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7 CD's packed in 5 cardboard covers |
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Albert Hall, Nottingham, November 8 1976 (CD)
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Lisner Auditorium (George Washington University), Washington, April 4 1977 (2-CD)
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Audimax, Hamburg, February 24 1978 (CD)
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City Hall, Newcastle, October 25 1981 (2-CD)
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Fassbinder Memorial Concert, Alte Oper, Frankfurt, June 11 1983 (CD)
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 product info |
A great box with a much better sound quality than the first box! We expect that this box we'll even get a better reception than vol. 1. |
 review |
Nottingham 76: Perfect sounding audience recording, material in the style of Ricochet and Encore, lots of sequencers and guitar, very loud concert! Washington 77: One of the first concerts of the US tour 1977. This recording is from the FM broadcast. Complete concert! Hamburg 78: One of the better audience recordings of the Cyclone tour from 1978. The famous tour with Steve Joliffe and Klaus Krieger. On this CD is the second part of the show plus the encore. Don't expect live versions of Cyclone.... You can hear a 'searching' TD that's trying to find a clear shape into their music. All in all very much worth listening to. Newcastle 81: Excellent audience recording from the Exit tour in England in the fall of 1981. The first half of the concert is for the major part unreleased music in the style of Exit, Logos and White Eagle. The second part has an extra long version of Mojave Plan (which at that time was the first time that they performed it live), some unreleased work and as encore a long version of Choronzon. Frankfurt 83: Excellent audience recording of the Fassbinder Memorial Concert, which fans partly know from the famous bootleg. However on this CD you can listen to the complete performance! Material from Logos and music that later would be released on Poland. Short concert, but very moody. |
 review |
Compared to the first volume the 2nd "Bootleg box set" has a better sound quality, and the music has become more accessable and structured too.
It may also be good to know that this time the box is complete, you won't need any replacement disc (like the one from the first pressing which had an incomplete recording of London 75) For me the highlight of this box has to be Disc 1, Nottingham Albert Hall 8 November 1976. It's hard to believe that one is listening to an audience recording (a copy of the master tape, recorded on a big Sony TC153SD Portable Deck machine, I wonder how Nigel got in there ;-), here the sound quality is even better than the Washington 77 fm broadcast. The music itself is quite unbelievable, especially the first long track belongs to the best Tangerine Dream have ever played. The encore used to have heavy speed problems (the batteries failed during the recording), but '3N' -the person who remastered the recording the first time- spent several hours to reconstruct the track. Another favourite of mine is Hamburg Audimax 24 February 1978, this is the only halfway good sounding recording from the "Cyclone" tour, and by far the one which has the most interesting music. 2004. Heiko Heerssen / Germany |
 review |
For anyone with even a passing interest in EM, this is an absolutely essential purchase. Much of the music on these seven discs is incredible, and the recordings are able to do them justice, in a way that was perhaps
missing from Box 1. Nottingham 1976 is a strange one. A very gothic sounding concert, with a great deal of innovative music that hasn't appeared anywhere else. Washington 1977. Only a few months later,but what a difference! Disc 1 features 2 tracks that later appeared on Encore, but these are vastly superior. Very high tempo sequencers, and on Monolith, some of the wildest guitar imaginable from Edgar Froese. By comparison disc 2 sounds tame. Just try to ignore the interruptions from the announcers, who are irritating to say the least. Hamburg 1978. In a word, incredible! Newcastle 1981. The introduction of Johannes Schmoelling meant rather more structured gigs, and much of the music on these two discs is available elsewhere. Of particular interest is an excellent Logos, an abridged version of the great Calymba Caly, and a barnstorming version of Choronzon. Frankfurt 1983. An embryonic version of the great Poland, played some 6 months before the concerts in Warsaw. The only downside is the cheap packaging which means that you can hardly read the album tracks on the card sleeves, and the notes from Paul Russell, if you are really interested are also well nigh indecipherable. There is obviously a market for Tangerine Dream music from 1974 to 1984, so forget about your dream mixes, tangenetised live albums, and Dante's Opera, we want more of this stuff, and NOW, and if it sells more than TDi material, well so what. The main thing is that this stuff is just too bloody good to be ignored - trust me you will not be disappointed. 2004. Simon Stopher / England |
