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Preston 28 February 1980

Joy Division - Preston 28 February 1980 Audio CD

A fair review of the Joy Division "Preston 28 February 1980" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all Joy Division reviews here, or go back to the Joy Division tabs.

Band: Joy Division
Title: Preston 28 February 1980
Rating:

Release Date: 1999-07-13
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Incubation 2: Wilderness 3: Twenty Four Hours 4: Eternal 5: Heart and Soul 6: Shadowplay 7: Transmission 8: Disorder 9: Warsaw 10: Colony 11: Interzone 12: She's Lost Control

A live Joy Division gig, that is poorly reviewed most of the time
Many of these so-called fans don't have all the facts. Over half of the reviews on this show are a joke, by close-minded people who call themselves Joy Division fans. "ifutureman" and the Amazon editor "Jon Wiederhorn" are the ones that made me laugh the hardest, amongest others. First of all, this cd, the Preston Warehouse concert from Feb 28, 1980 is one of the two best recorded concerts that have survived all these years. The two best Joy Division concerts, as far as sound quality goes are, "Les Bains Douches" and "Preston Warehouse". Both are a 9+ out of 10 for the sound quality. After those two recording, "The Paradiso, Amsterdam" and "Birmingham University" are 9 out of 10, for the sound quality. Then the "Lyceum Ballroom" and "High Wycombe" are 9- out of 10, for the sound quality. After those six shows, the best sound quality starts at 8+, and works its way down. So with that said, the sound quality is amazing. That night Joy Division had problems with the sound equipment, playing three songs throught the bass amp; "Twenty Four Hours", "The Eternal" and "Heart and Soul". Three songs of the twelve. Don't think for a second the whole show plagued with problems like everyone likes to write. The proformance that night, was amazing. Unless Ian had a fit, Joy Division blew the crowd away. I have every recording of every Joy Division concert, where one exsists, and a lot of the above reveiws are writen by so-called fans, who like to think they know something because they have three live shows in their collection. LOL. If you can call it a collection. A lot of people forget, all the Joy Division recordings from their live shows come from 1979 and 1980, they are either a soundboard or audience recording, either way, the recording survives on tape. You remember what those things are people, I hope. It was not the digital age, and these recording are not the prefect tens everyone wants them to be, but a few of them are close to being perfect tens, and this is one of them. People seem to expect them to sound like a modern day proffesionaly recorded gigs, wake up, these recordings are 29 to 30 years old. Even the digital remastered shows that come with the 2007 reissues are not even close to the sound quality of the Preston gig. You get nothing but gems with this gig; songs proformed with no problems at all, "Shadowplay", "She's Lost Control" "Warsaw" "Wilderness" "Transmission" "Disorder" "Incubation" "Colony" and "Interzone". Wow, thats nine perfect songs, but the whole gig is a mess because of the problems with three songs. Give me a break people, I broke a rib laughing at your reviews. To be honest, the version of "The Eternal" is very cool, its almost like a studio jam. "Twenty Four Hours" and "Heart and Soul" are not as messed up as people would like to lead you to believe. People need to learn to think for themselves and stop following what is popular to say. Listen to this album and form your own thoughts about it, becuase if your a so-called Joy Division fan and you don't buy this gig based on the reveiws of others, you where never a fan in the first place. And worse than that, you just missed out on one of the two finest recorded Joy Division concerts that survived the tides of time. "We knocked on the doors of Hell's darker chambers, Pushed to the limit, we dragged ourselves in" Ian Curtis, Decades

.

The Eternal
I had it on a tape and it was called as "Shadowplay" when it was resaled to the public and its cover was a 2 color draw of a lady dancing. This record has been out for several years as a bootleg.

This cd version has the same sound quiality of the bootleg. Don't expect a remastered sound.

I know the songs are not perfertly played and there are lots of problems with the equipment, but c'omon, this is what makes this record unique. A raw band, a band trying to develop in a low budget stage.

What I like about this record, despite other rewiever, is the song called "The Eternal". This could have been the first steps into a synth oriented music that will make New Order famous for.

If you want a perfectly sound album, get "Les Bains Douches" -only the songs from the Paris show has a soundboard quiality-.

Really 3 1/2 stars - For major JD fans only!
That one is excellent! This one is just average. The best live Joy Division CD to get is Les Bains Douches. The sound quality is good (not great), but the band are not very cohesive at this Preston gig. The sound is also much better on Les Bains Douches. But if Joy Division is one of your all-time favorite bands, you will want this as a fairly well-recorded historical document. But don't pay a high price for it! You will feel ripped off. It's worth the price of an average domestic CD on sale or a used CD, not full price or an import price. If you do not have Les Bains Douches yet, find it and buy it now!! .

Serious fans only
I am a huge Joy Division fan and have been since I discovered them in high school in 1985. I can't figure out the reviewers that give this one 5 stars. But that doesn't mean that I think everything they ever did was perfect. I've heard a lot of live recordings of this band and quite frankly, some of them just suck. These guys were not especially talented musicians, and many live recordings are marred by either Peter Hook or Bernard Sumner hitting bum notes or chords (glaring example: the version "New Dawn Fades" on Still), or Ian Curtis' voice, which on the best of days was intense and full of character, but also prone to off-pitch moments.

The best live material available is on the Les Baines Douches collection. That one deserves five stars. This is a nice document of a single show late in the band's career, and as such has some historical value; but the sound is so-so and the equipment problems did not help this fragile band's performance.

Ian mumbles "some slight problems" after the third song; that's an understatement. Later, he barks "I think everything's falling apart!" That's a bit more accurate.

I am one of those guys who loves to make mixes and compilations. I tend to try and get everything available by a band and create the ultimate mix of live and studio material . . . there's not one song on this album that I would call a "definitive version. " Either the sound quality or the actual performance quality keeps all of this stuff from being truly great.

Again, as my title suggests, a serious Joy Division fan should pick this up. But this would certainly NOT be recommended as an introduction to the band.

Not many like this
First: I don't understand these complaints about sound quality. . bootlegs have had crappy sound quality ever since they started. . . and if you have a regular stereo, or receiver, that allows you to change the ambience or treble and bass, I think you can salvage almost any recording (of course, some are just crap, but I've made Iggy Pop and The Stooges releases from Bomp Records sound bearable, which ain't easy). . . Now, for this one, Joy Division, probably the last great rock band. . . to cut this short, since it is absolutely mindless, and counterproductive to write about music, I will say that this album, as a live album, mind you, goes right next to the best live document of a rock performance. . . Who Live At Leeds. . . . thats how good I feel this is. . . And I think we can safely say that all that thin whiny whiteboy music of the nineties, all that grunge, and angst, is just D-level rip-offs of Joy Division. . . I've stopped listening to Radiohead (although I have not abandoned them) and Tool (Compare the vocals, you'll understand) because I realized they were obsolete for about 10, 15 years before they got on TV. . . Well, I'm not going to tell you what you already know (90's sucked/not getting better) I will tell you to be a consumer and buy this CD. . . along with Heart And Soul, the boxed set (even though the talk of "everything" J. D. ever recorded is not exactly what this boxed set is). . . Great music to appreciate (cause it ain't coming back). . . what more to say?.

You can see a complete list of all Joy Division discography, or go back to the Joy Division tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.