currygoat11

First time I heard it, like you, my brain kind of automatically compared it to ESL, like without even explicitly trying. You know because we have all heard ESL a hundred times, so naturally what you hear on 'Live in YYZ' sounds different. My first impression was that it was energized, more aggressive and I liked the change right away =)

Yes @DJLightray you are RIGHT. I extracted Tom Sawyer from my own 40th anniv. audio CD (ordered from rush.com) and I hear obvious pops. I extracted with Exact Audio Copy and it was accurately ripped, track quality 100% (no copy errors, perfect digital copy). I could easily hear the pop at 25 seconds, and the real obvious one at 28 seconds - that one is awful. I analysed in Cool Edit Pro and yup, the artifacts are visible in the Spectral View. I only looked at the 1st 30 seconds of Tom Sawyer and boom, mistakes are glaringly obvious. (I also downloaded it from Amazon Music and the same pops are present) Raw .WAV file here: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AhLz3m2U6ZgegZwsv98MC0BXwGT3Sw?e=pwPue9

OK I'm confused.... The ASOH video version of 'The Big Money' is a different performance than the ASOH audio CD version of the same song? Right? I mean I notice obvious differences in the singing after I compared the Laserdisc video vs. the audio CD version for this song. The reason I bring this up is that your point #1 you appear to be comparing 'The Big Money' from the video vs. the audio CD as if they are the exact same performance; please let me know maybe I'm missing something ... sorry if so LOL

this has the King Biscuit Flower Hour radio recording, this is the one right? It's from '84 but they play Limelight from '81 https://rushradio.net/mob_kbfh.php

sorry, which version is this?? I'm guessing you're referring to ESL Video?? Thanks

@By-Tor X-1You know, going back and listening to La Villa Strangiato from Mar 24 and comparing it to ESL and the 'Thank you very much ... huh huuh' thing is identical; I have to wonder if (after all) this song on ESL is indeed from Mar 24 Toronto, I mean the solo differs (some fixes/adjustments were made) ... makes me think -- for Live in YYZ, they were kind of 'forced' to use the Mar 25 version of La Villa Strangiato; i.e. if they used the Mar 24 version it would be the same source as ESL. I haven't done a detailed comparison. (like line them up in Audacity, speed correct and all that), not sure I have time or inclination to do this haha

OK at the beginning of La Villa Strangiato on "Live in YYZ", Alex plays this little ditty, what is that??

From what I can tell, it sounds like the only songs from Mar 25 are 2112, Freewill, Broon's Bane & La Villa Strangiato. All the others all seem to be from the 24th. Whatever other copy-pasting/mistake corrections they did, I think they did a great job with it. It's amazing, everyone sounds great and the performance is just excellent =)

Listening to YYZ from Live in YYZ, and let me tell you, Geddy is killing it. The bass guitar sounds so good. And in the middle is Neil's solo which is just insane -- he is on-fire. You have to listen to this with nice headphones, incredible!

Notes on the liner notes say : Live in YYZ 1981 Recorded live at Maple Leaf Gardens, Toronto, ON by Guy Charbonneau using Le Mobile Remote Recording - March 24 & 25, 1981

Apologies, late reply, I had leapt to a conclusion; the ESL liner notes do not mention Toronto. I am now quite embarrassed of trying to compare the boots from Toronto 3/23/81 - 3/25/81 to ESL.

Got it - currently listening to Live in YYZ; and what a pleasure to finally have this recording released officially, having sat in the vault for all these decades!

You're joking, right? DS disc 3 was blasted all to hell - the EQ (on the drums in particular but the mix as a whole) was atrocious and it was absolutely hammered with a compressor that sucked all the life out of it. They tried very, very hard to make it sound like it was recorded in 1996, not 1977. Terry's mix blows it out of the water, there's absolutely no comparing the two. you know, after going back and A-B comparing them again right now, I am noticing details in the Terry mix (ride cymbal) that is drowned out in on Different Stages disc 3..

can you elaborate? Do you think the mix on the drums is lacking? that's fine, I kind of wish the bass drum was more punchy and prominent, but who knows if this was even achievable. I don’t really think he hates Peart - but the drum mixes on the last 3 releases have been lacking, whereas everything else has sounded incredible. I agree with you. So Terry mixed the 40th AFTK, PW and MP. Regarding the Hammersmith Odeon London recording which is on both the 40th AFTK and Different Stages disc 3 ----> in my view the the audio fidelity on Different Stages disc 3 is just so much better sounding.

can you elaborate? Do you think the mix on the drums is lacking? that's fine, I kind of wish the bass drum was more punchy and prominent, but who knows if this was even achievable.

you can see in ESL he uses an effects pedal for that.

Wow, such iconic guitars, including some which I thought he would keep and pass down to his children. Huh.

Yeah true, and the speed of 2112 from Hemispheres 40th (Offenbach) is also running too slow (~ 2.5%). It's a small thing to some, but I notice such things for some crazy reason! If it's really exclusively Mar 24, we will get a unique perspective on how ESL compares (La Villa). Let's see, maybe it will be mix-matched as you say.

regarding La Villa Strangiato, I did some serious listening to the aud recordings from 3/23, 3/24, 3/25 and the 3/24 date captures the 'lions share' of what we hear on Exit Stage Left. But not everything aligns.There are subtle differences really all over the place. Small example -- during the solo, after the calm melodic part, when Alex maxes the volume and hits that , he pretty much always hits that note 3 or 4 times. On ESL those notes are truncated at the beginning. I'm telling you, some serious patching / splicing / mish-mashing / studio overdub editing was done on ESL. I think it's even possible they mix-matched parts from different nights into the same song, but I have no absolute evidence of this. Don't get me wrong, I love ESL and it's my favorite live album period.

On Vital Signs from "Live In YYZ 1981", it's amazing how isolated the guitar is to the left channel. There a little guitar on the right channel, but it's very distant. I like it. I wonder if the whole recording will be like this....

Well, based on the youtube video just posted of Vital Signs from "Live In YYZ 1981", I cannot really say for sure this is from 3/25/81. It definitely sounds like the 3/24 one. IN ANY CASE I am so happy we're getting this treasure unearthed from the depths of the archives after all these years!

Hey they just released Vital Signs from "Live In YYZ 1981" on youtube.

yes of course, my comments are specifically about the "Live in YYZ" small sample of Vital Signs from the unboxing vid.

There are some shenanigans going on here on the live sample from the youtube preview... At this point Geddy is singing "everybody got to elevate from the norm" ... but the note for "norm" is spot-on. Normally (in all cases I've heard) he will start the word a half-step down in pitch. It's odd and caught my ear the 1st time I heard the sample. And it doesn't jive from the aud recordings either... I just have a feeling they have gone through the multi-tracks carefully and possibly made slight adjustments here and there.

@malm_51 - Yes, Terry Brown, rush.com