The greatest Rock'n'roll band in the world of all times
in their absolute prime !!
The audio has been carefully remastered with great dedication.
It has never sounded this good before.
Enjoy,
Menno
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The Who - The Complete Amsterdam 1969 Remastered
Venue: Het Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Date: September 29, 1969
Disc 1
1) "House announcement"
2) Heaven And Hell
3) I Can't Explain
4) Fortune Teller
5) Tattoo
6) Young Man Blues
7) A Quick One, While He's Away
8) Substitute
9) Happy Jack
10) I'm A Boy
11) Overture
12) It's A Boy
13) 1921
14) Amazing Journey
15) Sparks
16) Eyesight To The Blind (The Hawker)
Disc 2
1) Christmas
2) The Acid Queen
3) Pinball Wizard
4) Do You Think It's Alright?
5) Fiddle About
6) Tommy Can You Hear Me?
7) There's A Doctor
8) Go To The Mirror
9) Smash The Mirror
10) Miracle Cure
11) Sally Simpson
12) I'm Free
13) Tommy's Holiday Camp
14) We're Not Gonna Take It
15) Summertime Blues
16) Shakin' All Over
17) My Generation
Total time: 2h00m00s
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Source: 2-track soundboard mix for recording > Master Reel-to-Reel > Reel-to-Reel (1) > CDR (1) > SHN (for vine) (0) > Wave (0) > CDR (0) > EAC > Remastering (see below) > CDwave > SHN > BT
(NB; Although not pure, my CDR source comes directly from the first seeder of the 2001 SHN vine mentioned below.
It'll be pretty hard to find a higher generation than this.
Read the quote below for more info about the source.)
Presumably recorded by VPRO
Mastered by Prof. Stoned @ the Soundhouse, 9-10 Dec 2005
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About the recording:
This recording was made by a dutch radio/tv broadcast.
It's not 100% certain who did it, but it was probably done by the VPRO
who also did the Pink floyd recording the same year at the same venue.
And just like that Pink floyd recording, this one was also bootlegged
a million times from various very good to very poor sources.
Alll of these sources were originated from radio broadcast(s).
Back then, and today still, het concertgebouw was not a place
for rockbands but for opera's and other classic music.
Mixed directly to 2-tracks, this may been one of the reasons why
the mixing engineer had a hard time finding the right
balance. The mix changes oftenly, and sometimes the drums
or the guitar just disappear or get buried for a while.
It also must have been hard for the band to hear each other,
because of the extremely reverbrating acoustics.
Remember, this was 1969 and sound monitoring on stage was
still a thing for the future.
When comparing this one to other Who shows from this period,
this one probably isn't the best.
Roger Daltrey has once said that he didn't think he sang very good
this night. And playing the Tommy album on stage was obviously
not a routine for the band yet.
But, there is more than enough to enjoy here.
It is the only complete soundboard recording from this year.
It is also the only one with complete line age and it has the best sound.
Beside that, all other who '69 board tapes are far from complete
and don't have most of Tommy.
Somewhere around 2000, a Pre-FM source of this show was unearthed.
Funny enough, the same thing happended w/ the above mentioned
Pink floyd recording, but that's another story.
They may have come from the same person though.
Read the quote below:
"My source in Amsterdam worked on a Who anniversary
special, for the same radio station that broadcast the show in
1969. He suggested that the DJ use some of this show, so a
technician produced the original masters. He took the chance
to make a copy on their professional reel-to-reel equipment.
Our cdr was transferred off his 1st generation reels. Although
this show's been booted repeatedly, this is the REAL source.
It sounds amazing, like it was taped off the radio yesterday,
perfect except for a little tape hiss in the very quiet bits.
My source was upset that this show was recently booted from
a copy of his tapes. Even though it contains the complete song
list, he removed key bits of dialogue from every copy he made
and was able to find the source of boot. His "revenge" was to
offer the COMPLETE show to anyone who wanted it and
encouraged someone to do a tape tree to discourage money
from being spent on the bootleg. According to him, the recent
boot "Amsterdam Journey" on the Hiwatt label is the one taken
off his copy."
(For the record: the source used here is the one with the dialogue.)
When this new version came out, it proved to be a dramatical
improvement on every source available before.
And it also made the very hard to find version of 'A quick one'
available for the first time in good audio quality.
Listening to the mix, it sounds like the engineer was working with
with the following channels:
1) Bass Drum
2) Drum Overhead
3) Bass Guitar
4) Guitar
5) Vocal Roger
6) Vocal Pete
7) Vocal John
8) Left Room Ambiance (audience)
9) Right Room Ambiance (audience)
The last channel was faded up (& down) every time the moment seemed right.
Having it faded up in the mix all the time, probably affected the sound badly.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
About the mastering:
I'm a great Who fanatic, especially of the 1965-1973 period.
The sonics of this recording have been bothering me each time I listened to it.
But I felt that the right mastering treatment could make a world of difference.
I'm aware that for some bootleg collectors a recording such as this one
is a holy cow that should not be altered with.
But then, most people do not have an idea what a proper mastering
can do for a recording like this.
I've been mastering board tapes, studio/live albums and radio broadcasts for years.
I'm not making a full living out of it, but it is a part of my profession.
I have treated this recording with multiband compression and limiting plus some
very minor adjustments with a digital pultec eq.
Only three tools, but these are tools that can either make or break the sound.
Especially the former two are often misused (or rather said overused) in the world
of modern mastering by engineers of great fame.
The newly discovered source still suffered from a sometimes
very shrieky high-end, and a lack of deep bass tones (a.k.a. sub-low).
I adjusted the low-end to make the bass guitar sound like a bass guitar.
Then I worked especially on the sound of vocals and cymbals.
Most of the time the vocals are a bit too loud in the mix,
as they were probably not compressed or limited.
I attempted to bring them back in the mix as closely as possible,
without harming the sound whenever the vocals were not present.
I seperated the complete recording in four pieces and gave them
the treatment they each needed.
I did not use any noise reduction on this recording despite it being hissy.
This is another tool that should be used vey carefully, if at all.
To quote a well known audiophile mastering engineer:
"Hiss is everywhere. It's part of our lives. Without hiss we would all go insane"
The recording has got pops, crackles, distortion & the ocassional technical
difficulties. 'Overture' is an obvious example of this.
There are many flaws in the orginal recording, and these were also heard in
the post-fm sources.
I did not attempt to remove or slighten any of these.
Most of you should know what was on the label of the orginal
Live at Leeds LP: "Crackling noises ok, do not correct".
(NB: This was actually a note to the cutting engineers at the time.)
I did some minor editing. The first seconds of "go to the mirror" were
missing on the 'complete dialogue' and all earlier versions.
Because the band plays the same chords for a couple of times,
I was able to copy the missing bit from a few bars further
and disguise the problem considerably.
The 'complete dialogue' version has a bonus feature: 5 tracks & a KM interview
from an unspecified source of a Dutch TV broadcast from 1973.
In my opinion, the soundquality of those tracks is dreadful and only
one track is not already included in the Amsterdam part.
To me, it does not add anything to the mindblowing listening experience
that the Amsterdam concert is.
Therefore, I have scrapped the 1973 part on this remaster.
Still there ? :-)
Hope you enjoy this classic show in new improved soundquality.
Prof. Stoned
Fingerprints:
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