Wembley Nights 7 & 8 The Definitive Edition & remaster
Wembley Stadium
London, U.K.
21 - August - 1993.
Attendance: 72.000 (sellout) - Support: Bjork, Stereo MC's
Disc 1 (67:50)
01. TV: The Drug of the Nation (PA) / Drumming Boys (PA)
02. Zoo Station
03. The Fly
04. Even Better than the Real Thing
05. Mysterious Ways
06. One
07. Unchained Melody
08. Until the End of the World
09. New Year's Day
10. Numb
11. Tryin' to Throw Your Arms Around the World
12. Angel of Harlem
13. Dancing Queen
14. Stay (Faraway, so Close!)
15. Satellite of Love
Disc 2 (62:11)
01. Bad / The First Time
02. Bullet the Blue Sky
03. Running to Stand Still
04. Where the Streets Have No Name
05. Pride (In the Name of Love)
06. - ZooTV Videoconfessionals -
07. Desire
08. - MacPhisto's speech and phone call to Graham Taylor -
09. Ultraviolet (Light My Way)
10. With or Without You
11. Love is Blindness
12. Can't Help Falling in Love
Recording Equipment - History
OKM IIc + Sony TCD-D7 > DAT Master > DAT-C1 > Original Wembley Nights CD set > EAC (Secure) > remastering process > FLAC
Taper: Ard Stegman
Remaster: Francesco Donadel -
It has been a long and hard
work. It took me nearly 2 months. I've restarted the work many times because I
was not satisfied with the final result. I've used different programs, setup,
monitors and even different eq for each track of each cd. For sure I'm not the
best audio mastering engineer in the world (of course i'm not!) but I've tried
my best to achieve the most pleasing sound. I had to find a comprimise and avoid
any kind of dynamic compression for example 'cos the low frequencies tended to "fart"
on the speakers, and the background noise was rising to an annoying level. Yeah
the noise reduction process has not been so easy... I had to find a comprimise
between quality and clarity. By the way all the tracks have perfect transitions,
no gaps, no volume changes...
I received the original set way back in 1995 when Geraldo V.K. made 30 copies of
each set and sold them to people for 500 dollars each box containing the 4
concerts.
The best performance is on the
final night. The rain adds a joyful mood to the set. The sound gets muddy from "Numb"
to "Running to Stand Still"
because of the heavy rain falling that night. I did my best to obtain a decent
sound. The defect is in the original recording.
Comments
This is the last of four great nights at Wembley Stadium, and again, the recording is superb. Like all the other 'Wembley Nights', clarity is amazing with a powerful sound and almost no crowd noise, and a brilliant live feeling. All instruments have been nicely captured, so music and vocals sound very clean and close.
The only blemish is that from the last notes of New Year's Day to Bullet the Blue Sky (halfway the song), the sound is not as good because of the hard rain falling that night, decreasing a bit the quality. However, the sound is still great in those 8/9 songs.
The show is fantastic with an inspired performance. A nice rendition of ABBA's classic Dancing Queen, with some lines sung by Larry Mullen whilst he's drumming. MacPhisto phones to Graham Taylor, the criticised manager of the England national football team. He and the audience sing You'll Never Walk Alone to Taylor's answering machine.
** It seems the consensus among fans say the show was taped by Ard Stegman, but it was Geraldo v. K. who converted his 'DAT clone' to create the original 'Wembley Nights' CD sets, that he later sold out there. First remastered series appeared in the trading market, by Francesco Donadel, when he acquired a copy from Geraldo. As mentioned above by himself, he wasn't happy with the final result, so he just made in 2007 a 'definitive edition' with a second and fresh remaster, and the output offers outstanding sound quality. **