Iced Earth - Sydney, Australia 05.04.2012

Iced Earth - Live at the HiFi (Sydney, Australia)
April 5, 2012

Source/Lineage: Core Sounds Cardioids (pointed towards stage to minimise crowd noise) -> Sony PCM-M10 (mic-in, 48kHz 24 bit, downsampled to 44.1/16 for your CD burning pleasure) -> Soundforge 10.0b w/Izotope Ozone 5 Mastering Plugin -> FLAC Level 8 > MP3

Recorded, mastered and processed by: Yours truly ... Starclassic.

Location: Dancefloor, stage right, last third from the back.

Notes:
I'm a bit of a latecomer with this band but they definitely have the right stuff. The energy from the band was nothing short of impressive. That would also explain, however, the lengthy breaks between songs and the amount of chit-chat from Stu! DAMN!

Fear not though, a lot of those breaks were sneakily shortened in the post-production so you don't have to endure the same problem.

Nevertheless, for about 92% of a 2 hour show, these guys definitely gave it their all with great guitar playing and a drummer who impressed me solely for the fact he was able to play as well as he did wearing leather pants!! I struggle enough as it is wearing jeans on the odd occasion. Two thumbs up!

Of course, no gig is without its problems. The venue is normally better when both the ground and upper floors are open. One can stand at the upper floor and get a much better sound rather than the horrible reverberant noise that you get on the ground floor. That said, a decent sound guy can do all that they can to sort that out. Unfortunately, that night, the sound guy was a stupid muppet.

Problems:
All midrange
Bugger all bass
Overemphasised cymbals but not much sparkle out of any other instruments (the usual)
Lead guitar impossible to hear, even during solos (PATHETIC!)

Yes, I had the shits and told him off. Not that it would do any good. People like that don't listen to the mix so what chance do we have of them listening to anyone else?

Then there was the problem with it being the dancefloor. I specifically avoid those areas because of idiots in general, as well as my friends who want to chat from time to time. Most of them know the rules with me and we keep our distance. However, a few forgot the rules after a few drinks and proceeded to talk to me. Sign language fixed them up but unfortunately, I've been unable to fix up a couple issues which you will hear in the recording.

To top it all off, there was one prick behind who kept tossing his drinks into the crowd. Why buy drinks if you're not going to drink them? The result of that being an attempt to protect my microphones from time to time, once causing a significant but short burst of phasing while I used sign language to threaten him.

I'm really sorry for the overall quality of this recording but I've had my balls broken to get this recording out there for the masses regardless. So with all that in mind, hopefully you'll enjoy it anyway.

...and please, don't sell this bootleg, otherwise you're just plain old scum. That and Stu will talk you to death.

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Setlist:
CD1:
1) Intro
2) Dystopia
3) Angel's Holocaust
4) Slave to the Dark
5) Stu welcomes the crowd
6) V
7) Stand Alone
8) Stu chats with the crowd
9) When the Night Falls
10) Stu discusses Jon's pick throwing abilities
11) The Hunter
12) Jon chats with the crowd
13) Damien
14) Stu discusses sweat and cock forests

CD2:
1) Stu gets sentimental and philosophical
2) Anthem
3) Days of Rage
4) Watching Over Me
5) Stu discusses the heat
6) Dante's Inferno
7) Stu didn't pee himself
8) Burning Times
9) Stu wants to get evil
10) Pure Evil
11) Stu thanks support act Lord and declares his hatred for the crowd
12) Iced Earth
13) Outro

DL