This is a great boot!!!!!!!!!! Really feelin' this one

TrevorAyer said:

been digging this the last couple days ... the SBD is so nice .. I may have something good to say about prince after all .. so far so pleased

What do you like about these concerts? Do you think they are better than, say, the three shows at North Sea Jazz festival a couple of years ago?

Diggin' this soundboard. these were good shows.

Jerky said:

Great bootleg. Loving it but IT IS NOT SOUNDBOARD. Ex+ quality and great show but Disc 1 & 2 are NOT recorded from the desk. I'd imagine show was recorded near a speaker. Disc 3 has better quality again and great live performances. I WOULD recommend it but it isn't of the same quality of a ONA Copenhagen or Lovesexy small club.

i have been wondering that too .. sometimes the drums sound like they have to be soundboard but later parts of the show the vocals sound so washed out and not direct ... still a fun listen

Jerky said:

Great bootleg. Loving it but IT IS NOT SOUNDBOARD.

It is soundboard, combined with ambient mics all over the Forum, especially for the broadcast on local radio station KJLH.

vc40 said:

Jerky said:

Great bootleg. Loving it but IT IS NOT SOUNDBOARD.

It is soundboard, combined with ambient mics all over the Forum, especially for the broadcast on local radio station KJLH.

Matrix mix?

vc40 said:

There's another version out there now. Well, same version but tweaked a bit, sounds a bit less empty, which is good.

i feel it is soundboard as part of 1st show was initially broadcast over radio . It is still of pretty high quality sound if not quite as good a sound as osaka 89 etc. I Like this release best so far on welcome to america tour especially disc 3. It would be difficult to get as good a sound as this from an arena show in audience recording. I heard the o2 audience ones and they were not anywhere near this quality. As someone said there is a slightly tweaked version out there and eye label are not known for doing remastering that might explaing why some don't feel it is soundboard.

[Edited 5/13/13 3:48am]

[Edited 5/13/13 9:01am]

[Snip - luv4u]

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SOMETHING GOOD! This show is one of those rare moments that gives me hope that perhaps Prince will once again return to form. First I must say that the sound quality of this show is outstanding and a pleasure to listen to. Now I am gonna come out and say that this show is the closest prince has come in some time to sounding like Prince again. There is an intricacy with this large band that recreates the layers of tight little percussive and musical jabs that makes his best songs work so well. And is often missing from his live sound. I felt from the NYC shows that the Welcome 2 tour had something other tours lacked. Firstly his voice was in fine form, especially on the classic rnb set that closed the show on some nights. Yes the tour is still plagued with bad song selections, however, with 3 cds packed full, one can easily make a great show worthy of repeated listening. Deleting the covers and non prince sung songs improves the set immensily. I know there are some who love his new songs. The good news is, this shows sound quality is so good you can almost listen to some of the newer songs with out cringing or wanting to skip the tune. Songs like Musicology and Shh that I find lyrically grating, are bearable, and songs like DMSR and POP LIFE sound fantastic. I can even sit thru Prince and The Band. Musicology has a fine chorus but I really hate listening to Prince lyrics when they are just him dropping names and attempting to rap poorly. SHH is just DO ME BABY but far worse and the lyrics are horrible. I would rather hear DO ME BABY anytime. What saves these 2 songs is that Musicology is rediculously tight and he replaces much of SHHH with U WILL BE WITH ME .. which has better lyrics. One of my big frustrations with Prince is ruining great songs with horrible lyrics. Eg .. LAYDOWN .. great hook .. great groove .. stupidest lyrics ever. I have have to hit skip every time it gets to the "everybody wanna be me .. surgery" lyrics. WHEN EYE LAY MY HANDS .. is just as bad. Prince in braggado mode seems a little empty to me. Of course I am not a 4 1/2 foot tall groupie, so perhaps it works for those types.

So to begin, lets delete cd 1, tracks 1, 17,18,19 cd 2 tracks 8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16 cd 3, tracks 1,2,3,4,7,9,12,13,14 This will remove all the horrible covers, meandering boring jams, bad new songs, and the horrible sampler set that only serves to remind us what prince is not playing instead of those crappy covers and go knowwhere jams.

