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Les Bains Douches 18 December 1979

Joy Division - Les Bains Douches 18 December 1979 Audio CD

A fair review of the Joy Division "Les Bains Douches 18 December 1979" 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: Les Bains Douches 18 December 1979
Rating:

Release Date: 2001-04-24
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Disorder 2: Love Will Tear Us Apart 3: Insight 4: Shadowplay 5: Transmission 6: Day of the Lords 7: Twenty Four Hours 8: These Days 9: Means to an End 10: Passover 11: New Dawn Fades 12: Atrocity Exhibition 13: Digital 14: Dead Souls 15: Autosuggestion 16: Atmosphere

one of a kind
The sound quality and performance for this show is the best quality for any of their released live material;period. "Les Bains Douches" is a live Joy Division show from Dec 18,1979 in Paris France. 9+ out of 10;10 being perfect sound quality. While the sound quality for the "Preston Warehouse" show on Feb 28,1980 is just as good, the "Preston" show was plagued by malfuctioning equipment; which make it a very intresting show. Check out the version of the "Eternal", which was being played through the bass amp, but is still a cool version. Back to "Les Bains Douches", the whole show is not persent, only nine of the sixteen songs performed that night. Another note is, the show was broadcast live on Paris Radio and was professionally recorded by the radio station. That is why the recording is so good and this show of all the released live shows, official or bootleg, has the best sound quality. From time to time over years Bernard Lenoir programme on France Inter Radio has broadcast parts of this recording. The full recording was broadcast in 1982 on the night New Order played La Palace Paris. On Dec 18,1979 when Joy Division played in Paris, only five of the songs where boadcast live. The whole show, all sixteen songs, can be found on a few bootlegs all of which are LPs. There are sixteen songs on "Les Bains Douches" and as i already stated, nine are from the Paris show, the other seven are from two diffrent Dutch shows. Three come from the Jan 11,1980 concert from The Paradiso in Amsterdam and another four come from the Jan 18,1980 concert in Eindhoven. The sound quality for these seven songs are a 9+. Another intresting note is, the Jan 11th show was also boardcast on Dutch Radio,ensuring the sound quality, since it was professionally recorded as well. All and all, if you where going to own one Joy Division live show, this has to be the one hands down. A must have for any die-hard Joy Division fan or your collection is not even close to being complete. "We knocked on the doors of Hell's darker chamber,Pushed to the limit,we dragged ourselves in". Ian Curtis, Decades. .

way better than preston
this is a much better performance and recording, with a better track selection. wow! i was very impressed with this album having listened to the preston gig first. tracks such as these days (blew me away!), atrocity exhibition (tons of energy), and atmosphere all exceed the studio versions in my mind. i'm usually not one for live albums, but i highly reccomend this album to any joy division fan.

Extraordinary live album
The sheer manic energy of this album should amaze any fan of Joy Division. While the title of this record would bring a chuckle to the lips of any American teenager, the recordings inside (taken from three live shows) are anything but laughable. Of note is live take on Atmosphere--whereas the studio single is meticulously engineered and spacious, this version has a primeval energy and warmth that makes up for its lack of deliberation; and this is true for much of the rest of the album--one could almost feel that the members of Joy Division were in the room, trying so hard to reach out to the rest of us.

The best live JD out there
WHAT A TREAT! Many of these songs work at least as well as the studio versions, and if you're like me and generally prefer a good live version of a tune to studio work, some are definitive versions. Having spent almost 20 years scraping by on the 2nd half of "Still" and various bootlegs of generally hideous quality, I didn't know what to expect when this was released. "These Days" is absolutely stunning. "New Dawn Fades" also sounds amazing. This stuff is vastly superior in both sound and performance quality to either "Still" or "Preston (whatever date that show was)".

You get a killer selection of titles, including an early, incomplete version of Passover and obscure titles like "Autosuggestion. " There's not much inter-song banter, but Ian wasn't that type of frontman really.

Only the first 9 songs are actually from Les Baines Douches; the other stuff is from a Holland show and the sound isn't quite as good, but overall this is an absolute gem for Joy Division fans.

