MANFRED MANN'S EARTH BAND - April 18, 1986 - Carl-Diem-Halle, Wuerzburg, Germany
** Audience Cassette MASTER, MWM 0090 **
>> AZIMUTH ALIGNED - UNTRADED & UNCIRCULATED - AMAZING SOUND & ROWDY CROWD << with samples







This one here is for Maddrax for starting the Manfred Mann-ia,

and thanks to all the following uploaders...here's my payback:






This recording here comes directly from the "Men With Microphones" archive.
"MWM" started in the 70ies in South Germany with analog recording equipment,
and at least two of them are still recording sometimes (since the 90ies on DAT,
and, lazy as we are, since lately with small, handheld WAV-recorders on SD-cards).
The "MWM" startet as a project of friends sharing their hobbies together. But by
reason of jobs, partners and other interests the circle of all involved shrinked.






I think it's not necessary to introduce Manfred Mann or the Earth Band to our
fellow DIMErs...seems like bringing owls to Athens, Georgia...or Greece...

And if you're too young and/or still interested, here are a few nice sites:

http://www.manfredmann.co.uk/index.html
http://www.platform-end.co.uk/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manfred_Mann
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manfred_Mann's_Earth_Band

AND YES, MANFRED MANN'S EARTH BAND IS "PROGRESSIVE ROCK MUSIC" - IMHO...




Earth Band on tour, just an European phenomenon ?

Manfred Mann's Earth Band was really big in Europe, and especially in Germany. Starting from the
mid-70ies with steady increasing vinyl-longplayer & singles sales plus massive radio airplay...
They introduced Bob Dylan's songs to a totally different, wider public and presented the music of
an almost unknown hot young songwriter from New Jersey, long before he became famous as the "boss"
in Europe, a certain Bruce Springsteen...
And starting as a live act, playing small venues all over Europe or as support act, the quantity of visitors seemed to explode at the 1979 "Angel Station" European tour, the biggest concert halls and
almost all sold out. And it peaked with the 1981 "Chance" tour, with 'Lies (Through The 80's)' and
'For You' (once again a Springsteen cover) in the charts and on the radio, additional concerts in
nearly every city, and a few times even three shows in a row...

The decline started soon after. The choice of the masses moved more into 'Neue Deutsche Welle' with
german and mostly easygoing lyrics. "Somewhere in Afrika", released late 1982, was quite different
to all other Earth Band albums before, with a strong African flavour, using a variety of African
singers and chants, and had profound lyrics about poverty, famines, forced displacement and the
anti-apartheid movement (Mann had become very active in), culminating in a dark version of Sting's
'Demolition Man' and the breathtaking cover of Bob Marley's 'Redemption Song (No Kwazulu)':


Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our minds
Have no fear for atomic energy
For none of them can stop the time
How long shall they kill our prophets
While we stand aside and look
Some say it's just a part of it
We've got to fulfill the book

So won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom
'Cause all I ever hear
Is redemption song

Soldiers march their freedom
Out into the city streets
And though it seems like a losing battle
There can be no retreat



During the 1983 tour, promoting "Somewhere in Afrika", and although they delivered incredible
shows, the Earth band had problems to fill lots of those major-sized halls and arenas, for the
first time since 6 or 7 years...and rumours had been spread about the last tour with "The Voice"
Chris Thompson or "Earth Band's final tour"...

It took three more years to proof this wrong, 'Neue Deutsche Welle' was gone and history, and
the 1986 album "Criminal Tango", featuring Chris Thompson, was notable for covers of The Jam's
"Going Underground", a superb version of Joni Mitchell's "Banquet" and Eddy & The Hot Rod's
"Do Anything You Want To Do", ...came back to public awareness again with massive radio airplay,
and old and new fans, parent and their kids, filled the major concert halls (sometimes severely
overcrowded)...like in the good old days...and seemingly for the very last time. Chris Thompson
indeed left the band soon after, and in the late eighties Manfred took some time out of the Earth
Band 'album then tour' life style to produce one of his personal favourite albums: Plains Music".




About this concert:

Würzburg is a nice city in the south of Germany, in Franconia, the north of Bavaria
halfway between Nuremberg and Frankfurt am Main. The "Carl-Diem-Halle" (renamed in
2004 to: "S. Oliver Arena", all Americans recognize this game of name dropping...
we're only in it for the money...lol) was (and still is...) a multifunctional sports
hall, a typical end-seventies (and, not just architecturally,ugly) concrete building,
planned for athletic events and sport; the sound inside for rock concerts was quite
bad, like in most of those multi-purpose sports arenas...with lots of reverberation...

