7 May 1972  
Bickershaw Festival, Wigan, UK.  Set 2 (part)
Lineage: SBD:MR>DATx?>ZA2>CDR>Sound Forge>CDR with patches from Betty
Board>DAT>CDR.  Filler from poor SBD cassette.
2 CDs (2 x 74)

Disc 1:
Dark Star >
The Other One >
Sing Me Back Home

Disc 2:
Sugar Magnolia
Lovelight>
GDTRFB >
NFA
E:  OMSN

Filler:  Happy Birthday Billy and stage announcements


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

REMASTERING

Bickershaw

I'm 100% confident that this remastered version *is* the best in circulation. 
When Gavin Lawson kindly sent me his CDR some months ago, his source's lineage
showed a cassette gen.  In contrast, Tiedrich's Resources for Traders said the
best source had no cassette gen.  Odd, 'cause although Gavin's copy has some
hiss, it didn't sound like a cassette.  To cut a long story short I got in
touch with David Hollister, doyen of DAT > CDR masters in the US, whose
copy is
Tiedrich's reference, and he sent me his copy.  Gavin's baseline is identical,
and there is no cassette gen anywhere in the picture.

This version starts with Dark Star (but missed the first 5 notes which I've
patched in from a poor denoised and re-equalised SBD cassette.  It's OK!! 
You'd never know if you hadn't been told).  It is not the Betty Board, the
circulating copy of which only starts in the 1st verse of TOO (33 mins
late!). 


The Dark Star's a true beauty, er blissfully spatial in the 72nd
degree......... but the source contains a lot of broadband noise - a bit like
there's glass reverberating intermittently but frequently on your speakers
(or,
if you're grooving in the cans, inside your head).  Sometimes it's one
channel,
sometimes the other, sometimes both.  Real irritating.  David Hollister
confirms that the noise is on the original master reel and that he had not
tried treating it because broadband noise is not susceptible to general
scrubbing.  So, to cut another long story short, I've been through each and
every burst of noise in Dark Star, channel by channel, and tried to clean each
one individually.  Well, it's one way of getting into the music :))    The
result's not perfect and never would be, but all the noises are attenuated and
some are removed.  It's definitely very OK, the basic sound is first class. 
Most important, the MUSIC IS OUTTASIGHT.  

The other problem with the source is a 30 sec cut in TOO and the absence of
stage announcements (in particular Weir's "we've forgotten how to play St
Stephen....... maybe we could go back and listen to our records and cop our
licks" rap, and apologies for yet another technical problem "Garcia's got to
clean his glasses".  (Weir was really on good stage rap form on this tour)). 
I've patched in the music and announcements from BBD>DAT>CDR (Betty Board),
courtesy of Steve Nicholls.  I had wondered whether to use the Betty as the
master source from when it enters in TOO onwards, but comparative listening
shows the non-Betty is the better and clearer sound - drums are crisper,
instruments brighter - whereas the Betty has some bass saturation and is
slightly muddier in the middle.   (Very appropriate for Bickershaw, ha ha.)  

Finally, as a reminder of the atmospherix of the event, I've added a few other
moments of the concert from the poor quality SBD cassette, denoised (though
you
might not think so!) and re-equalised, as a brief filler.  In particular
'Happy
Birthday Billy' and Weir explaining that, to keep warm, they are playing under
30 knots of jet breath from hot air heaters and getting dizzy with the
smell of
kerosene.....    

For those who don't know (or need help remembering) just how wet, muddy and
great it all was, you can read more about the Bickershaw festival - personal
accounts, photos, programme extracts etc - on this site:

http://tinpan.fortunecity.com/ebony/546/dead.html

Pity you can't hear when the fireworks were launched in Dark Star!
Source: geocities.com/sunsetstrip/palladium/9897/info

( geocities.com/sunsetstrip/palladium/9897) ( geocities.com/sunsetstrip/palladium) ( geocities.com/sunsetstrip)