I’ve just had rather an embarrassing email exchange with my hosting company NuBlue. They were very nice. but pointed out that with monthly traffic to the site now peaking at 100gig against an allowance of 15, it might be time to consider moving the multimedia elsewhere… To their absolute credit they were brilliant in suggesting some alternatives and giving me time to sort it out: NuBlue get excellent reviews and rightly so, very highly recommended.
So I’ve moved the data elsewhere, hopefully without breaking anything, and we should be back in business. As a compassionate side effect, the space and bandwidth I now have allows me to host video, and so I’ll be doing a lot more of that, including things that haven’t made it up to Youtube or which are fairly poor quality there.
Starting with one of the jewels in the crown. The Alabamahalle concert in Munich on December 2nd 1985 was broadcast live on German TV. Although the original broadcasts aren’t accessible (see the gigography for more information on what was in these), an edited version was created for later rebroadcast and has been circulating on DVD and Youtube. The problem with the Youtube version is that it’s fairly lo-res and split into sections, and a bit irritating to watch as a result, so if you want to watch the whole thing you need one of the DVDs.
That is until now. For here is a full resolution complete version for your viewing pleasure. The player allows the picture to be made full screen using the little widget bottom right.
One amusing thing about this concert is that despite Paddy’s usual rigid adherence to the set list, he was told to play things in a different order to get the “hits” into the first half of the broadcast – the live show was split over two programmes with the first half being the popular one. This clearly annoyed him, and he reinstated the same songs in the correct order later in the show. Neil is grinning in the intro because he’s playing “When Love Breaks Down” for the second time.
Oh, and if you’re the bearded guy getting well into it stage right, do get in touch.
This is the best live recording I’ve seen since 1985, when I saw Prefab Sprout live in Errols (Gothenburg) during the same tour in December. It feels like I’m there now. So fantastic to get the chanse to relive it, thanks!!!
Excellent Tim, I’d got a torrent of this concert a while back but not as good as this. Thanks
I was at this gig!!!
In fact, I’m standing next to the bearded guy!!!
How wonderful! Which one are you, and who is he? Didn’t get a VHS of the whole thing I guess?
Funny that Faron Young sounds like the intro to Sweet’s “Ballroom Blitz” here. I remember this song was the last number on the gig at Errols! It was really good and very hot in the room as it can get at small clubs.