U2 Live at the Montreal Forum

The Forum

Montreal, Canada.

27 - March - 1985.

Attendance: 15.000 (sellout) - Support: Lone Justice

Disc 1 (76:29)

01. Two Hearts Beat As One

02. MLK

03. The Unforgettable Fire

04. Wire

05. Sunday Bloody Sunday

06. Cry / The Electric Co.

07. A Sort of Homecoming

08. Bad

09. October

10. New Year's Day

11. Pride (In the Name of Love)

12. Knockin' on Heaven's Door

13. Gloria

14. "40"

Recording Equipment - History

Maxell UDI90 (low gen cassette) > Sony Micro HiFi > SoundBlaster Live Platnium > PC > WAV file

* WAV file edited to chop off non relevant parts at start & end
* Fades added to start & end
* Pitch lowered slightly as the tape appeared to be playing slightly too fast resulting in a higher pitched than normal Bono
* Volume brought up
* Hiss Reduction gently applied - It's still a bit hissy, but I didn't want to apply too much noise reduction as it would have destroyed too much cymbal, vocal, guitar top end, etc.
* No Eq was applied to the recording, no frequencies were enhanced - just some mild hiss filteing 

* Wav file split into individual tracks

* Wav converted to FLAC (Level6)

Transfer and processing: bonoman66

Additional comments (by bonoman66, firstly posted on u2torrents & txt file): 

I was given a cassette tape on Febuary 27th 1988 while still at college. I'd heard about the group on the tape but wasn't very familar with their material at that time. The tape turned out to be a very good quality (for the time - nothing digital commonly around then) analog Soundboard recording of U2 performing live at The Montreal Forum on March 27th 1985. That bootleg was the tape that introduced me to the band & their music. Since those college years, I've gone on to purchase every official album, most of the singles, & been lucky enough to see them live at various places throughout the world etc. It's a nice performance. I'm sharing this here as I've only recently come across the tape again after cleaning out the attic. I've not come across a better group of fans than those consistenly sharing on these forums, & hope people might like this.

I do realise that there was a bootleg recording of this show previously pressed to CD & released in 1999 - I think. My tape is definately from the same source, but I think it might be of a lower generation than the source that the CD was pressed from. I think there's slightly less muffle in my recording. I'm hoping it'll be an upgrade for everyone. I've had a quick listen to the CD called Cinema Screen & while its good, its quite 'muffled' in parts - I've not heard any other recordings so I don't know if better ones exist.

Comments

An excellent sounding soundboard recording which is a real upgrade to the silver pressed 'Cinema Screen'. This tape is definitely cleaner and crisper: in other words, not as muffled and flat as the bootlegged set. So the quality improvement is obvious at first sight. Sound is really clear, with vocals a little prominent in the mix. This recording is missing the first three songs: 11 O'Clock Tick Tock, I Will Follow and Seconds.

A pair of edits happen in this tape. The first one is placed before A Sort of Homecoming. Some tape degradation occur a pair of times throughout the recording, well audible at the beginning of October, for example. This tape degradation appears again during Knockin' on Heaven's Door. This song contains a dropout at 02:59. Another edit occurs before "40".