Artist: U2

Date: 1987-05-03

Location: Worcester, MA - The Centrum

Medium: SHN

Equipment / Source: unk

Infofile:

U2
Worcester, MA
The Centrum
May 3, 1987

Taper : ?
Equip : ?
Lineage : Likely 2nd Gen. Cassettes (From the JEMS archive) > Nakamichi CR-7A transfer (03/07) > Peak 5.2 > DVD > Goldwave (delete silence and overlap, add fades, speed correction, file split) > FLAC

1. Where the Streets Have No Name
2. I Will Follow
3. I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For/Exodus
4. MLK
5. The Unforgettable Fire
6. Bullet the Blue Sky/America
7. Running to Stand Still
8. A Sort of Homecoming
9. Sunday Bloody Sunday
10. Exit/Gloria
11. In God's Country
12. Trip Through Your Wires
13. C'mon Everybody
14. Bad/Candle in the Wind/Ruby Tuesday/Sympathy for the Devil
15. October
16. New Year's Day
17. Pride (In the Name of Love)
18. With or Without You
19. "40"

Notes (from Butterking of JEMS):

Here's the second night of the Worcester run, following up on the 5/4/87 I posted a few weeks back. Same person recorded both and the sound is pretty much the same. I obtained these tapes in 1988. I wish I could tell you who recorded or what gear; perhaps someone can shed some light. Regardless, based on available information, this should be an upgrade for most folks.

As I wrote about 5/4, this version is likely second generation (notes are incomplete), and the sound quality is very good though the incredibly boisterous audience does overwhelm in several spots.

Notes (from Mike):

First, I tried to see what other transfers are out there of this show. This one is pretty good and has the benefit of known digital and (probably) known analog lineage. Ernesto Lara has a version with lower volume but perhaps a little better balanced sound, but he nonetheless thinks it's the same source. Anyway, if anyone has what you think is a better version of this, please consider putting it up especially if you know the lineage.

That said, this is to me a good, but not great, recording. Not overly sharp or clear and a tad distant, but the music comes through pretty nicely. I'd say Bono's voice comes through most loudly, more so than the music. Audience noise could certainly be worse but gets loud at times with occasional loud screaming. Overall though I'd say it's not quite as bad as the May 4 recording Erik refers to above.

This came to me as four WAV files from Butterking (he had received the tapes in a trade), corresponding to two sides of two 60-minute tapes. The show, however, had additional breaks, suggesting that this was originally on 90 minute cassettes. This resulted in the speed being different for each part. Part one (through "Bullet the Blue Sky"), in my estimation, had non-linear speed issues, meaning that as the show goes on, the speed gets slower. I read a remark that the speed of a walkman may have been changed as the batteries ran out, which may be one explanation for this. In any case, I did not try to correct for this, so I tried to kind of get it in the middle. As such I think "Streets" maybe is a tad fast while the end of that part ("Bullet the Blue Sky") is a bit slow. Anything more accurate would have required some kind of variable pitch correction, and I don't even know if such a thing exists (another option would be to go through it song by song but that is pretty arbitrary). So this won't sound perfect but as good as I can get, and I think the rest of the show sounds pretty good. If anyone wants the original unaltered WAV files please let me know. Thanks to Jeff Shrikey for helping with the speed/pitch correction. Hopefully some day a better source comes up.

Anyway, a decent show, but not the best. Some sloppy versions of a few songs, due mostly to Bono, but he still is clearly having a good time. After "C'mon Everybody" Bono says "another classic trashed by U2." Not their best cover (or worst, probably), but it's nice to know he had a sense of humor about it. He changes the lyrics a bit with a reference to the Paradise Club that they played in 1981 (he has refernced this often over the years while in Massachusetts). During "Pride," Bono apparently brings his cousin, A.J. onto the stage, and then mentions something about cameras. I tried to look for a review of this show to explain what was going on, but the only one on U2tours.com clearly had to be referring to a different show, as his description does not seem to match this one.

Comment:

Archived on ICY1.

No cover available for this show.