U2unes - U2 bootlegs for your iPod

Coming March 2009

Jason@U2unes — Wed, 8 Oct 2008 16:00:05 -0500

No, it's not the new U2 album, though that's always a possibility. I'm talking about my new baby boy. We went to the doctor today for an ultrasound and came away with a handful of Baby's First Pictures. So, naturally, I'm going to share with you.

Baby's handsome profile

Baby's handsome face

Baby's cameo in Aliens movie

Baby's cute toes

Baby's leg

Proof it's a boy

1983-05-06 Boston "The Complete Boston '83 Tapes" Soundboard Silver CD

Jason@U2unes — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 09:36:41 -0500

I feel the need to explore the War era today, and I would bet money you'll appreciate it. Today I'm sharing one of those rare gems that has (almost) everything going for it. First, the performance is a solid A+ with energy, enthusiasm, and perfect execution. Second, the sound quality is studio-perfect, with an intangible quality to it that most other soundboard recordings lack. I can't put my finger on it exactly. Soundboards are great but are frequently sterile. This has some... quality... that makes it more alive, not just live. Third, as a silver CD, the bootleg manufacturer packed in some quality bonus tracks. The only time that this recording fails to shine is when Bono tries to get the audience involved, and for some really weird reason the Boston fans simply fail to participate. They don't sing along much if at all, they just cheer in between tracks. You might think the sound engineer is simply failing to adjust the equipment to capture the crowd (you frequently hear them do that on other soundboard bootlegs), but no... Bono has a hard time getting the audience to do anything. Despite this weird crowd behavior, this is one of those recordings that you almost always find on collectors' Top 10 lists. Oh just forget the praise. It's a Top 10 Top Notch Must Have Download Now kind of bootleg. Get it!

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"With Or Without You" as performed by Sungha Jung

Jason@U2unes — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 14:24:34 -0500

I'm sure most of you have seen this already, but thought it was still worth sharing. Enjoy!

New bootleg coming soon!

1983-06-10 Norman (a remaster by the taper direct from the master tapes)

Jason@U2unes — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 19:43:24 -0500

I hope you enjoyed last week's Vertigo sampling. Real life had me busy and tired last week. I wanted that bootleg out, but just never had time to write a proper review. But judging by the number of people who have downloaded it, who are still downloading it, and who are currently still seeding it, that Denver show turned out to be pretty popular for a U2unes offering. My apologies for just dumping that one on you, Dear Readers, without the slightest effort to review it or provide a sample. I'll try to get my standards back up to where they belong.

This week's show is a recommendation. A reader and drive-fill fan was browsing through the collection he got from me and heard this gem. Now, to be clear, I have two versions of this show, but both of them are from the same source. It turns out that the taper has shared out multiple different edits of his recording, never quite happy with the results. One of the two versions I have is his most recent release. It sounds great, better than the older version I have, so I think the taper got it right this time. It sounds great even with a flat EQ, but tweaking it with the iTunes Rock preset really makes this one shine. It would be near professional quality if not for the occasional nearby screamer or clapper. Let's just read what our requester had to say:

Hey Jason,

Hope everything is going well. I've been doing a LOT of digging through the treasure chest of shows on the drive fill you did for me a few months ago-believe me I still haven't put the smallest dent in it yet - soooo much great stuff. I think that I've dug up a diamond -1983-06-10 Norman Ok. This is an awesome show! The boys were still probably on their Red Rocks high - I like shows that Adam lets loose and plays! 2 songs that stick out to me are I Fall Down and 11 O'Clock Tick Tock/Drowning Man snippet. I've been playing this show over and over in my car for the past three days! Maybe this would be a good show to share on U2unes? I'm sure many fans would love it.

Thanks for your time and have a great day!

Jim

Well, Jim, I love getting requests/recommendations because it makes my job here so much easier. So Norman it is! While putting this together for distribution, I came to realize that half of the War material that has appeared here on U2unes was simply re-runs of Red Rocks, so I am happy to extend the list. Might have to do a bit more digging in the War chest, because I know there are a few more gems in there.

