Concertvault.com - Legal Beach Boys concert downloads

[LeeDempsey]

I subscribe to the Concert Vault newsletter (concertvault.com), which I believe now manages the "Wolfgang's Vault" collection as well as other legitimate concert downloads.  I've noticed that lately they have been adding a lot of Beach Boys shows from 1979-1980.  I'm assuming that these are all "Bill Graham Presents" shows, where Bill Graham Enterprises maintains rights to the content.  Right now they have listed:

1. The Beach Boys - Fillmore East  Jun 27, 1971 41:20 (audio)
2. The Beach Boys - Nassau Coliseum  May 14, 1979 45:55 (audio)
3. The Beach Boys - Springfield Civic Center  May 15, 1979 29:06 (audio)
4. The Beach Boys - Spectrum  Apr 18, 1980 1:29:56 (audio)
5. The Beach Boys - Hampton Coliseum  Jun 3, 1980 1:24:28 (audio)
6. The Beach Boys - Great Lawn  Jun 4, 1980 1:39:09 (audio)
7. The Beach Boys - Penn's Landing  Jul 4, 1995 1:21:52 (audio)
8. Grateful Dead/Beach Boys - Fillmore East  Apr 27, 1971 - Set 2 1:52:45 (audio)
9. Carl Wilson - Interview Rock Influence  Nov 4, 1984 22:54 (video)
10. Carl Wilson - Interview Rock Influence  Nov 4, 1984 22:54 (audio)
11. Bruce Johnston - Interview   Sep 3, 1988 19:04 (audio)
12. Brian Wilson - Jackson Hole Music Fest…  Aug 17, 2008 02:57 (video)

Here's an overview of concertvault.com:

There’s only one place you can hear Bill Graham introduce the Allman Brothers at the Fillmore East, Muddy Waters with just an acoustic slide guitar on a hot Newport night in 1969, or the amazing richness of Count Basie and His Orchestra in 1959.

It’s not heaven, though it may feel like heaven to rock music purists. It’s Concert Vault, the world’s greatest collection of vintage concert recordings.

Where does it come from? In 2003, Wolfgang’s Vault acquired master recordings from the archives of Bill Graham Presents. These live concerts were recorded at legendary venues like the Fillmore East and Winterland between 1965 and 1999.

Since then we’ve acquired over a dozen more collections - some large, some small, all of them compelling, spanning a wide spectrum of musical genres.

Over the years our mission has remained the same - to preserve, present and continually improve the world’s greatest collection of live concert audio and video recordings. We painstakingly restore every tape, using the highest quality analog-to-digital converters available and the light engineering touch we’ve come to be known for that makes you feel like you were at the show. We spend countless hours researching song names, concert dates and more so that you can enjoy the richest listening experience possible.

Concert Vault is fully licensed by all appropriate performance rights organizations. Every time you listen to or download a concert license fees make their way back to the performers that made the music. Making sure that artists are compensated for their performances will always be a top priority for us, as it should be for you.

[Douchepool]

Some pretty good recordings on there, but the 5/14 and 5/15/79 shows are woefully incomplete; I don't know why the entire shows aren't up for a listen when they're easily found on bootlegs.

[HeyJude]

So does one have to pay for a monthly membership even if they want to buy a download of the shows?

Can someone tell if the July 4th, 1980 show (incorrectly labled as June 4th) is the complete show, and if so, what is the sound quality like?

[Rocker]

Nice! They only had 3 shows when I was registered. That was when it was for free. I don't want to pay for membership but I understand why it has been changed

[DC310]

Are these soundboard recordings?

[HeyJude]

Did a little bit of digging into this website and how it works. "ConcertVault" does appear to handle "Wolfgang's Vault" material as well as additional stuff. It appears only some of the BB shows (mostly the stuff inherited from Wolfgang's Vault) is available to actually download as opposed to streaming.

First, here's how it appears the deal works if you want to download the stuff. The three 1980 gigs and the 1995 gigs are on both websites. If you go to Wolfgang's Vault, no membership is needed and it's $7 per show (320 kbps MP3 files). On ConcertVault, it's $5 per show for the same shows (and I think one or two others are downloadable, the rest are streaming only), but you need a membership, which starts at $4 per month.

However, you get a 14-day trial on their memberships. So if you just want to get in and out and download a few shows at $5 each, you can do the membership and cancel it before 14 days are up.

As for the actual sound quality and content, I've downloaded the three 1980 shows. Only the Philly show has individual indexed tracks, the other two consist of one long sound file with the entire show. Clearly they have put the bare minimum into transferring these shows. So what about sound quality? These are indeed all soundboard recordings, just the raw house mix that, presumably in some if not most cases, aired live on the radio back then. As such, they sound like what one would expect. Way better than any audience recordings, but there are wonky elements to the live mix just like there probably were at the shows at the time.

I listened in detail so far only to the Washington DC 1980 show (both shows marked as June 1980 are actually July). The mix starts out a bit wonky, nothing too bad, and then evens out as the show goes on. It is the *entire* show, with the exception of the last second or two of "Heroes and Villains" and "I Write the Songs", which is chopped up into several partial pieces; it also appears the PA went out during the song (Mike mentions this after the song), so only at the very end does it come in at full fidelity. Prior to that, the bits sound like Bruce's vocal and keyboard mic aren't getting directly mic'ed. I figure the guy running the tape deck cut the tape when the PA went out, or just *really* didn't like "I Write the Songs" (the crowd sounds restless as Bruce does the song; I believe I even hear Dennis telling the audience to shut up and let Bruce sing the song (very loosely paraphrasing)). It's still an enjoyable show, and it's the only decent-sounding (and only soundboard) live recording of the band doing "Santa Ana Winds." They do a few other KTSA tracks.

