loss. Can't really blame 'ya
that much, particularly if you only gave it a cursory listen at the normal
bass/treble levels and decided it was recorded either underwater or with
the mics down someone's pants. Under normal listening level conditions,
calling it muddy would be an understatement. Well, I took the trouble to
sift through the mud, so much mud in fact that my car stereo levels read
negative 10 on the bass and plus 10 on the treble. Much to my surprise, most
of the mud had dissipated and what remained was the much crisper and sharper
sounding voice of Mr. Bob and instrumental accompaniment that, while not
breathtaking in its definition, was more than passable IMO, and the vocal
seemed to ride above it nicely.  A little hiss was not intrusive enough to
infringe upon enjoyment. I'm thinking "not bad," and was anxious to head
home and apply the trusty EQ to it. Down with the lows and up with the highs and
my eq was looking like a 45 degree angle. Sounded damned good, though,
especially from the other room where the hiss was not in evidence - one of
the Bobs, Gill or Meyer, recently said that some "live" CDs sound better
when you're in another room and how right they were. So I'm sitting there
enjoying
a rip-roaring MostLikely when at the end the sound perks up a bit, a bit
more volume and clarity out of nowhere, as if the taper pulled the mic out
of his pants or at least slipped it through an open zipper - and then Silvio
really cooks, a smokin' version and I'm getting a little long-winded here
but let me just say that the show is a real corker with more than the usual
amount of highlights where Bob's phrasing is unique even for him and the
song structure and tempo is a bit different than normal and the energy is
high and Bob sounds excited and his harp playing rules and what's not to
like about the killer 10-14 slot of
Jokerman/Released/5Believers/BackPages/LARS especially Released & LARS and
the sound perks up even a bit more during an
INCREDIBLY RAUCOUS 5Believers and the bonus tracks are "THE BOMB" as our
teenagers say - Peggy-O/Tangled/ HardRain/ToRamona  - but you gotta hear it
yourself and as for me I can't get it out of the player and I apologize in
advance to those who get it based on this review and don't share my
enthusiasm perhaps you don't want to go through the extra effort to "get it"
but it's rewarding if you do and if you want the rest of the track list
check out Olof or Pagel's links on Expecting Rain because I'm done now just
remember to turn the "bottom" way down and the highs waaaaaaaaaaay up.

xyx



Subject: Re: DEEP BENEATH THE WAVES vol 53
From: Heinrich Gerkepott (gerkepott@fevax.picker.de)
Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 09:04:01 UNDEFINED
Organization: Picker International GmbH, eunetnews.germany.eu.net
X-Newsreader: Trumpet for Windows [Version 1.0 Rev B final beta #1]

Saw a review about the "Ancient Odes" (Udine 96) CD. Some notes:

- the sound quality of the CD is poor. How could anybody think about releasing
such a tape on CD. Sound quality would be OK for a show of 1974, but today???
either i can't understand what Phill Townsend said about sound quality last
Isis, praising the nice analog sound. Of course really excellent analog
recordings sound at least as good as DAT-recordings, but this tape is far from
being excellent - seems the taper had his mic in his back pocket.

- but there is something special on this CD (and that's why i'm writing this):
i saw several shows on that tour including Udine. All in all the shows were not
as brilliant as the year before (but better than this year so far), and some
shows were even poor (Ferrara). Usually we talked about the shows afterwards:
"what was the second song, it sounded great!",  "finally we got Wheel's on
Fire", "new opener, nice", "what's the name of the violinist, wasn't that
great" and so on. But only once i was really impressed. On our way to Udine we
had hard weather, and the rain stopped a short time before the show. Show
started so la la. Was getting better and better, but then the encore: this
beautiful "Like a Rolling Stone". This version - much slower than in Magdeburg
later - was for me THE highlight of that tour. A great version and performance
of a Bob Dylan song (not only a nice performance of a cover and not only that
something special happened like in Konstanz or Utrecht). This single
performance was worth all the trip through Europe. One of the great moments why
i'm trying to see as many shows as possible. Try to listen to this single
performance (but get a copy of the excellent tape, not the CD).

Heinrich 



Subject: DEEP 53 error
From: xyx  
Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 07:33:23 +0500

  RE: DEEP 53 "Ancient Odes" 2CD set:
   There is no PrettyPeggyO bonus track, it is ShakeSugaree. My mistake.

xyx

1995 1996 1997 1998 T-list CDs