Also, a quick shout out to Nick from Hamilton, New Zealand. Thanks for the emails! Cheers, Mate!

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2005-04-21 Denver (Vertigo Denver Second Night)

Jason@U2unes — Sun, 7 Sep 2008 18:39:47 -0500

OK, I'm busy, but I wanted to make this post available so people could download this show. I'll write more later.

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Marissa's Bunny

Jason@U2unes — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 06:34:28 -0500

Oh sure, it sounds like it's gonna be a cute site when you read that title. But just wait until you get there. You'll find it almost impossible not to read the entire page. A couple times. Every day. You'll find yourself trapped, waiting for each update, wanting very much to know what's going on. Here's why:

Marissa is a baby girl that was diagnosed with Infantile Spasms on February 15th of 2008. Infantile Spasms is a serious pediatric epileptic condition that could leave it’s mark on her for years to come. Fairfax is Marissa’s Bunny - a shared name for three bunnies that are traveling the world trying to spread awareness of her disease that has no reliable cure and is hard to relieve.

So, go get all moved by the cute little pictures of the cute little girl and her cute little bunny. While there, spend a little time learning something. You might find it hard to read about infantile spasms, but let me just warn you now that watching the video clip of the poor baby seizing is best left to those with hard hearts (it will only hurt them a lot).

Visit Marissa's Bunny. Spread the word.

2005-11-02 Los Angeles (a Chrisedge DAT Master)

Jason@U2unes — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 09:35:42 -0500

OK, enough with the old stuff. Time to jump back into the modern era. Well, almost. It's been almost three years since this concert was performed, but it should still be fresh in the minds of the people who were there. Attentive long-time readers will know that I've already shared a recording from this date only a week after it was played way back in 2005. That one was from taper Bob S. No, not doing a repeat. This recording is from the (in)famous taper Chrisedge, and it has his signature sound quality. Vocals are clear and easily on top of the audience. Bass is thin; it's there, it just lacks strength and depth. Personally, I found the "Bass Booster" preset in iTunes worked better for this recording than the "Rock" preset because the highs are already prominent. "MLK" is played briefly just before the encores, and while I don't have a comprehensive list to confirm it I believe this was the only time during the Vertigo tour that it was played. Likewise, "Walk On" makes a rare acoustic appearance, and alone is easily worth the time to download the whole show, but fortunately it's not the only good reason. I wouldn't be doing my job right, though, if I failed to mention that this performance has plenty of downs to match the ups. The encore, in general, is pretty tired and uninspired, which is a pity because with it being predominantly acoustic it could have been more fun. "Bad" at the end makes up for the lackluster tracks that immediately precede it, so don't give up all hope. Despite the weak ending, I would still rate this a 5 out of 5 and I'm confident you will enjoy it.

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1981-10-30 Amsterdam "The Lost Broadcasts Vol, 2" Silver CD

Jason@U2unes — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 08:37:32 -0500

I've been away for a while on an important family trip. My Missus wasn't the only pregnant woman in the family - my sister-in-law was, too, right up until August 7th when my very first nephew came into the world after 36 (yes... thirty-six!) hours of labor. So we loaded up our own rugrats and roadtripped to where my brother, his wife, and their new baby boy live to spend as much quality time with the newest member of the family as we could. All three of them are just fine, and of course the new parents are NOT getting any sleep at all. Believe me, I'm getting all the sleep I can these days because in March that will be me - up all night and up to my elbows in poopy diapers.

OK, let's get back on track. You didn't come here for baby stories, you're looking for more October-era U2 music, aren't ya? This week I have selected a silver CD from a broadcast source of U2's early performance in Amsterdam. The silver CD is titled "The Lost Broadcasts Vol. 2" though it has absolutely no relation to Vol. 1 that was released by another bootleg manufacturer. There are actually two concerts on this bootleg, neither of them is complete, unfortunately. The first eleven tracks are from Amsterdam, while the last seven tracks are from London at the end of the Boy tour. The Amsterdam performance is excellent, though the audio is a little shaky (more on that in a bit). Turns out that this performance ran past midnight, and at the end of "Fire" Bono announces that Larry has just turned 20 and the audience sing happy birthday to him. "11 O'Clock Tick Tock" is performed especially well, but my own favorite track is the too-short "October" with an unusual tinkling bell intro and some simple sticks to keep the beat during the lyrics.

