The Sign O' The Times Tour 1987

* Packaged with deluxe 24-page color booklet * ------------------------------------------------------------------ Sabotage Records’ City Lights Remastered Vol. 6 ! (SAB #452-457) We just mastered this latest volume from our acclaimed concert series. It consists of six extremely diverse club shows from Prince’s 1987 Sign O' The Times era plus various bonus tracks in clearly improved sound quality. A whole week of mastering studio time has been invested, so what you get here are simply THE BEST REMASTERS EVER AVAILABLE OF ALL SHOWS INCLUDED! Disc 1 encompasses the earliest documented Sign O' The Times concert that Prince ever performed in front of an audience. It’s the classic test gig from First Avenue, Minneapolis, MN, taped on 21 March 1987. As bonus there are newly enhanced recordings of both songs he presented with live vocals and live guitar over a pre-recorded backing track at the MTV Music Awards on 11 September 1987 and also, for the first time on CD, Sheila E’s live appearance on The Tonight Show (previously hosted by Johnny Carson, here with a freshly installed Jay Leno instead) to perform Charles Parker’s Now‘s The Time and to promote the concert movie Sign O’ The Times on 1 December 1987. Disc 2 features a long gig at Rupert’s Nightclub in Golden Valley, MN, taped on 5 September 1987. The set performed contained several rare choices and cover versions, including The Ballad Of Dorothy Parker, The Sex Of It, Love And Happiness [Al Green], I Want To Take You Higher [Sly Stone], I’ll Take You There [The Staple Singers] and Mother Popcorn [James Brown]. Disc 3 has the only French aftershow from that year, the classic New Morning concert from Paris, delivered on 15 June 1987 AM. Highlights to mention are the cover versions Purple House [Jimi Hendrix], I Got My Mind Made Up [Instant Funk] and Prince‘s own What Did I Do? Disc 4 is a fresh approach at a pretty odd Prince event: an all-instrumental gig from The Fine Line Music Café in Minneapolis, MN, played on 5 December 1987. Fully remastered from an amateurish fan release, this includes Eleven, Freddie Freeloader [by Miles Davis], Jack U Off and many more. Disc 5 brings you a soundboard-recorded Strange Relationship from First Avenue, Mpls, MN, 21 March 1987 plus the longest and best-sounding soundboard recording of Prince’s Paisley Park concert with special guests Miles Davis and Joe ‘Foley’ McCreary. Auld Lang Syne is performed. Disc 6 has a benefit gig from club U4, a tiny disco in Vienna, Austria from 29 May 1987 AM plus additional live rarities from the European leg of the Sign O’ The Times tour 1987. The U4 recording stands out for its only-ever inclusion of a live take on the outtake The Ball. Prince also presents Adore and several rather unusual incarnations of well-known compositions. All material included has carefully been revised according to today’s advanced possibilities and standards in studio mastering. Here are the most obvious improvements over any previous release: MTV MUSIC AWARDS, UNIVERSAL CITY, CA, 11 SEPTEMBER 1987 (sndbd.; 9:30 min) - MTV’s own glitches (mainly in Prince’s lead vocals) fixed - 30 Hz hum noise removed In short: This is the longest and best sounding recording of that gig available on any CD release. FIRST AVENUE, MINNEAPOLIS, MN, 21 MARCH 1987 (64:00 min) - remastered from an old Moonraker release - start-IDs corrected - 60 Hz power supply hum noise filtered - transients, compression fixed up - final three songs assimilated (previously too bass-heavy) THE TONIGHT SHOW, BURBANK, CA, 1 DECEMBER 1987 (soundboard; 6:30 min) - EQ’ed, dehissed and decrackled Never available on CD before. RUPERT’S NIGHTCLUB, GOLDEN VALLEY, MN, 5 SEPTEMBER 1987 (92:06 min) - remastered from an old Thunderball release - recording speed/ pitch corrected, affecting total playing time (up half a semi-note = +2.93%) - EQ’ed (lower frequencies boosted between 200 and 500 Hz, also 2.6 kHz range boosted, metallic sounding 9.4 kHz treble lowered) - harmonics enhanced by means of a tube effect - dehissed - dehummed (60 Hz/ 120 Hz) - decrackled (Purple Rain in particular) - alternating treble during ?rst song (Sign O’ The Times) repaired - digital glitches and feedback removed from Sign O’ The Times and Play In The Sunshine - dropouts removed from Mother Popcorn, Kiss, Love And Happiness, I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man, Girls & Boys-intro - missing transitions in between songs restalled after I Want To Take You Higher, I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man, Slow Love, Four NEW MORNING, PARIS, FRANCE, 15 JUNE 1987 AM (52:20 min) - remastered from an old Thunderball release - lower register overmodulations removed - digital glitches, drop-outs and feedback removed on Purple House, I Got My Mind Made Up, Just My Imagination and Sexmachine - minute-long, high-frequency noise and disturbing whistles removed on Sexmachine THE FINE LINE MUSIC CAFÉ, MINNEAPOLIS, MN, 5 DECEMBER 1987 (93:00 min) - remastered from the longest known recording - Start-IDs/ song titles corrected - EQ’ed - previous, lousy fan-applied filtering repaired (within technical limitations) - harmonics enhanced - all missing transitions in between songs restalled FIRST AVENUE, MINNEAPOLIS, MN, 21 MARCH 1987 (soundboard; 4:40 min) - mastered from an NPG MC ’Ahdio Show’ Prince had given order to camouflage the word "fuckin" (from the song’s line "Isn’t it a shame, this ain’t a fuckin’ movie“) by playing it backwards in the NPG MC track. That brief passage has now been turned around again to represent the live recording in its original form. PAISLEY PARK, CHANHASSEN, MN, 31 DECEMBER 1987 (soundboard; 85:30 min) - remastered from the best known audio sources of this show - Now’s The Time/ drum solo by Sheila E. re-integrated - stereo image broadened - denoised and annoying 60/ 120/ 180 Hz hum removed - massive (!) feedback problems from original source retouched one by one – to fantastic results… without (!) affecting the total playing time of the recording CLUB U4, VIENNA, AUSTRIA, 29 MAY 1987 AM (over 60:00 min) - remastered from the two best audio sources of this show; EQ’ed and dehissed - lots (!) of annoying comments from the audience retouched without (!) shortening the recording 2 additional bonus tracks are featured on disc 6 of this superb set. (10:00 min) - TOTAL TRACKS INCLUDED: 71 tracks - TOTAL PLAYING TIME: 8 hours (80:00; 79:54; 80:00; 77:34; 80:00; 80:00) - GUESTS FEATURED: Bobby Z. Rivkin, Dale Alexander, Miles Davis, Joe ‘Foley’ McCreary - LINER NOTES & PHOTOS: 20 pages, printed in full color plus gold; more than 100 pictures included; excellent liner notes provided - PACKAGING: all-transparent jewel case COMING IN DECEMBER 2011