Seriously, it's worth the purchase price just for the incredible version of "These Days. " I can listen to that track five times in a row, easy.

Mesmerizing and intense: the band at the apex of their power
I hate the sludgy sound, I hate not being able to hear the singer- I hate the mushy production and recording, the obnoxious crowds. I hate most live CDs. . . I just don't go for bootlegs. As they so often are, Joy Division prove to be the exception here. I obsess over their live material. In part because they were one of those bands that either you don't get at all, or they change your life. Not much middle ground. No middle ground, in fact.

They thrived onstage- and their mesmerizing sound comes through on much of the recorded shows.

Of the shows you can get in here: This would be a keeper. The beekeeper, so to speak. This is one tight show (actually, two tight shows). Of the two Factory re-release CDs of Joy Division live ish (the two that you can buy on amazon- many, many more await you on ebay if you're in it for the crawl. . . ): This is MUCH, MUCH more faithful than the Preston gig. take that as you will. Better sound, more urgency (but less fire) in the vocals, better recording, plus their equipment. is working so they're not playing through Hook's bass amp, a la a couple songs on Preston. Moreover, there's No 8+ minutes of "The Eternal," here. . .

It's also much more intense than The BBC recordings, which all-too-obviously lack Martin-Zero-Hannett's production skills (as much a part of the band's studio sound and legacy as the other contributors. . . ) and aren't so spectacular.

Anyway- The set lists here are a good mix of Joy Division's maturing styles. Opening up with a fast-paced, raw, break-neck rendition of "Disorder," (a personal fave) and then segueing quickly into the CD's sole low points- A truly awful "LWTUA" (the synthesizer's pitch is WAY to high- like someone's record player is playing the original at pitch 4% faster than it should be. Ugh. ) and an disco-ed out version of "Candidate" that alternately bores me to death or bugs me to death (that Galaga-esque disco pow-pow-pow!). So, tracks 2 and 3 I loathe.

The rest of Les Bains veers between rollicking good and sublimely badass! Perhaps the roughest most brutal version of "Shadowplay," I've heard. A frenetic, pulsing "Transmission" that kicks up the intensity. Sumner's guitar playing is pretty choice. One of the few live versions of "Day of The Lords," (the closest JD ever got to Black Sabbath): it's sooooooo damn fine. The sludgy churning guitar and crashing beats with Ian (sometimes plaintive, sometimes furious- "Where will it end?") guiding the insanity. Wow. Great song. Great version.

Tracks 7, 8 and 9 ("24 hours," "These days" and "A Means to an End," respectively) are also great. All are faster than their studio versions, kinda smokin. . . "a means to an end," is a particularly good one. Ian sings it a little differently. So far the CD is consistently gooder than good.

Now then, only the first 9 tracks are from Les bains Douches. The remaining 7 are from another show they did in Holland, a month or so later. The sound suffers a little bit, especially on "Passover. " Short song, not one of their best- drums are kinda quiet. . . BUT. Things pick up for the remainder of the set. Really great version of "New Dawn Fades," followed an overly long "Atrocity Exhibition. " If you like that song- you'll like this very clear version of it. I don't like it, and it's about 6 and a half minutes long. "Digital" and "Dead Souls" more than make up for it, though. Scathing, vicious, and idiosyncratic performances of both tunes! "Autosuggestion," is a song that does little for me. The live version has the vocals buried at first, but the guitar is razorsharp, it builds furiously, around the 1. 40 mark. . . I dig this version more than the studio version that I've heard.

Ends with "Atmosphere," a song that I don't think lends itself to live performances, especially given that they couldn't recreate the full studio sound of it, in its entirety (the shimmery synth sounds and guitar chords). Having said that, this is an admirable attempt at recreating the song that succeeds for the most part. Sublime. A great closer to the CD, and a great closer to a burned Joy Division live-show compilation, should you be moved as I am to do stuff like that.

A final caveat: I recommend this for fans who KNOW THE LYRICS. This is a live set- unless you're familiar with the music or are reading the lyrics from a book. . . you won't be able to hear some of the words.

.

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.