The Doors
August 30, 1970 (Saturday)
East Afton Farm
"The Isle Of Wight Festival"
Isle Of Wight, England
[Soundboard Recording]
Multi-Track Master > DAT > DAT > CDR > WAV > Flac Frontend > FLAC (lvl 8, SBE aligned)
Dust out your Doors collection. From the vault of an anonymous Doors fan comes a previously unsurfaced audio recording.
For years, The Doors' performance at the Isle Of Wight has only been available in an edited or incomplete form. The most popular release, "Palace Of Exile," is missing over a minute in the middle of "The End" and the intro to "When The Music's Over" is severly edited. Audience recordings of the show are missing "Roadhouse Blues." Previously on this site someone offered a matrix of the audience and soundboard sources in order to recreate the complete concert in the best quality available. Now for the first time, we have a master DAT source for the COMPLETE Isle Of Wight concert in perfect soundboard quality. At almost 70 minutes total, this is as good as it gets until an official release gets made -- if one is ever made.
This comes direct from the multi-track master recording. Quality is near perfect. The only downside is that the stereo separation isn't very good. It sounds like it's an unmixed copy of the multi-track master. So you'll hear Ray's organ more in the center than it should be and Ray's vocals are mixed way down so you don't hear them at all during "Break On Through" and other songs. (A good thing for some?) Still, I would place the overall quality as better than "Palace Of Exile." Little to no hiss. Bass level is much more reasonable. Sharper sound quality overall.
Now just what did I do to the original recording before posting it here? Thankfully, not much. There were a handful of clicks/pops throughout the recording that I removed individually using Adobe Audition. (The glitch during the announcer's introduction is on the original tape and couldn't be repaired without cutting it down.) I also swapped the channels so that Robby's guitar is in the right channel where it should be. The biggest change I made was balancing the channel levels and bringing everything up. This small change really punched up the sound compared to the original transfer. There was no EQ or other tricky business involved. Sounds pretty damn good, if I do say so myself. If anyone wants the original transfer, I'm open to trades.
One small note: About 4:29 into "The End," the music drops out for about 5 seconds and you only hear Jim's voice. Not sure why, but "Palace" doesn't have this mixing error.
The Doors' manager Jeff Jampol recently made the silly statement that the reason they haven't released the Isle Of Wight recording officially is due to audio problems with the master recording. Well here it is, folks. Unmixed and raw. Please tell me if you find any noticeable problems that would prevent this show from being released. I'm dying to know just what errors he believes exist. Another reason why and another obvious lie from The Doors office.
A big thank you to the Doors fan who shared this rare tape. He/She wishes to remain anonymous on this one. I'm merely acting as middleman, and I'm happy to do so.
-Porsche
I'm always on the look out for Doors recordings I don't have or source upgrades.
Check out my complete list of shows here: http://www.eccentrix.com/members/thedoors/tradelist.html
Track List:
01. Introduction - 0:18
02. Back Door Man - 4:18
03. Break On Through - 4:53
04. When The Music's Over - 13:31
05. Ship Of Fools - 7:37
06. Roadhouse Blues - 6:07
06. Light My Fire - 14:21
07. The End - 18:18
FLAC Fingerprints:
01 - Introduction.flac:cdb8705212725f67814796aec46f8514
02 - Back Door Man.flac:943839bb8183e167a19f786f59d9a8e5
03 - Break On Through.flac:7f6779366d1ebdc56f98bc7943719f11
04 - When The Music's Over.flac:b9de3ab717f5a2aed57790b714bcca06
05 - Ship Of Fools.flac:5b14f5f12d4cd0f4f5b73a74ed1348eb
06 - Roadhouse Blues.flac:f16e982f212235bc888a25a3e2d90f50
07 - Light My Fire.flac:41d4d0289042f7d213de5b8eae33245b
08 - The End.flac:35793f88a04938afeb9f96336ac2cc84