On the technical side, the audio is not perfect. Not bad, just not perfect. All the bass seems focused in the right channel and it rumbles in an unpleasant way unless you work on reducing the bass. On a flat EQ, I found the rumble disappears enough while the rest of the sound stays good (indeed, I think the vocals pop out much better with it flat). Now, this may be an artifact of the piss-poor speakers I am limited to using today, but other music doesn't do this so I still think it's just a technical weakness of this bootleg.

Alright! Go ahead and grab this torrent from the link up there at the top right box, or snag it direct from the tracker right here.

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1981-12-13 Lido Beach "December"

Jason@U2unes — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 10:18:41 -0500

Yes, it does appear like we are on a every-other-week schedule. Summers seem to do that around here. Almost missed today, too; I was babysitting some friends' kids overnight, and while the evening went smoothly the morning did not. Nothing quite like everything going wrong for multiple children all at the same time at six in the morning on a Sunday. Trust me, you don't want any more detail than that.

Let's get in to the reason for your visit today - more music from the October tour! Once again, I have some excellent music to dish out. I am uncertain of the source of this recording, but various other sites list it as a pre-broadcast recording. It's certainly very close to soundboard. The Lido Beach performance is the last of the first American leg of the October tour, though they return just a few months later. There's almost no audience at all in the recording, but U2 is so full of pep and energy that you can easily imagine the crowd going nuts right along with them. Bono sounds so young, there's almost none of the preachiness that radiates from him today, and you can so easily here the youth. The instruments are all behind his voice, present but definitely second fiddle to the lyrics. All of the songs are performed perfectly. . . when they get started correctly. "Rejoice" begins with a funny delay as Bono dives into the song while the Edge is only tuning up. Other than that bit of goofiness, this performance is high energy, high enthusiasm, high fun. Grab the torrent from the box on the top right, or here from the tracker.

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1982-02-11 New Orleans "Riverboat President" Soundboard Silver CD

Jason@U2unes — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 08:52:24 -0500

October has received perhaps the least amount of attention from U2unes in it's three years with only three shows from that tour appearing here. Unlike the Lovetown tour, it has nothing to do with a dearth of quality recordings. Indeed, the October tour provides us with a wealth of excellent soundboard, broadcast and audience recordings, and I think it's time to balance things out a bit. So I hope you like material from October because it's what you're going to get for the next couple weeks.

I had a rare problem selecting this week's bootleg. Normally, I try to find something good in a mountain of okey-dokey-ness. The proverbial diamond. While digging through my October tour archive, the problem was sorting through a mountain of diamonds for the one I would be most excited about out of many that amaze me. In the end, I whipped up a list of over a dozen recordings, blindfolded my oldest boy, and told him to just touch the screen at random. After wiping off the smear he left on the monitor (I didn't think that through very well), I found "Riverboat President" for this week. Pretty scientific, huh?

Let me start with the technical difficulties. The first track, "Gloria", has some noise and drop-outs in the right channel. That disappears after the start of the second track. After that, you are left with clear sound for what is very nearly a studio-quality performance, unless you count a minor drop during "I Will Follow". All instruments and vocals are perfectly clear. The audience really only shows up between tracks and does not interfere with the music at all; it almost seems as if whoever was working the soundboard had a mic to pick up the audience and did an admirable job turning that mic on and off at the best times. All things considered, it's an impressive show made unique by being perhaps the only U2 concert performed on a boat. The silver CD included two tracks at the end from a gig in London, and I kept them in here for you to enjoy. You can use the link in the box at the upper right, or you can simply CLICK HERE to grab the torrent. And, yes, the Red Rocks show is still available. Wow.

Oh yeah, my wife and I are expecting.

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