Heart
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Queen Elizabeth Theatre
Saturday, February 26, 2011


Source #1 16 bit 44.1 khz CD ready "ReMastered" version
from 24 bit 96 khz master recording



Ann Wilson : lead and background vocals, acoustic guitar, flute
Nancy Wilson : acoustic and electric guitars, vocals, mandolin, autoharp, kicks
Craig Bartock : electric and acoustic guitars, background vocal
Debbie Shair : keyboards and effects, background vocal, percussion
Kristian Attard : bass guitar, percussion
Ben Smith : drums and percussion
Ben Mink : special guest gypsy fiddle, iPhone4




Setlist:
01 Cook With Fire
02 Heartless
03 What About Love
04 intro - hitch-hiking hippies
05 Straight On
06 intro - Ben Mink
07 Dog & Butterfly
08 intro - Vancouver was a much different place
09 These Dreams
10 intro - does anybody remember
11 Hey You
12 intro - don't get me started
13 Desire Walks On
14 Kick It Out
15 intro - Ben Mink again
16 Red Velvet Car
17 Alone
18 W T F
19 Magic Man
20 Crazy On You
21 Barracuda
22 first encore break - band introductions
23 What Is And What Should Never Be
24 Misty Mountain Hop
25 second encore break
26 Dreamboat Annie



Capture (source 1):
Sound Professionals high SPL modified SP-CMC-9 stereo pair mics (Audio Technica AT898c Subminiature Cardioid Condenser Lavalier Microphones mounted inside hat, mics approx. 3 inches above and in front of my ears) > Sound Professionals SP-SPSB-11 battery box mic pre-amp no bass rolloff (16hz setting - off) > Edirol R-09HR line in record level approx 70 @ 24 bit 96 khz > Transcend 8GB SDHC card (24/96 wav files)


Transfer:
Transcend 8GB SDHC card (24/96 master wav files) > HP mini netbook (storage) > external USB harddrive (storage) > Wavelab 5.01b (tracking and "mastering") @ 24bit / 96khz > SoX resampler via Foobar2000 to 44.1 khz (very high quality setting, 95.2% passband, 25% phase response no aliasing) > iZotope RX Advanced MBit+ dither to 16 bit (Ultra noise shaping, high dither) > FLAC8 + torrent via TLH > YOU!!!


Mastering:
Channels inverted (misplaced microphones) > balance adjusted > Waves Q-10 (slight EQ to more closely resemble what I remember hearing live - low bass boost, mid-high and extreme high shelf boost) > Wavelab Peak limiter @ -0.01db (see Wavelab screencap included to view the mastering settings I used)


Location:
Floor Section CTR Row 7 Seat 43, sitting and (mostly) standing
Pretty close up front and just slightly left of center
Seats were kind of between Nancy and Ann but back a bit


Notes:
Heart's "homecoming" final show on their Canadian tour. My sixth time in a row of shows. It's kinda funny but it was becoming a little too normal for me to be out on the road like this. I hope I get a chance to do something like this again someday! I had a blast, and the day I woke up at home was a little confusing, too! I really wondered what show I was going to that night...

I had some pretty close seats again in this beautiful theatre, again just off-center towards Nancy's side. There's lots of Nancy's guitar amps pounding right off the stage, so she's a little louder in the mix. There were rows A through F before the numbered rows, so I was basically in row 13, I guess. Close enough to get a good present "up-front" recording, but far back enough to get a good mix from the P.A. system, too.

The band was obviously elated and emotions were riding high with all their family and friends coming from miles around to see them. They had their friend and recent co-conspirator Ben Mink come up and play a couple songs with them. I watched him watching the band from side stage during several songs, filming them a bit with his iPhone4. He seemed pleased with the band. His presence made the whole band seem to play better, I think. Certainly he added a nice extra texture to the two songs he plays on. I think they all played better as a result of all this extra positive stuff going on, even though they were probably also very tired from the whole trip and especially the last three back-to-back-to-back shows that made the end of the tour go by in a blur.

What else can I tell you? Amazing show, amazing tour, amazing experience! I'm really glad I went, even though I felt the repercussions from going pretty hard when I got home. Still wouldn't miss it for the world! Awesome. I met a lot of cool people along the way, saw some places I've never seen before, got to experience cold weather that I usually avoid, and, well, I saw Heart play some real genuine rock and roll shows 6 times in a row, man!!!! Whoo-hoo!!!

I was supposed to meet up with a fellow taper friend of mine at this show, but we never ran into each other. He recorded this show old-school style onto a Sony WM-D6C cassette walkman with I forget what mics he uses but they're good. I had some blank tapes for him and he had some blank MiniDiscs for my old MD units that I have as backup, but we couldn't swap. It's hard to find obsolete blank media these days! haha. So, there is a nice analog source of this show yet to become available. I know it will also sound great in its own way, from a completely different perspective (and way different seat!) so look for that to come out one day (hint! hint!). As with all the rest of the shows I saw, I also ran two other rigs of varying quality. I may one day look at releasing some of those alternate recordings that I made, but this source I've posted is best of my 3 by far. It will be interesting to hear the tape source one day, though, for sure! Are there any other alternate sources of audio of any of the shows I recorded? Video? Pictures? Other shows with recordings not yet shared? Please, lets try and get them out there! Thanks!!!!

If you have pictures from this show (or any of them) please share and post links to them, or email me copies, please. That also goes for anything related to these shows: scans of reviews from the paper, ticket stubs, photos of your t-shirt or that awesome hockey jersey, links to the local newspaper's online review - whatever you got, please share! Feel free to make artworx covers for this show, but again, share with the class, m'kay? Don't bother Re-ReReMastering this show from this source. I will eventually post my un-doctored split master 24 / 96 files of this (and all the other) show(s) so if you want to play with the sound you can do it from a pure source. Speaking of pure sources, please share this show freely, but only share it in lossless file formats only. If you must, pervert the files to eMPty3 for your own use only. Please do not share lossy filesets of this show. Friends don't let friends listen lossy. Never re-encode an eMPty3 back to a .wav file!!! Share data files not audio CDR's. Rip CD's with EAC or other error correcting rippers in secure mode. This is all for your own good, so do it! Thank you.

And stop talking so much during concerts, okay? Pay attention to the artists and shut up, or go out into the lobby to have that discussion! Don't be afraid to stand up and have fun - enjoy yourself, party and dance a bit, but don't go out of your way to ruin other people's fun. When I'm taking in a concert it means I want to see and hear the band I love, not you and your show and your yelled conversation during the quiet part of that song I really like, so have some respect and keep yourself to yourself. Thanks again!

Again, thanks for listening and reading. I really had a good time making these recordings happen for everyone to enjoy...

Rock on, gang!


audioarchivist@hotmail.com