Black Sabbath December 18, 2013 Phones 4U Arena Manchester, England 13 European Tour 2013
01 War Pigs 02 Into The Void 03 Under The Sun 04 Snowblind 05 Age Of Reason 06 Black Sabbath 07 Behind the Wall Of Sleep 08 NIB 09 End Of The Beginning 10 Fairies Wear Boots 11 Drum Solo 12 Iron Man 13 God Is Dead? 14 Dirty Women 15 Children Of The Grave 16 Paranoid
Ok this is a show I recorded (see lineage above for equipment etc)
The life of a taper is fraught with difficulty, tension, and excitement and I just want to go on record and thank all those people who currently tape shows or have taped shows for all to enjoy at a later date. Until I joined the union I hadn't really given it much thought as to the stresses they feel whilst taping a gig with the threat of expulsion at any time.
As for taping this show which along with a Roger waters gig I did two years ago is the biggest show I have recorded.
Three weeks prior to this gig I underwent major surgery which meant I couldn't walk properly. Consequently with a nod to the late great Joe Maloney Maloney I decided I would borrow a wheel chair to attend this gig and take a leaf out of his book.
My equipment was secreted underneath layers of clothing as my brother pushed me to the main entrance of the Arena. A friendly steward showed me to the disabled lift entrance which led to the disabled area for queueing to enter the main hall.
The doors opened and stewards started searching bags, then it was my turn, quick as a flash I stated I had spoken to someone about changing my able bodied ticket for disabled ticket and that was it, the lady showed me inside and pointed out the Customer service desk.
A short queue, five minutes to explain my circumstances and I was relocated to block 109 in an elavated camera position. I was in with not so much a "have you anything in your pockets".
What a view directly facing the stage dead centre raised above all the crowd with an unobstructed view of the ceiling mounted PA stack. No one in front of me and no one behind no one yelling, shouting or making a racket of any discription.
So apart from my brother, who was my helper, clapping at the end of each song, as he was told to keep the noise down to a minimum, but hey he'd paid £60 for the ticket and wanted to enjoy himself, there is hardly any crowd interference whatsoever throughout the recording.
There is an occasional shout of Ozzy from folk coming up the steps to my left and one of my lads mates jumping on me during God Is Dead? and shouting something in my earhole, about how good the show was, thats it no audience noise at all.
Consequently I'm really happy with how this recording has turned out and as I listen to this back I'm impressed by the quality. Literally what you hear on this recording ios what it sounded like in the arena.
So what does it soud like well fantastic imo, easily 8/10 (10/10 if you were there and want to relieve it) or Ex to Ex+ out of (Poor(1) Fair(2) Good(3) VG-(4) VG(5) VG+(6) Ex-(7) Ex(8) Ex+(9) Sup (10)
2 CDs kerbcrawler Audience kerbcrawler Tascam DR07 Tascam DR07 > ScanDisk 8gb memory card > Sony clip on mic > 24-96bit wav > coverted to 16-44bit with real player > wav > equalised without clipping with Syntrillium > Flac with Flac frontend. FLAC A-
