Manchester 72 (16-Bit Matrix Learm) (BOWSTAT006-16RM)

David Bowie

Date: 1972-12-28
Venue: Hardrock Concert Theatre - Stretford
City: Manchester
Country: England

Matrix of 2 different audience recordings from the same show.

Source 1: by a private collector as 96 kHz/24 bit (also known as Last Stand
72).
Source 2: by Noggin part of HG 11 by steve23yh as 44,1 kHz/16 bit.

Processing:
Flac files of 2 recordings -> Switch Sound File Converter Plus (downsample
of source 1 96/24 > 48/24) > Magix Music Cleaning Lab (Matrix/Remaster
48/24) > Switch Sound File Converter Plus (Downsample to 44/16)
> Fixed SBEs with TLH (Jan Erik) > BowieStation

I have several other versions of both recordings but the ones represented
here sound best to my ears.
Source 1 is not quite complete as parts of Width Of A Circle are missing as
well as the start of Suffragette City, the intro and some audience parts
(especially encore call after Suffragette City).
I would rate source 1 as better sounding as a lot more of the higher
frequencies are present whereas source 2 is sounding quite dull even if
steve23yh has done a great job with remastering.
On the other hand source 2 has also a lot of hiss which I tried to remove as
much as possible always having in mind to keep most of the higher
frequencies.
But still there is some background noise.

Source 1 was running slower than source 2 (very inconsistent) and I adjusted
the speed to source 2 as this was already adjusted by steve23yh. The sound
level of source 1 was corrected and as the audience noise
was very present it was lowered a lot in level.
At the end some EQ was made to achieve a balanced sound.
The result of the matrix is really worth all the work as we have now a very
good sounding recording which is on a level with
some "middle class recordings" like Kingston Polytechnic with some
deductions like the middle part of Width Of A Circle.
But all in all the show is now very enjoyable and even if it was quite short
Bowie, the band and the audience are in good shape.

Here is a concert review of the show by New Musical Express which I found in
the web:

"It's THE big return and Bowie's out there suggesting 'Let's Spend The Night
Together', though his offer is more innocent than the sinister sexuality of
Mick Jagger's version. There's our lad in glitter jacket and tight, tight,
red knee-length pants,
yelling out something about schoolkids and urging "I believe in education -
educate me!" before thrusting into 'Spiders From Mars', 'Superman' and
'Changes', all effort and little subtlety, with Mick Ronson playing guitar
much as a Dowager Duchess
might play with her beads, good twiddles here, mucho padding there.
But Bowie's pleased to be back, anxious to be adored, and he delivers the
rest of the set with a zest that actually drains onlookers and it's the
crowd who finally stagger out into the street feeling knackered but ready to
face '73."

The intro in the show was not the well known pre-recorded Clockwork Orange
tune by Wendy Carlos but the same tune improvised by the band.
Another fact is that Bowie brought Mike Garson from the US tour which can be
heard very well on the recording.

Setlist (length 55:53 min):

01. introduction
02. Let's Spend The Night Together
03. Hang On To Yourself
04. Ziggy Stardust
05. The Supermen
06. Changes
07. Life On Mars?
08. Five Years
09. The Width Of A Circle
10. John I'm Only Dancing
11. Moonage Daydream
12. band introductions
13. The Jean Genie
14. Suffragette City
15. Rock'n'Roll Suicide

The band:

David Bowie - vocals, guitar, harmonics
Mick Ronson - guitar, vocals
Trevor Bolder - bass
Mick "Woody" Woodmansey - drums
Mike Garson - piano, mellotron, organs

This tape was donated to BowieStation by a private collector.
A lot of thanks to him for offering his tapes.

The following editions are available:

BOWSTAT006-24RAW - 24-bit raw (24-96)
BOWSTAT006-24RM - 24-bit matrix (24-48)
BOWSTAT006-16RM - 16-bit matrix (CD-version)

BowieStation production 2015.

Matrix by Learm.
Artwork by MossGarden.

All versions above are available at http://www.bowiestation.com/ along with about 1000 Bowie torrents.

Uploaded to BowieStation by Learm on August 10th 2015
Uploaded to Dime by Jan Erik (jallaweb) on January 23rd 2016

Images for all shows as well as full size images for this show.

Images for this show: