Here we go with a lively War tour recording in Brighton, England, at a club called Top Rank . Once you get passed the first track or two (the taper can't quite decide whether to take his mics out of his pocket), you will be treated to a wonderfully clear sound. OK, so there's a wee bit of hiss, but it's easy to ignore. For the most part, the audience stays in the background, which is great. March 13th happens to be Adam Clayton's birthday, and Bono and the audience are really into celebrating that, with frequent comments from Bono and at least one impromptu outbreak of Happy Birthday from the crowd. Appropriately, Adam's bass guitar shines in this recording. It's very prominent, almost dominant, and he's definitely in top form this evening. For those of you who prefer the far more eloquent musings of all things U2 live from the pen of Pimm, here's a much better description:

"Adam celebrates his 23rd birthday, and throughout the show Bono makes sure that everybody knows. 'Will you welcome the birthday boy!' he shouts and sings Happy Birthday with the audience. 'I think I know what he wants,' Bono says during Party Girl, and asks Adam, 'What do you want, man? I tell you what you want. He wants a present! He wants some sort of gift. Do you want a drink? Get the boy a drink!' Dennis Sheehan then brings a bottle of champagne and a birthday cake on stage. Steve Iredale brings on some presents, including a silk morning coat and slippers. While Adam accepts the gifts, Bono picks up and bass and plays a funky solo, with the audience singing Happy Birthday again.

"During the encore Knocking on Heaven's Door is played, together with Mike Peters, the singer of The Alarm, and his saxophonist joining in. Peters had taught Bono the song that December past. At that time, in London, Bono sang along the The Alarm's own performance of the Dylan classic; now the roles are reversed. It is the first time U2 play this song and Bono does not yet know all the lyrics, but Mike stands by him."

There's also some goofy technical glitches that strike the band just before "I Fall Down" when a guitar then an amplifer seem to go a bit wonky. As for bootleg technical talk, there's also an odd cut right after that song after which the hiss gets fairly loud. I believe this is where the original tape flip occurs, and many other sites will list this recording with a 9/10 track split, but I received it with this 10/9 split that you'll see when you put these files in iTunes. "October" gets cut strangely, and then "Tomorrow" ends up really muted and distant. Thereafter, the sound stays a bit distant but clears up gradually. My guess is the taper got caught and ended up finishing the recording from a different location in the venue. This sort of mess-up would usually lead me to exclude this bootleg from U2unes as substandard, but I'm giving it a pass because the performance is generally worth the quality hassle at this point.

I'm sure you've noticed the counter at the top of the page now. Hopefully, it won't cause any weird browser issues. Let it be a double-duty counter, since it's also counting down to the US release of the new album as well as the expected due date of my new U2 fan.

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