War 30 Radio Show / Other Treats.

[Aaron]

Just a heads up, I was notified that the Radio Program "In the Studio" is featuring a look back at the "War" album on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the release:

"North American syndicated Rock radio show and website InTheStudio: The Stories Behind History’s Greatest Rock Bands explores the 30th anniversary of U2‘s breakthrough third album War. U2 marched into 1983 and delivered the goods in America with two Top 10 Rock hits “New Year’s Day” and “Sunday Bloody Sunday”.  With the help of intense touring, a new television network, MTV, and a strong and faithful fanbase, U2 were charting a course to rock stardom. But beyond the obvious career breakthrough, U2 was seeking a new level of social conscience not seen since the ‘60s. The all-too-close experiences in war torn Northern Ireland gave U2 the perspective that could be amplified to the world. Bono tells program host Redbeard in this classic InTheStudio interview what the War record meant to U2, and how its political tone was far from fashionable."

http://www.inthestudio.net/redbeards-blog/u2-war-30th-anniversary-2/
is a direct link to the program, which can be streamed.

While you are there I suggest you type in U2 to the search box.  You'll also find a radio program on the 20th anniversary of "Achtung Baby" and they also streamed a live version of "One" taken from the August 30, 1992 Zoo TV show in Yankee Stadium.

The press release on the "War" program was dated March 12, 2013.

[George]

Thanks, Aaron, that's very interesting.

I noticed that the page mentioned that Love Is Blindness was the song to listen to, but then following the link we find that it is One.  This led me to wonder if Love Is Blindness was available on the server, so I simply changed the stream link to refer to Love Is Blindness instead of One.  It worked!

I then decided to dig further, and discovered, through sheer educated guess work, five additional tracks, presumably from the same night, but I have no way of knowing.

Here are the links:

http://its-live.s3.amazonaws.com/LIVE-u2/LIVE-u2-until-the-end-of-the-world.mp3
http://its-live.s3.amazonaws.com/LIVE-u2/LIVE-u2-mysterious-ways.mp3
http://its-live.s3.amazonaws.com/LIVE-u2/LIVE-u2-one.mp3
http://its-live.s3.amazonaws.com/LIVE-u2/LIVE-u2-running-to-stand-still.mp3
http://its-live.s3.amazonaws.com/LIVE-u2/LIVE-u2-where-the-streets-have-no-name.mp3
http://its-live.s3.amazonaws.com/LIVE-u2/LIVE-u2-love-is-blindness.mp3

They're all 44,100 Hz, 128 kb/s.

When looking at the file information I noticed that they are numbered tracks 2 through 7 (I put them in that order above).  Love Is Blindness is track 7, so I don't think there's a track 8.  I can't figure out what track 1 would be, or if it's even on the server.  Does this running order look familiar to anyone?  Are these bonus tracks from some boot?  Can anyone dig better and find track 1?

[Aaron]

I contacted the radio show to see if they would answer the question of where these tracks are taken from.  I will let you know if I have any response.  Thanks for digging up these.  I tried all the other song names played on the 29th and 30th and could not find any additional ones.

[slaneman]

Thanks Aaron and George.
I've compared the streamed 'One' with various 8-30 audience recordings and most of it does come from Aug 30 at Yankee Stadium but there are significant edits here and there. Since the Yankee Stadium shows were used by U2 in their own radio promos and the ZooTV Documentary video I'd guess the radio station got these 'arrangements' from U2 somehow already edited for these projects.

Haven't checked the other songs yet except the streaming MW and at least the opening is different from the audience recordings I have for Aug 30. Always interesting to see what U2 does in their editing. 

If Aaron gets a reply we can check further.

[Aaron]

The full tape contained "The Fly", "Even Better Than the Real Thing" and "Satellite of Love" as well.  So perhaps that can be useful in tracking down the other "tracks". 

I'll have a full update in a bit.

[slaneman]

The streaming 'Streets' is definitely from Aug 30 exactly as performed, no edits. And it's a real kick-arse version, sung with that great Bono ZooTV era voice. You can see the beginning of this song on the ZooTV Special DVD which on the 'bonus disc' in the Super Deluxe AB release. At the start of the song Bono comes out and gives Adam a big kiss. But...

Unfortunately you only get the beginning of the song on the ZooTV video then it's cut away to a stupid interview in some Dublin bar. Arg

So this streaming version, being a complete unedited, great sounding Streets, even at 128k, is pretty darn nice to have. Too bad they didn't show the complete version in the documentary.

[slaneman]

UTEOTW is exact version from Aug 30.
RTSS is also from Aug 30 (at least it sounds to me like the same) up to the hallelujahs then there's a little edited part, then the stream ends the song without Bono's harmonica solo
Love Is Blindness is from Aug 29, including the little mistake Bono made with the lyrics

Still don't know where MW is from...

Curious to know if those other 3 tracks Aaron mentioned are live versions.

