Eye Records 2 CD Label : “Eye” Records Catalogue : #83-84 2Disc Length : 90:41 / 89:47 Source : Audience Recordings Date/Venue : Auditorium Stravinski, Montreux 16th July 2007 Sound Quality : EX Year Of Release : 2008 |
Comments
Fink's
Comments (rates this release 4.75/5.0)
Prince's appearance at the 2007 Montreux Jazz Festival was previously
circulating on the fan release 'Montreux Jazz Festival' and the aftershow on
'Montreux Jazz Festival Aftershow', and I imagine it will come as a surprise to
nobody that both the above fan recordings are the one's used here by "Eye"
Records. The only difference between the two is that the fan release was missing
the opening 1 minute of 'When The Saints Go Marching In', whereas it is here in
it's entirety on this "Eye" Records release, so any, and all credit for this
recording goes to the fan who recorded it and not to "Eye" Records.
Suffice to say that there is zero difference between the two releases other than
this particular release has both the main show and aftershow condensed onto two
90 minute discs, rather than the two separate releases by the fans. Both the
main show and aftershow are superb recordings and would be in contention for the
best audience recordings to have surfaced from the multitude circulating from
the many 2007 concerts. The main festival concert has a few niggling little
crackles during 'Footprints' and some (very) background chatter in a few quiet
parts of the concert, and the aftershow begins rather subdued and mellow, but
improves during '3121' and is free of any problems from there on. These really
are above any criticism, so it's pretty obvious why they were chosen by "Eye" to
be packaged nicely, have their name slapped on it, and charge you/me for the
"pleasure" of owning it. If you already have theses shows, cool. If you don't,
then I suggest giving this release a wide berth and hunting down the original
fan releases.
The booklet and packaging are rather attractive, containing a 3 page in-depth
report about the history of the festival to the present, along with a multitude
of pictures of Prince's performance and arrival in Montreux. Lastly, I should
point out this is subtitled "Sex In The Cities Vol.5" and it appears the idea is
to have a series of releases documenting Prince's one night shows in various
cities between the Las Vegas and London 2006/2007 stints, so we can look forward
to various other fan releases from Prince's one-off shows in Miami, San
Francisco, Minneapolis and London (Koko) to be released under the "Eye" label.
Urgh. So yeah, the recordings on here are great, but they were great recordings
when they were released 15 months ago on the original free releases.