... And Bootlegs For All




Megadeth - Live in Sydney, Australia, 2010

 Venue: Hordern Pavilion: Sydney, Australia
 Date: December 18, 2010
 Time: 76:39
 Size: 1 CD

 Sound: A, Aud, Copy from master
 Notes: Taper: Starclassic. Source/Lineage: Core Sounds Cardioids (pointed towards stage) -> Sony PCM-M10 (line-in, 48kHz 24 bit) -> Soundforge 9.0e w/Izotope Ozone 4 Mastering Plugin (mastered and downconverted to 44.1kHz 16 bit) -> FLAC Level 8.
Taper notes: "I've grown a little tired of Megadeth concerts for two reasons - the setlists are more or less the same stale selections and Dave's pipes just aren't up to it any more. I hear him sometimes and think back to the South Park episode of the life of Terrence and Phillip when they had their beginnings in the business before moving onto being loudmouthed fart pranksters. If you've seen the episode, you'll know what I'm talking about in reference to Dave's vocals. This one had to be the exception though because the one reason was catered to with the playing of Rust in Peace, track-for-track. I wanted my face to be melted watching Megadave and Chris Broderick exchange solos. Mission accomplished (and I look more handsome now). Admittedly, Megadave did start off-key with Lucretia but quickly made up for it. Again, like Gwar, I'm not sure what the hell was going on with the sound as I still had phasing despite the fact that there wasn't a lot of people moving around in the nearby vicinity. Unlike Gwar, this was indoors though which is what made it more perplexing. There were moments where Dave's guitar would burst into solo mode for a phrase and when I turned around to the sound guys, they'd all just look at each other and shrug their shoulders. Seriously, is this the standard of audio engineers these days? Furthermore, I felt that Chris was truly ripped off with Dave having the bulk of the presence on stage whilst Chris' guitar was muddied out. Not sure what it is there but I suspect it's more likely that Dave doesn't want to give too much of the limelight to Chris being the control freak that Dave is. At any rate, I've done my best to crush the mid-range somewhat to give the guitars a near-equal standing but the trade-off is a loss in quality if overcompressed. So what I have done is performed some parallel compression to give the guitars that balance along with the original sparkle of the mid-range so as not to totally sacrifice the feel of the dynamic range. The snare drum was in need of being turned down by around 5dB in my opinion. Way too loud. There was not a single overhead mic to be seen to pick up his crash cymbals which was pathetic as usual and made my task more difficult. I've done the best I can with Ozone's multi-band dynamics to crush the high frequencies a little to try and work out a balance between the crashes which weren't mic'ed and the hi-hats and ride which were mic'ed. Expect a little crackling at the beginning of "Trust" due to a bad mic on Shawn's floor tom. The one thing that I have to say did sound great was Dave Ellefson's bass. Overall, the lower frequencies were handled very well across the board, controlled and tight but Dave's bass just had the right balance of bottom end and lower-midrange too. Overall, I give the sound a rating of B-. Again, there's far too much phasing going on which I've tried hard to control but as I've said before, a turd shaped into a cupcake still tastes like a turd. Why the hell this has been present at this entire festival is beyond me and I can only lust after an iron fist being shoved up the butts of the sound guys. A big "F$#K YOU!!" goes to the twit next to me who had not only the loudest but the longest clap as well. Even moving forward a few feet and shielding my mic between songs was pointless as he would take a little step forward himself sometimes (perhaps to piss me off?). Ah, the joys of stealth recording...".
Really great recording! Highly advisable.

 Disc 1: 1. Intro
2. Holy Wars ... The Punishment Due
3. Hangar 18
4. Dave appreciates everyone not going to the Bon Jovi concert next door
5. Take No Prisoners
6. Five Magics
7. Poison was the Cure
8. Lucretia
9. Tornado of Souls
10. Dawn Patrol
11. Rust in Peace ... Polaris
12. Trust
13. Headcrusher
14. How the Story Ends
15. Sweating Bullets
16. Symphony of Destruction
17. Dave thanks the Australian fans for making the Big Four release go double-platinum and surpassing U2
18. Peace Sells
19. Holy Wars ... The Punishment Due (reprise)
20. Outro