ZZ Top - Monsters of Rock, Donington Park, Castle Donington, London, Britain, 8-17-1985

Here's a full ZZ Top concert bootleg from 1985, when they were at the peak of their popularity.

There are surprisingly few excellent sounding live ZZ Top recordings from their prime 1970s and 80s time. There's a bunch from around 1980, including an officially released one, and a short one I've posted from 1983. But there's very little for many years before or after that with sound quality that I find acceptable. So I decided to take this one, the best 1980s audience boot I could find, and do some audio editing to improve it some more. The final result is close to sounding as good as a soundboard boot, but not quite there. Still, this is probably the best sounding recording from this time period (other than that short 1983 I've posted) that you're likely to find, until something new emerges.

ZZ Top were the headliners for the Monsters of Rock festival, which had been held in the same Castle Donington location since 1980. The festival mostly featured heavy metal acts, and it would peter out in the mid-1990s when the popularity of heavy metal declined due to the rise of grunge. The other acts at the festival in 1985 were Marillion, Bon Jovi, Metallica, Ratt, and Magnum. About 50,000 people attended. I wouldn't call ZZ Top heavy metal, but they'd become superstars with their 1983 album "Eliminator," which sold eleven million copies. It combined their bluesy hard rock sound with the synth-based sound popular at the time. Somehow, they managed to attract lots of new New Wave focused fans while still staying popular with the likes of heavy metal fans.

This audience bootleg sounded pretty good to begin with, so much so that it's sometimes claimed to be a soundboard or radio broadcast. But it clearly is an audience boot, based on the constant rumble of crowd noise through all the songs. So I ran the songs through the MVSEP program, separating the crowd noise, then removing it during the songs while keeping the cheering at the ends of songs. I also used MVSEP to boost the lead vocals relative to the instruments for some of the songs.

The final result is pretty good, though not great. The 1983 live album I've posted sounds better. But this is double the length of that one, containing a full concert. Note that the band was coming close to releasing their next album, "Afterburner." It would be released two months after this concert. They played just one songs from it, "Can't Stop Rockin'." The other songs are generally originals, other than the Elvis Presley classic "Jailhouse Rock."

This album is an hour and 23 minutes long.  

01 Got Me Under Pressure (ZZ Top)
02 talk (ZZ Top)
03 I Got the Six (ZZ Top)
04 Gimme All Your Lovin' (ZZ Top)
05 Waitin' for the Bus (ZZ Top)
06 Jesus Just Left Chicago (ZZ Top)
07 talk (ZZ Top)
08 Sharp Dressed Man (ZZ Top)
09 Ten Foot Pole (ZZ Top)
10 talk (ZZ Top)
11 TV Dinner (ZZ Top)
12 Manic Mechanic (ZZ Top)
13 I Heard It on the X (ZZ Top)
14 I Need You Tonight (ZZ Top)
15 talk (ZZ Top)
16 Pearl Necklace (ZZ Top)
17 talk (ZZ Top)
18 Cheap Sunglasses (ZZ Top)
19 talk (ZZ Top)
20 Arrested for Driving while Blind (ZZ Top)
21 Party on the Patio (ZZ Top)
22 Legs (ZZ Top)
23 Tube Snake Boogie (ZZ Top)
24 Can't Stop Rockin' (ZZ Top)
25 Jailhouse Rock (ZZ Top)
26 La Grange (ZZ Top)
27 Tush (ZZ Top)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Meb5KEaa

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/wDGTxFEPmahkFTT/file

The cover image is taken from some promotional material for this exact concert. I used the Krea AI program to improve the colors and sharpen the details.