But it could hold more than 10.000 spectators for all sorts of rock concerts, the next
big venues with this capacity (speaking of the 80ies) was Frankfurt or Munich. Even
Nuremberg's biggest halls had only about half of this capacity (pressed like sardines),
the absolutely ugly "Messehalle 1" (mainly used for trade fairs...) with real horrible
room sound, or one of the most played concert halls in Germany during the 70ies and
80ies, the famous "Hemmerleinhalle" in Neunkirchen am Brand, just 20 kilometers north
of Nuremberg in the franconian prairie...

Until the end of the 80ies lots of GI's and Army personnel lived in the northern
Bavaria area, mainly in or around Nuremberg, Schweinfurt and Würzburg. So most
of the concerts had been really well-frequented, regardless the style of music,
and big name-shows (also this one here...) were severely overcrowded...with usually
more than 50 percents Americans...out of their garrisons and housing areas to enjoy
their spare time...to relax...and to consume (or spill) one two three beers...
After the strategic withdrawal and relocation abroad of the Army, closing barracks
and selling army buildings and grounds in the 90ies the decline of the whole
area started, accompanied with severe decrease in the number of rock concert
visitors and later in the unavoidably closing of many venues...



This Manfred Mann's Earth Band concert here is one from their last "real big"
European tour, spring 1986, and ABSOLUTELY UNTRADED & UNCIRCULATED SO FAR.
In retrospect it was also (after 8 years) the last tour with John Lingwood
on drums and percussion, and introducing Steve Kinch on bass guitar and
backing vocals (he is still touring with the Earth Band today...).
They performed, with an incredible joy of playing, a wide selection of
their well known hits, garnished with a few from the new album and a
couple of real surprises...


Manfred took us back to some of his "bluesy" roots in the 60ies:

Check out CD 2, track 4, 'Rescue' (his and Mick's song) blending into The Spencer Davis Group's
'Gimme Some Loving' and then straight into 'Mony Mony' (Tommy James & The Shondells)...


Manfred's fave for swing and jazz music:

Check out CD 2, track 8, the 'Jazz Influenced Intro' for Springsteen's 'Blinded By The Light'...
And another highlight: CD 2, track 10, the 'Third Man Theme / Flying Home Medley'.
'The Third Man Theme', also known as 'The Harry Lime Theme' is an instrumental written
and performed by famous Austrian zither player Anton Karas for the soundtrack to the highly
appreciated movie "The Third Man" from 1949, a British film noir directed by Carol Reed and
starring Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli and Orson Welles. The screenplay was written by novelist
Graham Greene, with the sewer tunnels of Vienna as main locations.
And 'Flying Home' started as a whistle from Benny Goodman, several other groups subsequently
recorded the tune, however the most famous version is a lively 1942 recording by Lionel Hampton
and His Orchestra, featuring a tenor sax solo by Illinois Jacquet.


And Manfred's classical music love:

The encore song, John Simon and Robbie Robertson's 'Davy's On The Road Again' blending into
Sir Edward William Elgar's "Pomp and Circumstance Marches, opus 39", or, to be more exact,
'Pomp and Circumstance - March No. 1', familiar as "Land of Hope and Glory" or, in America,
well known as the "Graduation March". It is the theme played at virtually every high school
and college graduation in the US...




The Carl-Diem-Halle was was packed with people, especially between the stage and the area for
the soundboard there was a steady pushing and shoving, it was hot and steamy inside, like
a sauna in full heat, AND there was this completely enthusiastic and absolutely crazy crowd,
like usual...a rowdy audience with far too much also-during-the-music-applauders & clappers -
remember, they ALWAYS lost the beat - and all those damn yellers/talkers/criers/whistlers...


The recording came out better than we thought, compared to the live sound inside
the hall during the show with all the noisy-like-hell audience. But good recording
equipment in the 80ies, approximately the only sweet spot in the middle between
the two speaker stacks, halfway amongst stage and soundboard (sadly the PA-system
was hanging from the ceiling, no way to get a microphone anywise close there...)
and a careful transfer from analog Compact Cassette (Nakamichi Tape Deck with
playback head azimuth adjustment) to digital DAT-tapes (Tascam DA 20 markII)
just about two weeks ago helped to record AND conserve this, today more than 22
years old, show under nearly optimal conditions...

HOWEVER:

You will hear more crowd noise than usual on our other uploads.
But it gives you also a very good impression of a typical show
in our area during the mid-80ies, with devoted and rapturous
fans...and all those damn in-between-music clappers & talkers,
HOW I HATE THEM ALL !!