[dagobah]

Thanks very much for the links.  I'm in the process of downloading them right now.
Looking forward to an update from Aaron.

By the way, since both George and slaneman mentioned 128 kbps . . . . . . I have a question:
For the same album title, I have audio files from these 2 sources:
# 1  - Protected AAC audio files (bought from the iTunes Store) that are Bit Rate: 128 kbps and Sample Rate 44.100 kHz
# 2  -  audio files imported from the physical CD into my iTunes library (where it shows Bit Rate 256 kbps (VBR) and Sample Rate 44.100 kHz)

Which has the better audio quality above . . . . . #1 or #2?

I don't know if this is important, but I listen to audio files (from my iTunes library) either:
- with earphones plugged into my desktop
or
- with earphones connected to my iPod or my iPod Shuffle.

[Aaron]

Hi Dagobah - not sure what tracks you are comparing these to...the tracks are labeled with the album title "U2 LIVE 1992" and they were labeled that way by the DJ who is behind this show.  They are not from a bootlegged source, but were rather provided to the DJ by the band to use with his interviews.

It is unlikely you have these tracks from iTunes as U2 has never officially released these in audio format, with the exception of "Love Is Blindness" released on the b-side of the "Stay (Faraway So Close)" Single which could be purchased as part of the "Complete U2".  Those imported from a CD may be from a bootleg recording, so the bit rate may be better having been ripped from a CD, but if the boot was recorded by someone in the audience, it may not sound as good.  Again, are you sure these are the same tracks that you are comparing them too?

[dagobah]

Hi Dagobah - not sure what tracks you are comparing these to...the tracks are labeled with the album title "U2 LIVE 1992" and they were labeled that way by the DJ who is behind this show.  They are not from a bootlegged source, but were rather provided to the DJ by the band to use with his interviews.

It is unlikely you have these tracks from iTunes as U2 has never officially released these in audio format, with the exception of "Love Is Blindness" released on the b-side of the "Stay (Faraway So Close)" Single which could be purchased as part of the "Complete U2".  Those imported from a CD may be from a bootleg recording, so the bit rate may be better having been ripped from a CD, but if the boot was recorded by someone in the audience, it may not sound as good.  Again, are you sure these are the same tracks that you are comparing them too?

Aaron, no, no , no . . . . . I didn't make myself clear.  My fault!

My question is completely separate from the issue of these new U2 downloads.  It's a question I have been wanting to ask someone for a while.  When I used the phrase same album title . . . . . I am just talking in general.

Let me give you an example:
In 2005, when the Billy Corgan solo album TheFutureEmbrace was released, I bought it from iTunes.  I just recently acquired the physical CD of the album because I wanted to have the lyric booklet.  I did not need to import the audio files from the physical CD because I already had them from the iTunes Store.  But I wanted to see the differences between the iTunes Get Info screens for both types of audio files.  So this week, I imported the physical CD and looked at the two iTunes Get Info screens . . . . the audio files from the iTunes Store and then the audio files that came from importing the physical CD.  Does that clear up my question?  So . . . . . back to my question, which of those audio files has the better quality . . . . . considering the info I presented in my original post?

The only reason I'm asking this question in this thread was because two people mentioned the term 128 kbps and it made me aware that you guys probably know about this stuff.

[Aaron]

Hi - if they are both from the same source, then by all means, the 256kbps is probably the better quality.

It refers to the compression of the track. A CD track would generally be considered to have a bitrate of 1,411.2kbps - these mp3 bitrates are a measure of the compression of the track (and this is achieved by a loss of sound information in the generally not heard ranges).  So 128 would be more compressed, and more sound would be lost than at 256 and so on. 

128 used to be the iTunes standard but they've now switched to 256 as the standard.

VBR does stand for Variable Bit Rate however, which means the files are not a constant 256 throughout, and may be heavier compressed in some areas, and less so in others. 

[Aaron]

As for these original tracks, they were given on a tape to the radio DJ by U2 themselves for use with an interview he had done. He recently dug them out for the 20th anniversary stuff. The tape is not labeled as to location or date, and the songs are as he was given on the tape, he didn't do further edits. The other three tracks I mentioned were also live. 

He mentioned he'd like to share more from the tape with us, and I have asked about a better format quality wise.  If he decided he's willing to share I'll happily let everyone here know. 

Waiting to hear back from him at the moment.  I haven't mentioned we found the other four tracks, just "One" and "Love is Blindness".

Aaron

[slaneman]

Aaron, this is quite interesting news. Are you talking to Redbeard himself? What's intriguing is that the original show Redbeard produced back in '92 used 12 U2 songs, all album tracks. Not sure but I think that show aired before U2 started the Outside Broadcast leg so it was before the Yankee Stadium shows. Would love to get the details on all this. Plus of course some nice HQ soundboards....

[Aaron]

Yes I'm talking to him directly.  I'll pass anything along as i find it out. :-)

[dagobah]

Aaron, thanks for the kbps/audio quality explanation.  I really appreciate it.