 review |
The 76 show at Nottingham Albert Hall is worth every penny. The music is TD at their best (for this period of course!) and it's amazing for two reasons - Firstly, it's an excellent recording for a "bootleg" and Jerome's DQC mastering give's it the finishing touch (ok, it's not quite studio quality) and secondly, the music is mind blowing!! Is it true that TD would just go up on stage and create a whole piece of music from a blank canvas? Incredible! The 77 show is excellent too with the likes of Monolith and DryWater Rush making the highlights here. The 81 show at Newcastle is another gem. The first CD is particular great. I'm fortunate enough to appreciate the whole expanse of the TD landscape right from early Pheadra to the present DM4. However,it's really good to plug yourself back into the past at times for the experience that was TD in their sequential best. TD, there is still a market for this stuff. "Please sir, can I have some more." No one wants to take away the fantastic work of the present material, but WOW, TD rocked in the mid 70's with music that was so out there... Will there be a TD Bootleg 3? Thanks TD for the ALL the music. 2004. Orbster / England |
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I couldn't agree more with Nick's comments, I now have volume 2 and that is just as good if not slightly better, apart from the annoying radio announcer at the Washington gig, but heh at least the quality is pretty good. I was lucky enough to see them in 1978 (Hammersmith) when they had the Laser show. The combination of the music and the laser was unbelievable.
2004. Paul / UK |
review |
This is a dream come true, I was longing to have more of the Schmoelling and Baumann years and suddenly the 2 box set came. After the Tournado live CD I've lost interest then when I got these sets, I was reincarnated my love and interest was rejuvenated. When we were rocked by an earthquake the first thing that came to my mind was to save the box sets, good thing there was no damage and my neighbors find it amusing that I was only holding these weird looking boxes while they saved with them jewelry and other valuable stuff. I wish there will be more to come of this great era of TD. 2004. Norman A. Blardony / Philippines |
review |
It could actually happen to you, you know. You become involved in a project initiated by Tangerine Dream fans on the Internet, which actually leads to official releases. Well, that is what has happened to me, and since last year I have been responsible for remastering most releases in the Tangerine Tree series. In view of the impending release of Volume 2 in the Bootleg Box series, I think some background information about the Tangerine Tree project might be in order, before reviewing the contents of this new box set. The Tangerine Tree project started in summer 2001 by Tangerine Dream fans who had subscribed to the mailing list on the Internet. Its goal was to release live recordings of TD (audience recordings as well as taped FM broadcasts etc.) with the best possible audio quality. The selected recordings were remastered in the most professional way possible to obtain the best sound quality. Great care was also taken in designing the artwork. Encouraged by the success of the first eight releases, we decided to carry on. One important point was that this project should remain on a completely non-profit basis throughout. These cds therefore were not offered for sale, but only distributed among the members. Because of this, the project was tolerated by TDI, which is pretty unique by anyone’s standards. By now, we have finished preparations for a fifth set of recordings and still the end is not in sight. The Castle/Sanctuary label contacted TD last year and asked them whether it would be possible to release some concert recordings, like they had already done with recordings by Emerson, Lake & Palmer and Todd Rundgren. Unfortunately it was rather short notice for the Froeses, as they didn’t have time to search their archives. They had however already received a few copies of the Tangerine Tree set from a German enthusiast. That definitely was good news. Castle/Sanctuary were interested and in August 2003 the first TD Bootleg Box set was released. It proved to be a resounding success. At last, live recordings of a more than average sound quality were available to a wider audience. And now, exactly six months later, the second Bootleg Box set will hit the shelves. Again, a selection of recordings was made that had originally been collected for the first and second Tangerine Tree sets. And once again TD fans are given the opportunity to dive into the band’s comprehensive concert history. We start off with the 1976 European tour, which was undertaken in the wake of the release of the ‘Stratosfear’ album. TD had made considerable progress as a live act. With their rattling and chugging sequencers and beautiful stage sets they managed to shake the very foundation of many a concert hall during this