The first tour under the Castle deal was the longest the band would play for 7 years (over 70 dates) until the Marbles tour in 2004. It also included the famous tour fund which enabled the band to tour North America and led ultimately to the crowdfunding of Anoraknophobia.
The tour started in late April in Glasgow and this is the first night of the first leg in Europe. The shows were performed in front of a backdrop depicting the Strange Engine design, peppered by replicas of African Face Masks. This backdrop is now used to provide sound proofing in the live room at the Racket Club.
This is a great sounding stereo desk recording, which was partially used on "Piston Broke", but this is the full show, spanning 2 hours. By this time in the tour the band had become used to the new songs and even rotated songs as the tour progressed, but this is the standard opening set which only had small changes as the band tinkered with the running order.
It contains a storming 1000 Faces, 80 Days, Estonia and the rarely played Hope For The Future from the then new album. It also includes the Pete bass solo which introduces the title track. For the first time the set does not include any pre 1988 songs. It does include a rare outing of the full electric version of The Bell In The Sea and the band feel relaxed enough to drop in an improvised acoustic version of The Space. This is also the tour where h’s new toy, the cricket bat, was introduced and you can hear him playing around with it before The Uninvited Guest.
This recording was made as a reference for ourselves while touring, and as an archive of our live performance - it was never planned to be released. We have taken the original recording and ‘remastered’ it to provide a better sonic experience, however it has not been re-touched or overdubbed in any way. This recording is provided “as is” – warts and all – for your listening pleasure, so please keep this in mind when listening!
includes full artwork in .pdf format.