OVERALL IT'S A MORE THAN DECENT RECORDING,

CHECK OUT THE SAMPLES IN THE COMMENT-SECTION,

AND PLEASE ENJOY...








MANFRED MANN'S EARTH BAND

Carl-Diem-Halle,
Wuerzburg, Germany
April 18, 1986


"Wuerzburg" is the german "Würzburg"...





lineage:

Aiwa CM30 > portable Sony Professional WM D6C >
> Compact Cassette (TDK SA 90, 1-7/8ips Super Avilyn, High Bias (CrO2) Type II, 135 meter tape)


Cassette (master) > Nakamichi Cassette Deck 1 (manual playback head azimuth aligned !) > Analog Cable (coax) >
> Tascam DA-20 markII (16 bit, SP 48 kHz) > DAT (Maxell HS-4/90s, Helical-Scan 4mm Data Cartridge, 90 meter tape)


DAT (master) > Tascam DA-20 II, S/P-DIF out > Digital Cable (coax) >
> Behringer Ultramatch SRC 2000 (Sample Rate Converter & Jitter Remover) > Digital Cable (coax) > Soundcard, S/P-DIF in >
> CD Wave (recording) > Harddisc > CD Wave (tracking) > Traders Little Helper (SB aligned/level 6) > FLAC > DIME






the concert:


CD 1 (53:45 mins)

1-01. Banquet 7:45
1-02. Tribal Statistics 4:25
1-03. Visionary Mountains & 3:50
1-04. Redemption Song (No Kwazulu) 3:20
1-05. Going Underground 8:19
1-06. ...Chris talks about the new album... 0:36
1-07. Do Anything You Wanna Do 6:31
1-08. Father Of Day, Father Of Night & 7:33
1-09. Who Are The Mystery Kids ? 2:50
1-10. Martha's Madman 8:35

CD 2 (52:46 mins)

2-01. ...Wuerzburg, this is 'For You'... 0:20
2-02. For You 6:13
2-03. ...the next song is written by Manfred and Mick... 0:28
2-04. Rescue & 3:33
2-05. -> So Glad You Made It / Gimme Some Loving # 3:57
2-06. -> Mony Mony # 2:47
2-07. The Runner 5:35
2-08. Jazz Influenced Intro 1:23
2-09. -> Blinded By The Light 8:08
2-10. Third Man Theme / Flying Home Medley # % 4:48
2-11. Mighty Quinn 5:53
2-12. ...crowd noise... 2:00

encore:
2-13. ...ihr seid ein grossartiges Publikum... 0:20
2-14. Davy's On The Road Again 5:45
2-15. Pomp and Circumstance - March No. 1 (Land of Hope and Glory) # 1:29


total time: 53:45 + 52:46 = 106:31 mins



notes:

& Mick Rogers on lead vocals
# unreleased in 1986, and if i've checked correct, until today...
% "Third Man Theme" by
% "Flying Home" by



musicians, instruments, Earth Band member since:

Manfred Mann - keyboards, percussion, backing vocals (1971 - to date)
Chris Hamlet Thompson - lead vocals, guitar (1975 - 1997)
Mick Rogers - lead guitar, backing vocals, lead vocals (1971 - 1975 & 1983 - to date)
Steve Kinch - bass guitar, backing vocals (1986 - to date)
John Lingwood - drums, percussion (1979 - 1986)



Please support the artists, visit their concerts and buy their CDs...
CURRENT TOURDATES ARE IN THE COMMENT-SECTION - GO AND RECORD THEM !

Check out their websites...
http://www.manfredmann.co.uk/index.html
http://www.platform-end.co.uk/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manfred_Mann
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manfred_Mann's_Earth_Band




THIS TORRENT IS DEDICATED TO ALL OF MANFRED MANN'S EARTH BAND...past and present members
and especially to Uwe S., H.I., H.T. and a certain "Maddrax" for sharing sweet memories.

Big thanks to my wife, Mrs. Leo, for supporting
and taking an active part in all my crazyness...





You know, our friend Dave T says: "There's always more to come..."
And i'll promise you to keep MY tapes coming...

Leo



FINALLY, ALWAYS REMEMBER:

...IT'S ONLY A MEMORY IF IT WAS NOT RECORDED... (by robertmullen - The Human Mic Stand)



Please write your comments to show your interest in this kind of music.

====================================================================================
Absolutely no selling! Do not alter this recording in any way, repost to other sites
or convert it to mp3 or other lossy formats except for your own personal use.
And PLEASE do not share via rapidshare, mega-upload or similiar sites...by no means!
====================================================================================



Recorded by MWM, transferred & finally uploaded by lonetaper on Dime, July 2008. This is "MWM 0090"