NEIL YOUNG: A PERFECT ECHO
This is a compilation of soundboard recordings from 1967-2001. The term soundboard is a bit of a misnomer. By soundboard I mean, basically, not an audience recording. Some are true soundboards, while others are FM, TV, ALD, or video-sourced recordings. The recordings were all taken from cdrs or videos that are circulating in the trading community.
Each track was checked out in Cool Edit with headphones, and may have had some cleanup done to remove any odd clicks, hiss, or other sound quality problems. The volume was set on each track so as to have them at similar volumes. Fades were added at the beginnings and ends of each track, so the tracks don’t segue, for the most part. There are a couple of segues where successive songs were taken from the same concert, so it still needs to be burned DAO. Most of the banter between tracks was removed to make room for more tracks.
There are a total of 115 tracks (109 songs, as 6 get repeated). Some years were heavy with available recordings (1976 and 1989 come to mind). I tried to balance the set by not using too many songs from a single show. The entire 8 discs run in, roughly, chronological order.
Originally, I started making this as just a personal compilation from my collection. It took about a month to put together, including the planning of what would be included, the remastering of the tracks, and, finally, the creation of the artwork. At first, I didn’t have a title and was just going to call it “a soundboard archive.” While fixing some soft static in Natural Beauty, the title came to me, when he sang “I heard a perfect echo die…”. I was going to call it “Perfect Echo Die”, but Jim Leonard, our friendly AOTW coordinator, persuaded me to leave off the word “die,” so now we have the title “A Perfect Echo”.
The intent was to make a nice sampling of soundboard recordings from throughout his career. Its sort of like an expanded “Rock ‘n’ Roll Cowboy,” with the intent to keep the sound quality higher and more consistent.
Volume 2 - 1978 - 1989
Disc 3 - 1978 - 1984 Disc 4 - 1984 - 1989
01. Thrasher (San Francisco, CA, 22-Oct-1978)
02. Little Thing Called Love (Berlin, Germany, 19-Oct-1982)
03. Old Man (Berlin, Germany, 19-Oct-1982)
04. Transformer Man (Berlin, Germany, 19-Oct-1982)
05. Sample And Hold (Berlin, Germany, 19-Oct-1982)
06. Don’t Be Denied (Dayton, OH, 18-Sep-1983)
07. Barstool Blues (Santa Cruz, CA, 7-Feb-1984)
08. Touch The Night (Santa Cruz, CA, 7-Feb-1984)
09. Tonight’s The Night (Santa Cruz, CA, 7-Feb-1984)
10. Comes A Time (Austin, TX, 25-Sep-1984)
11. Southern Pacific (Austin, TX, 25-Sep-1984)
12. Down By The River (Austin, TX, 25-Sep-1984)
01. Heart Of Gold (Austin, TX, 25-Sep-1984)
02. Flying on the Ground is Wrong (New Orleans, LA, 27-Sep-1984)
03. Road Of Plenty (Mansfield, MA, 21-Sep-1986)
04. Hippie Dream (Minneapolis, MN, 17-Oct-1986)
05. Prisoners Of Rock’n’Roll (Minneapolis, MN, 17-Oct-1986)
06. When You Dance I Can Really Love (Birmingham, England, 2-Jun-1987)
07. See the sky about to rain (Birmingham, England, 2-Jun-1987)
08. Mideast Vacation (Birmingham, England, 2-Jun-1987)
09. Southern Man (CSNY - Oakland, CA, 4-Dec-1988)
10. For The Turnstiles (Tulsa, OK, 13-Jan-1989)
11. Sugar Mountain (Tulsa, OK, 13-Jan-1989)
12. Four Strong Winds (Tulsa, OK, 13-Jan-1989)
13. Cocaine Eyes (Tulsa, OK, 13-Jan-1989)
14. Like A Hurricane (Tulsa, OK, 13-Jan-1989)
15. Rockin’ In The Free World (New York, NY, 30-Sep-1989)
