Set Listing
01. Moving the River
02. Cars and Girls
03. Bonny
04. Faron Young
05. Hallelujah
06. Lions in My Own Garden, Exit Someone
07. Wicked Things
08. Goodbye Lucille #1
09. Don’t Sing [Radio Transmission only]
10. Tiffany’s
11. When Love Breaks Down
12. When the Angels
13. Appetite [BBC Transcription Disc only]
14. Cruel [Radio Transmission only]
(Probably the concert opened with Horsechimes and closed with a reprise of Faron Young – that was the normal set list for this portion of the tour)
“I remember the Reading gig very well, as my mate Jimbo and I had to trek miles from the railway station to find the Uni building and wanted to save our money for beer and a t-shirt, not a taxi. It was a great gig, made all the better for having Hurrah! as the support act. Great night out.” steviedisco606, Sproutnet Forum
Two basic original recordings of this concert exists, which was a BBC Radio 1 “In Concert” FM broadcast, first broadcast on January 11th, 1986 . They’re distinguishable by the content. All recordings are fabulous, punchy and dynamic.
The BBC issued an official transcription disc copy of the concert, in which “Appetite” is included in place of “Cruel” and “Don’t Sing” is omitted. There is a generic introduction by Richard Skinner.
Original off air tapes omit “Appetite”, include “Cruel” and “Don’t Sing” and have different lead introduction and outro by Steve Blacknell.
At least one CD bootleg was issued with all songs, but with “Don’t Sing” and “Cruel” tagged onto the end of the transcription disk contents. This was also issued as “CD Fanzine #4 — “BBC ‘In Concert’ Live at Reading University”. Trading sites also list “Polishing the Stars” as including this concert and “rarities”. The concert features on the double Japanese bootleg “Sprouted Shows” as the transcription disc songs only.
First BBC broadcast was January 11th, 1986.
The material has been extensively rebroadcast in edited forms on digital radio. Prior to 2016, the options were between 128kbps MP2 (DAB) or 160kbps (satellite) both at 48000Hz sample rate, or 128kbps AAC at 44100Hz. Despite the lower nominal bitrate, AAC at 128k is superior to the MP2 encoding at 160k and is essentially as good or superior as analogue FM. Since 2016 320kbps AAC at 48000 is available for live streams and will have superior fidelity to analogue FM. However more compression is used on the digital broadcasts so dynamic range is reduced.-
Rebroadcast on Radio 6’s “Dream Ticket” on April 23rd 2003 (Bonny/Cars and Girls/Goodbye Lucille#1/When Love Breaks Down/When the Angels); then August 25th 2003, August 30th 2003 (Hallelujah/Goodbye Lucille #1/Faron Young/Tiffany’s/Lions In My Own Garden/Cars and Girls/Bonny/Moving the River/When The Angels/When Love Breaks Down/Don’t Sing/Wicked Things/Cruel) (intro “real American hero” edited from start of Cars and Girls), also 5th Jan 2004 (unknown content). Cars and Girls was broadcast on 25th Jan 2005.
Various single track broadcasts include R6 Jane Gazzo September 23rd 2004 (When Love Breaks Down)
More recently Gideon Coe has played extracts from the concert on his BBC Radio 6 show:
September 24th, 2009: When Love Breaks Down/Tiffany’s/Hallelujah
January 7th, 2010: Hallelujah/Tiffany’s/When Love Breaks Down/Cars and Girls
April 7th, 2010: Lions in My Own Garden (Exit Someone)/ Bonny/ Faron Young
October 8th, 2013: Bonny/Don’t Sing/Faron Young/Lions in My Own Garden (Exit Someone)
January 23rd 2017: Tiffany’s/Hallelujah/Wicked Things/When the Angels
Also broadcast on 6Music Live Music Hour:
28th March 2011: Moving the River/Cars and Girls/Hallelujah/When Love Breaks Down/When the Angels/Cruel;
3rd January 2014: Moving the River/Cars and Girls/Hallelujah/Tiffany’s/Cruel
17th March 2014: Moving the River/Cars and Girls/Bonny/Goodbye Lucille #1/Cruel/Appetite
Then 6Music Classic Concert:
18th March 2017:Moving The River/Cars And Girls/Bonny/Faron Young/Hallelujah/Lions In My Own Garden (Exit Someone)/Wicked Things/Goodbye Lucille #1/Don’t Sing/Tiffanys/When Love Breaks Down/When The Angels/Appetite (almost complete except “Cruel” is omitted ).
13th Feb 2018: Moving the River/Cars and Girls/Bonny/When the Angels/Cruel
Foreign Broadcasts include 28th June 1986 (Catalunya Radio), Antena 3 Spain (date unknown), Eire in two parts RTE Radio 2 29th July/5th August 1986.
