Was anybody at any of the gigs in 1976? Did the guys really sound this good in the flesh ?

Pity there were no replies to this thread...

However, vinyl lovers may want to know that there's a collectors edition 2LP version on Amazon.

Only the same 8 tracks on each disc (unclear if the second album is from the rehearsal recordings which were issued in the deluxe 2CD set), which isn't everything that was recorded.

Then there's the price: just over £27 in the UK site and just under $37 in the US one!

What things sound like "Live in the Room" and what they sound like in a live recording can be two very different animals. One of the first big concerts I went to was the Stones' 1969 Thanksgiving weekend show at Boston Garden that was featured as part of the "Get Yer Ya-Yas Out" album - one of the first truly great live rock albums. But "in the room" (or at least from where I was sitting) the concert sounded like a loud muddy mush. Great Live Album - Lousy Live Experience.

So who knows what 801 Live sounded like to the audience? Maybe it was great, or maybe not so much...

Recording is a funny process; I know this from experience where a snare drum that has a great live sound in a club doesn't necessarily sound so good in a recording studio. And a seemingly cheap and crummy snare can have a great sound when miked in a studio.

In a nutshell, this is why recording is an Art, not a Science...

Thanks for that, DCJ. I am surrounded by so many talents in this forum that I feel a bit inadequate and completely unqualified to discuss musicianship and sonics. However, I will try not to let that faze me too much.

When I listen to this album I sometimes forget that it is live until the audience cuts in at the end of the songs. I think this is down to the sound quality and the musicianship. So much so that I wondered if somebody had polished the recordings up beyond recognition before going to pressing - but maybe not.

The sound quality comes across better to me than other live albums that I listen to - and certainly better than any other I have heard from that period. Wikipedia explains that this was one of the first live albums where the outputs went straight to mobile studio rather than being captured through the amps -which probably explains things? I guess that the engineer had a good day at the office as well, and brought out the best in this performance

As a non-musician, the musicianship also sounds good to me. OK, various factions of the band will already have been familiar with some of the songs but, even so, given that they had only 3 weeks' rehearsal time before their first gig, then it makes me wonder why so many bands need to spend months locked away before hitting the road. No doubt the trained ear will pick up lots of flaws in this performance but, to the average punter like me, the guys hit the spot.

I only owned this album on cassette and it sounded brilliant no matter on what machine I played it; the crappy one in my pale blue 1971 VW beetle, then later my brother's Walkman, or my massive ghettoblaster in the early 80s......magnificicent!!!

Hey don't knock the VW Beetle.I've got a 1968 VW Beach Buggy,which was converted from a 1968 Beetle. .No roof at all and it only comes out on dry days.I can't hear the music but everyone else can as I drive past !!

Was surprised to learn that there's a bootleg in circulation of 801's set at the Reading Festival.

Wondered if anyone here has heard it and can offer an opinion on its sound quality?

Quite reasonable quality for the period, it's available for download on dimeadozen along with quite a few other Roxy/Ferry things

I wasn't knocking my VW Beetle at all, in 1978 I invested about £15 fitting it with a not-so-state-of-the-art cassette machine, that's what was crap.

I had some great times in that car, but the story about the rear wheel coming off it as I sped through Co. Durham at 60mph on a dual carriageway tempers them somewhat...still, if I'd died that day I would have gone out while listening to Manifesto.....