4 November 1986: The Palace, Hollywood, CA

New Order
The Palace
Hollywood, CA
4 November 1986

source: soundboard
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analogloyalist mastering August 2012

This gig is a terrific little guy, easily one of my favorites.  While this set has seen somewhat wide circulation, I can virtually guarantee it has not done so in this quality.

This was obtained approximately a week after the gig, by a friend of the program to be known only as Blog Friend, in a swap for an audience recording of the same gig.  Blog Friend obtained this direct from the folks at the radio station [redacted], who had recorded the gig for broadcast from Oz's PA.  Blog Friend only sporadically shared out analog dubs of his 1st generation cassette, and only recently digitized it for the first time.  This is that digitization, made more better.

I believe - and this is only based on the many versions I've sampled before getting this from Blog Friend - that 99% of the copies in general circulation are from the radio station broadcast.  The versions I've heard have markedly different sonic characteristics, most often associated with FM broadcast compression and EQ.  This, on the other hand, sounds like it came from Factory ready for retail release.  It's probably the best - in quality, that is - non band-sourced mixing desk recording of the band out there.  Believe me when I say you folks will be quite busy lifting your collective jaw off the floor when listening.

All previously circulating copies are much too shrill - to the point my ears bled when listening at anything approaching a normal listening volume.  This is not a problem with this dub off the master.  Additionally, all previously circulating copies had marked and inconsistent pitch and speed variances, which - again - is not a problem here.

(As an aside: A supporter has very generously gifted me a copy of the amazing, beautiful and lovingly trainspottery tome From Heaven To Heaven, written by a fellow named Dec Hickey (who religiously followed the band in their glory years of 1981 through 1984) and lovingly annotated with tapes, setlists, unpublished photos, and other ephemera of the day.  If you are a New Order fan, you need this book.  Not sure if Dec still has copies, but check the website.  Anyway, one of my favorite things about the ephemera in the tome (and it is a tome, not simply a "book") is the exhaustive list of early working titles the band gave their songs.  These working titles survived on the band's actual setlists long after they were released under their "proper" titles, even through this day where we still see "KW1" on latter day gig setlists for Your Silent Face.  There are a few I've not known before, the first of which we'll be using here for Leave Me Alone.)

Barney does some... lovely isn't quite the term... interesting vocal ad-libs during Face Up and Blue Monday.  And the tape has easily the best shoutout I've heard at/on a gig to encourage punters to buy the record:

"OK motherfuckers!  This is called Way Of Life and it's off our new LP called Brotherhood available on Warner Brothers/ Qwest Records."

Quite.

01 Shellshock
02 Everything's Gone Green
03 Ceremony
04 Every Little Counts
05 Dark Nites
06 Thieves Like Us
07 Way Of Life
08 Face-Up
09 Temptation
10 Confusion
11 Blue Monday (fades out, as the DJ begins to play the 12" version over the band as they're ending!)

FLACs here.  Sample track above.

Please to enjoy!