Saturday, March 12, 2011

A Hundred Years Behind My Eyes: Low in Eindhoven


I said I was coming back, and the first part of that is this long-overdue effort on my part. A little while back Low put out a free digital EP called Live at Eindhoven, which is excellent, but very short. That EP is just a small fragment of the band's performance at the Heartland Festival, recorded at the Catharinakerk Eindhoven, the Netherlands, January 22, 2009. Well, thanks to the good offices of some fellow fans, I had already been sitting on the MP3s of the band's complete show from that festival. For my own personal edification I took the two massive files I had, split them into individual songs, tagged them properly, popped some images of the organ at Eindhoven that I altered slightly to look a little different into the album art, and put them on my iPod (the first 'disc' art is above, the second at the bottom of this post).

I saw the Retribution Gospel Choir live in Toronto around this time, and I had the chance to ask Alan really quickly whether he'd mind if I put this up for people; obviously if he did or if anyone from the band does and contacts me I will pull the links down immediately. He indicated that he didn't really care, and seeing as how only four tracks from this show have been released (and those for free; you did have to sign up for the mailing list, but if you're reading this blog you should be on it already), I feel fine about sharing this wonderful show. In Eindhoven the band were augmented with other players and a choir, and given a full two hours and twenty minutes to play. The result is a fantastic set (covering everything from Things We Lost in the Fire to a then-unreleased song that turned up on C'mon) from a band at (I would argue) the height of their powers. At least some of these renditions are the best ones I've heard of that particular song, and all are at least as good as the recorded versions. The volume is a little low on these recordings, but the sound quality is fantastic, and any fan of the band should grab this immediately. I hope people enjoy it.

[The old links are dead, so here's a link to the whole thing. I've left the above pretty much as is from 2011, although I will say given the wonderful things that have happened since I kind of chuckle at "the height of their powers" now. Please let me know if you have any problems with the link!]

Disc One
01. (That's How You Sing) Amazing Grace (8:44)
02. Sunflower (5:18)
03. In Metal (4:23)
04. Candy Girl (5:54)
05. Dinosaur Act (4:53)
06. Kind of Girl (3:27)
07. Point of Disgust (4:32)
08. Whitetail (6:03)
09. Canada (4:28)
10. Belarus (4:12)
11. Breaker (3:23)
12. Silver Rider (5:48)
13. Shots & Ladders (10:18)

Total: 71:15

Disc Two
01. July (5:43)
02. Pretty People/Take Your Time (9:24)
03. Monkey (4:40)
04. Everybody's Song (4:17)
05. (Introductions) (1:45)
06. The Lamb (6:00)
07. Violent Past (3:14)
08. Laser Beam (3:15)
09. In Silence (3:43)
10. Always Fade (3:52)
11. Dragonfly (4:58)
12. Murderer (3:21)
13. (Encore Break) (2:17)
14. $20 (4:28)
15. Sandinista (3:04)
16. When I Go Deaf (7:40)

Total: 71:30

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

thank you very much for posting this. Happy to see more of your writing when you can.

Ian said...

Thanks, anonymous! I hope to get to another post this week, my time last week got taken up with reviewing C'mon elsewhere.

Dance Jam PG said...

I know I'm finding this post over 3 years late, and the links have expired -- but I would so love to be able to get hold of this!!

Ian said...

Kevin: Send me an email (imathers at gmail) and I should be able to do something for you.