Cream was only in existence from 1966 to 1968, but they were very productive and popular during that time. However, their sudden superstardom led to the usual drug and ego issues. In particular, bassist Jack Bruce and drummer Ginger Baker already hated each other before the band even started, due to being in an earlier band together, and things between them slowly got worse. The third band member, guitarist Eric Clapton, eventually couldn't take it and decided to break up the band. But they went out with a final tour.
At the time, the BBC almost never broadcast concerts. Their popular "In Concert" program didn't start until 1970. However, the end of Cream was a big deal, so the BBC filmed this final concert. It was shown on TV in Britain in January 1969. Unfortunately, the film work was pretty poor and the audio quality was bad as well. A reviewer for a 2005 upgrade of the video commented, "The sound has been digitally remastered, but the audio is still a turgid sonic sludge. The visuals are even worse, with director Tony Palmer jerking the camera around as if this were an episode of NYPD Blue, layering the picture with dated and distracting psychedelic light effects, and providing far too many close-ups of Bruce's teeth (and almost no wide shots of the entire band)." On top of that, there was narration and interviews played over some of the music, making it hard to appreciate the songs.
In 2020, the concert was released on audio as part of a Cream box set called "Goodbye Tour - Live 1968" that contained four full concerts from the tour. But, as a Wikipedia article about it noted, "Sadly, the sound of this Royal Albert Hall concert is much worse than the sound of the other three shows of this box set."
Given all that, I'd known about this concert for a long time, but I decided against posting it to my blog due to the poor sound quality. However, nowadays, much can be done with audio editing, so I decided to see if it could be salvaged. I boosted the lead vocals a little bit relative to the instruments, using the UVR5 program. I lowered the crowd noise in the rare cases someone was talking between songs, so one might actually hear what they're saying. But most importantly, I gave the files to musical associate MZ. He's good at remixing. I suggested the bass was too loud, and he agreed. The version he sent back lowered some parts of the bass range and boosted some parts of the treble. It sounds much better now, like a layer of muck has been removed. Frankly, I don't know why the 2020 box set didn't do this. Audio editing technology has improved a lot since then, but simply lowering the bass in the mix was easy to do back then.
Does this sound great now? No. But it's much more listenable, on par with the other three soundboards from this final tour. Thanks to MZ for his valuable help.
By the way, in Clapton's autobiography, he discussed this final concert some. Here's what he said:
"Before the gig started, I just wanted to get it over with. But once I was up on stage, I became quite excited. I thought it was great that we could do this and keep our heads high, and walk away from the whole thing with a fair amount of good grace. ... It also meant a lot to me knowing that out there in the audience there were not just fans, but musician friends, and people on the scene who had all come to say their goodbyes. My overwhelming emotion, however, was that we had done the right thing. I think we all knew that. At the end of the second show, there was no party, no speeches. We just went our separate ways."
This album is an hour and four minutes long.
01 talk (Cream)
02 White Room (Cream)
03 Politician (Cream)
04 talk (Cream)
05 I'm So Glad (Cream)
06 talk (Cream)
07 Sitting on Top of the World (Cream)
08 talk (Cream)
09 Crossroads (Cream)
10 talk (Cream)
11 Toad [Instrumental] (Cream)
12 Spoonful (Cream)
13 talk (Cream)
14 Sunshine of Your Love (Cream)
15 talk (Cream)
16 Steppin' Out [Instrumental] (Cream)
17 talk (Cream)
https://pixeldrain.com/u/kYPH13rw
alternate:
https://bestfile.io/en/LY65LHVRqh7f5Z6/file
The cover photo is from this exact concert.
Thank you!
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