tour. Sometimes they were so loud that they even managed to reach the pain limit which stands at 130 dB. The gig at the Nottingham Albert Hall on 8 November 1976 has been can be found in this box set. An excellent choice, as a great audience recording was used, the ancient ‘Me-rad’ bootleg finally being rendered obsolete. Two long sets plus a guitar-driven encore, indispensable stuff for ‘Ricochet’ aficionados. Truly a spectacular concert and recording. Next we have the March/April 1977 American tour. On April 4th, TD did a gig at the Lisner Auditorium, Washington D.C., a concert not only (partly) used for the ‘Encore’ live set but also broadcast live by WGTB. The best available radio recording of the complete show is now included in the Bootleg Box set Vol.2. For real enthusiasts this is a true live music treasure trove, featuring TD in their classic line-up of Franke-Froese-Baumann. Lots of melodious sequencing, blistering guitars en beautiful mellotron parts. Apart from ‘Cherokee Lane’ and ‘Monolight’, this concert contains pieces that have never been released before. Sometimes the improvisations are interspersed with themes from ‘Sorcerer’ and ‘Stratosfear’. Soundwise the listener should not exactly expect it to be in the hi-fi league, but it is certainly not bad. Next we’ve come to the odd one out. Like the 1977 US tour, the 1978 European tour featured lots of spectacular laser visuals by Laserium. The band then consisted of Franke and Froese, backed up by Klaus Krieger on drums and Steve Joliffe on various instruments. Especially the latter gives his improvisational escapades free rein, which did not particularly endear him to Froese (who ended up physically assaulting Jolliffe during their last London gig). The recording featured in this box set contains the second part and the encore from the Hamburg Auditorium Maximum on February 24th 1978. Listen and judge for yourself, this is definitely something else. Do not expect live versions of ‘Madrigal Meridian’ or ‘Bent Cold Sidewalk’ however, although some elements do crop up occasionally. A nice and experimental piano theme opens this CD, which then gives way to a mess of improvisations in dire need of direction, though Franke and Krieger’s rhythmic contributions still manage to impress. Steve Jolliffe’s inane ‘primal screams’ are at best nothing short of laughable and at worst enough to make you want to cry. His flute playing however is not that bad, and the encore testifies to that. The 1978 tour showed a band at the verge of disintegration, lacking focus. Every concert has its exciting as well as its dull moments. But the available recordings from this tour are, bar some rare exceptions, pretty mediocre. The Hamburg concert is one of the best soundwise, but unfortunately there are no complete recordings available. A surprising choice for this second Bootleg Box set, though. The next CD set contains a concert recording from the ‘Exit’ tour, which took place in October 1981. Most of the material presented during these shows had not yet been released. For instance we hear a long version of ‘Mojave Plan’ and one part of ‘Logos’. The trio of Franke, Froese and Schmoelling played two 45 minute sets, with the additional encores ‘Kiew Mission’ and ‘Choronzon’. The Newcastle tapes were the best preserved and this recording shows TD at its best too, its new band member Johannes Schmoelling already being fully integrated into the band, as his great solo playing proves. Edgar briefly picks up his axe at the end of the first set, which coaxes loud cheering from the audience. And finally we have the famous Fassbinder Memorial Concert from June 1983. Shortly before TD embarked on a tour to Japan, they paid homage to Rainer Werner Fassbinder, one of Germany’s most controversial cineastes. Not long before his death he directed a surrealist movie entitled ‘Kamikaze 1983’, to which Edgar Froese provided the soundtrack. During this memorial concert we hear excerpts from ‘Logos’ and pieces that would later surface on the ‘Poland’ live set. It contains more than half an hour of very somber but also very atmospheric material. The set ends with a beautiful PPG lead part played by Schmoelling. This concert has previously been available in an abridged version on the ‘Fassbinder memorial’ bootleg set, but now features completely as part of this box set. A magnificent recording, also because of the acoustics of Frankfurt’s Alte Oper. All considered, this second Bootleg Box with its blue cover has even more variation on offer than its predecessor. One important aspect is the much better sound quality compared to the first release, although the FM recording from the 1977 Washington concert might not be as brilliant compared to the full sound from the 1981 Newcastle and 1976 Nottingham sets. Because of their dynamics, these recordings finally do justice to the rich live sound so characteristic of TD’s 1977-1983 period. Thus, even the average fan will be presented with yet another indispensable item, and besides - it’s even more warmly recommended than the first box set. 2004. Wouter Bessels / SonicImmersion.org |