25 August 1984: BBC Basement Studios "Saturday Live"

New Order
"Saturday Live"
BBC Broadcasting House, Studio S1 (basement), London
radio: Radio 1 (stereo)
television: BBC Two (in color!)
25 August 1984

source: BBC Radio 1 FM stereo live broadcast 25 August 1984
lineage: Auntie's royal airwaves > cassette master > CASSx1 (TDK AD90, Sony KA3ES playback) > Tascam CD-RW750 CDRx0 > WAV > iTunes > CDRx1 > analogloyalist magic > FLAC > archive.new-order.net
analogloyalist mastering August 2012

This short 5-song set is high up on quite a few favorites lists.  The video just has to be seen to be believed (Barney throws a hissy fit throughout, in much-too-short shorts, for starters), but the pure aggression in the band is brought to fore on this.  This version of "Sooner Than You Think" is close to, if not absolute, my favorite performance of this song.

Legend has it that they were caught in a massive traffic jam betwixt Cornwall and London, so were late for the set and had no chance to do a proper soundcheck, and basically had to wing it that afternoon.  I really have no other explanation for the band choosing to air "In A Lonely Place" ("Faster!") - as majestic as it is - to all of the UK on a presumably pleasant late summer Saturday afternoon.  As Barney puts it after the song, it's "an atmospheric song in an unatmospheric place".

I am convinced that the master cassette for this source was recorded by someone who had somehow found a way to hard-wire an RCA cable into the airwaves.  There was little to no FM noise, it was really just a beautiful source and is leaps and bounds the best version I've heard of this (and as usual, I've heard lots).

Techy notes:  The "diginoise" in a few spots in "Age Of Consent" and the end of "Temptation" - for both songs, on the vocals only - appears to be Barney overloading the poor Beeb's console.  There were a few other glitches in "Age Of Consent" that were more than likely FM noise, which I've fixed.  It didn't help that shortly into "AOC" Barney ripped off the pop screen from the vocal mic.  And while not a "tech" note, had the Beeb's censors been heads up, there are a few lines here and there that shouldn't have made it through...

01 BBC announcer
02 Sooner Than You Think
03 Age Of Consent
04 Blue Monday
05 In A Lonely Place
06 Temptation

FLACs here.  Sample track above.

Someone with the skills for the video editing side of the biz needs to match this audio up with the best circulating video copy of this.  I'd pay for the result!  Not really...

Please to enjoy!