Now you have a great show that is top notch and cringeless. The takes on classic tunes are tight, not full but not quite the medley snippit he gravitates towards. Renato does not play jazz solos over pop tunes like delerious, Thank gawd! Shelby is present but not over bearing as she can be. The back up singers have a nice soulful sound and mix. What is outstanding, aside from the Prince great songs, are the bonus materials, Sheila E. to be specific. The Glamourous life sounds better than it did in 85. No drum machine, just tight playing, and hot percussion from Sheila as well as her classic sounding vocals. It sounds like it could be right off the Parade tour, which is a feat Prince has been incapable of for some time with his bands. No doubt John Blackwell and Ida help this. They are tight. Hannah is simply not putting out at this caliber. The other obvious highlight is Cool. A great tune pulled from obscurity. We have heard his medleys for some time now but hearing them in this quality is quite a treat, SHHH and the rnb set of SCANDELOUS, INSATIALBLE, ADORE all sound great. And all the other hits sound good too. Yup they are a little short, but he has played them much shorter and he gives us just enough this time.
Other highlights include FUTURE SOUL SONG, EYE LOVE BUT DONT TRUST, even tho the chorus to FUTURE is pretty lame, the song is too pretty to ignore, and EYE LOVE is a great later Prince tune.
Now would it really kill Prince to bring out Sheila to play drums on EYE NO. Now that would be epic. And I would love a SBD of the Gwen SO FAR SO PLEASED, which sounded great on the audience recording, but suffers from poor audience recording quality. I was pleased to see this song on the 3rd EYE GIRL setlist, altho they do so many bad songs and poorly at that, that it takes away from what works on that tour.

Speaking of guests, I would like to say better things about Stevie Wonders appearance on this set. But it really just sounds messy, short takes on Wonder songs interjected over a meandering boring jam as stale as the Inglewood/Hollywood Swinging Jams.

Yes I still believe firmly that prince can do much much better. A set with fully fleshed versions of Prince classics in this form would elevate my respect for Prince immensily. Dark, Old friends, Extraloveable, Dance Electric, Mutiny, Cool, A love Bizarre, Pop Life, DMSR, Shockadelica, 17 Days, Manic Monday, Eye No, Sign, Come On, not as teasers, not as medleys, not as deflated one chord jams, but as fully fleshed band work outs with all the studio parts represented live, would blow peoples minds for real. Yes he teases these songs here and there, but why not put something great together instead of just teasing something great and giving us the same ole same ole.

Oh Ps, Mike Philip is not the worst horn player Prince has played with. He has a sort of Maceo tone. He does not blow my mind but he does not annoy me like Najee or Candy do.

That said, this is a great collection of what modern prince has to offer with a hits based show. The band is tight. The sound is GREAT. And with a bit of editing, There is a solid top to bottom no filler show to be enjoyed repeatedly. Now you can delete all your horrible audience recordings from this tour and just keep this one.

I give this 4 stars our of 5. It will go into heavy rotations in my home along with the Soundboard Revolution show, live in paris and the parade soundboards.

^ Prince does not really seem to respect crowds other than as a source of income for that specific moment.

The teases, long waits in encore, (sampler set imo), the singing by others in the big tours.

Maybe the covers too. depending on how you view it.

I can understand his age could be a limiter but it seems you get less and less Prince for more $

dualboot said:

^ Prince does not really seem to respect crowds other than as a source of income for that specific moment.

The teases, long waits in encore, (sampler set imo), the singing by others in the big tours.

Maybe the covers too. depending on how you view it.

I can understand his age could be a limiter but it seems you get less and less Prince for more $

Oh please. I sat in the front row at this show, which was almost 3 hours long (170 minutes, according to PrinceVault) and included a killer Janelle Monae opener.

Tickets? 25 FUCKIN' BUCKS. Spare us the "less and less Prince for more $" crap.

dustoff said:

This was absolutely worth it to me!