I know the Philly show was also aired on the radio back then and has been floating around for decades. The sound samples on the website (I haven't listened to the full show yet) sound better than what floats around.

I don't believe the July 3, 1980 Hampton, VA show had ever floated around from a soundboard before (did this even air on the radio?). Haven't listened to that much yet.

These recordings are far from perfect, but this website and format is a very loosely apt model for what freaking BRI/The Beach Boys should be doing themselves. Seriously, I'd buy up a ton of soundboard live recordings...

[DC310]

Second that.  BRI are you listening?  Lots of fans would pay for soundboard archival shows!

[HeyJude]

Listened to the Philly 1980 show, which of course has circulated in a myriad of forms for decades. Every version is sourced from this same house mix, so I'd say this version is by far the best. It even beings with five minutes of the DJ bantering with the resident "Beach Boys expert", who tries and kind of fails to highlight how good the band was sounding on this tour. (I have a soft spot for the 1980 band/tour; I actually think it has been maligned a bit over the years. But a creative peak it was not).

This show actually has some curios as well. A nice solo rendition of "Disney Girls" from Bruce, and the best-sounding recordings of the short period of time when "Goin' On" and "Livin' with a Heartache" were in the setlist (Mike insists that latter was getting a lot of requests at the time).

The mix again starts off a bit unbalanced but evens out, although Brian's mic is not very audible through most of it. This show is in true stereo (sounds like the 7/4 DC show is essentially mono). Sounds like Joe Chemay is at this gig on bass, with Ed Carter on guitar. Bobby Figueroa is on drums throughout, I think this was the tail end of Dennis' 1979-1980 exodus.

Also gave a listen to some of the July 3, 1980 Hampton, VA show. It stars during "California Girls" and has a more uneven, thin-sounding mix. Haven't listened to all of this one, but it's a pretty barebones setlist without some of the interesting curios found on the 4/18 and 7/4 shows. I could swear Joe Chemay is playing bass on this one too with Ed Carter on guitar (one of the tiny tells is a specific bass pattern Carter always plays near the end of "Sloop John B"), but I'm not sure if Chemay was still in the touring band, as he wasn't at the show the following day in Washington DC.

Fun stuff though overall, especially after years of wading through mostly wonky audience recordings. It's kind of a throwback to hearing concerts on the radio.

[Jay]

Is the July 4th Washington show complete? Does it contain Merry Minuet?

[Rocker]

Listened to the Philly 1980 show, which of course has circulated in a myriad of forms for decades. Every version is sourced from this same house mix, so I'd say this version is by far the best. It even beings with five minutes of the DJ bantering with the resident "Beach Boys expert", who tries and kind of fails to highlight how good the band was sounding on this tour. (I have a soft spot for the 1980 band/tour; I actually think it has been maligned a bit over the years. But a creative peak it was not).

This show actually has some curios as well. A nice solo rendition of "Disney Girls" from Bruce, and the best-sounding recordings of the short period of time when "Goin' On" and "Livin' with a Heartache" were in the setlist (Mike insists that latter was getting a lot of requests at the time).

The mix again starts off a bit unbalanced but evens out, although Brian's mic is not very audible through most of it. This show is in true stereo (sounds like the 7/4 DC show is essentially mono). Sounds like Joe Chemay is at this gig on bass, with Ed Carter on guitar. Bobby Figueroa is on drums throughout, I think this was the tail end of Dennis' 1979-1980 exodus.

Also gave a listen to some of the July 3, 1980 Hampton, VA show. It stars during "California Girls" and has a more uneven, thin-sounding mix. Haven't listened to all of this one, but it's a pretty barebones setlist without some of the interesting curios found on the 4/18 and 7/4 shows. I could swear Joe Chemay is playing bass on this one too with Ed Carter on guitar (one of the tiny tells is a specific bass pattern Carter always plays near the end of "Sloop John B"), but I'm not sure if Chemay was still in the touring band, as he wasn't at the show the following day in Washington DC.

Fun stuff though overall, especially after years of wading through mostly wonky audience recordings. It's kind of a throwback to hearing concerts on the radio.

I tried to find the posting(s) in the Desper thread but wasn't successfull. IIRC Stephen Desper did the mix for the 1980 Philly show.

[mikeddonn]

He did!

[HeyJude]

Is the July 4th Washington show complete? Does it contain Merry Minuet?

Yep, “Merry Minuet” is there (completely with Mike’s pre-song mini-diatribe), as well as “Santa Ana Winds”, “Some of Your Love”, all the KTSA stuff. Everything is there with the exception of the last couple seconds of “Heroes and Villains” and large chunks of “I Write the Songs.” As I mentioned, I can’t tell if the PA going out during “I Write the Songs” is why they kept shutting the tape recorder on and off, or if it was just a coincidence. If they were making essentially an “air check” tape on site, I’m not sure why they would ever have shut the tape off. 

The BB’s of course also captured the show on multi-track, whereas this is the live (pretty much mono as I mentioned) mix that went out to radio in several markets.

There are a few different versions taped off the radio by fans that are probably out there. I recall that they’re all usually missing different songs. Might be able to “recover” that last few seconds of H&V off one of those versions; though I don’t recall any version having *any* bit of “I Write the Songs” (and it sounds like, any off-air tape would feature most of “I Write the Songs” with Bruce’s main mics out; sounding like essentially an audience recording until near the end).