First up is "Live at The Hollywood Bowl', the 1964 show released in fold down mono to replicate as faithfully as possible the original mono acetate that circulated on the collector's circuit now for over 20 years. Dr. Ebbetts took the raw stereo tapes available on bootleg in excellent 3 track stereo sound quality, and matched up the concert exactly as the acetate is edited, to make it a bit smoother in terms of flow. With a touch of slight reverb to match the mono acetate, Dr. Ebbetts has created the best sounding mono version of this well know acetate. It has much better fidelity throughout. It has much more punch and vitality and clarity than the acetate. It sounds fantastic played loud! It's definitely a must have for sound quality if you want to replicate the original acetate's presentation, yet sounding like it came from the vault's master tape of this album. The artwork is cool. It's the suggested artwork from Bruce Spizer's book and really does look like a mock Beatles live album! This one you'll
like--this one is the recommended "Hollywood Bowl" CD out of the 3 he just issued. The other two, entitled"Live at The Hollywood Bowl...Again" are a mono fold down and stereo version of the August 30, 1965 show. Once again, cool artwork and great sound quality! The show's are of lesser quality performances than the '64 show. I'm not and have never been a fan of "what if" fan mix CDs (such as the mulitude of attempts to reconstruct the Beach Boys unreleased "Smile" album), though they are noble attempts and fun. The quality on both the mono fold down and stereo versions of the '65 show are just as excellent. The same love and devotion went into the creation of these two albums as if Capitol might have released them in '65. Since we don't have an acetate or a possible project number from Capitol on this one, I have to say these aren't neccessary to your collection as I feel the first disc above (the '64 mono fold down) is. If you have to or need to get a live Beatles disc I highly recommend the mono "Live at The Hollywood Bowl". If you have the unedited '65 shows from Midnight Beat or Vigotone then you're in fine shape and don't need these mono and stereo versions of the '65 show.
Regards,
Buffalo Wings
