back when they announced a live album from 85 coming out I had really hoped that it was going to be a legit remastered CD release of Walls.

It's freakin awesome when the proper tape takes over in Song1. Such a great album. I'm really hoping they milk the archives and release loads of shows. One from every tour to start!!

Picked up the double LP today. Liking it. A lot.

EDIT: forgot to mention, the double tracked Thurston vocal on I Love Her All the Time sounds fucking cool, would be interested to know why they did that

Folks, the David Keenan review has arrived and it is mighty favourable:

"Massively-potent archival live set from Sonic Youth, captured straight to four track during the Bad Moon Rising>Evol era: I was a big collector of Sonic Youth live tapes back in the day and my favourite era was definitely the Evol shows in the mid-80s so this set is a spectacular unearthing, capturing the group at a key moment of transition, with Bob Bert vacating the drum stool in favour of Steve Shelley and the group moving from the strung out American gothic of Bad Moon/Death Valley into the tortuous metal drones of Evol. Buncha highlights here: the first half of the opening “Halloween” is missing from the masters so they segue from an audience recording into the master and it works great, like a slow, psychedelic zoom from crude cassette noise into hi-fi drone; Kim’s tracks are uniformly great, with particular highlights being “Brave Men Run”, “Ghost Bitch”, “Brother James”, “Secret Girl” (earliest live recording of that amazing track) and “Flower”; a reminder of what an amazing twin guitar tag team Ranaldo and Moore were, crashing arcs of feedback into each other and playing with the kind higher-mind string relativities of Verlaine and Lloyd in Television; the spectacular run-out jam on “Expressway To Your Skull” which makes explicit just how much of a debt NZ drone owes to this one momentous track; the appearance of “Kat ‘n’ Hat”, a rare/unrecorded gem; the genesis of that eerie tapes/downtuned guitar style that would dominate the live Evol sets, here sounding particularly feral. This is a timely reminder of what an amazing band Sonic Youth were, especially in their pre-Daydream incarnation, and also what a hip period the 80s were in terms of underground guitar action. Back in the day you just hadda be into Sonic Youth, even if you were an indie dud, and listening to this wild avant rock it’s pretty miraculous they were ever so popular, even if most of the kids I knew at the time went for “Starpower” or “Bubblegum” over “Marilyn Moore “ or “Expressway” and breathed a sigh of relief when they finally dropped Daydream Nation. But for me the heroic period of Sonic Youth is probably 84-87 and this fantastic release perfectly captures the revolutionary arc of the times. Been a bunch of killer archival releases this year but this one goes right to the top of the pile. Comes with a download. Highly recommended!" © Volcanic Tongue 2012

picked up this afternoon, cant wait to hear it later

My wife is getting this for me for Christmas - can't wait to hear it!! I love BMR and early SY, and from what you guys are saying, this sounds incredible!

psychtrailmix, you are gonna shit your sonic pants when you hear it. so fucking awesome!

Nice! Ahhhh, Christmas morning is gonna be fun ;)

found a pic of them supposedly from smart bar, doing ghost bitch:

Is that what it's from? I was wondering what song at the time would require an acoustic guitar...

well I'll be damned....

amazing find!

When I heard Ghost Bitch in BMR, it really didn´t come in my mind that there is also acoustic guitar. But then I saw also some old version of it from youtube (maybe from Gila Monster Jamboree). BTW is that picture same that is in the Smart Bar vinyl-version gatefold (I haven´t seen the cd-version, so I don´t know are there same pictures as in the vinyl)?

http://www.sonicyouth.com/mustang/lp/vid3.html

Holy shit, I've forgot about this one!
Been in a fucking hole the last weeks :S

oh it is Live at Stache's! I had a feeling cuz of the weird lighting effects. Yeah I have that on DVDR.

That pic is inside the sleeve of the album...Upon seeing it, I thought it would've made a good cover photo.

This is just the detail thing, but I just looked today that photo in my home in the vinyl and I think it´s not exactly same. There is some guy in the back of the band in the photo in this thread and I think I didn´t see him in that vinyls photo. I can´t compare vinyl and that thread photo because I don´t have computer in home at the moment (I am now in the library).

But yes, I think also it would have been great cover also for the sake it´s from that gig and the cover photo isn´t.

They photoshopped him out! I just compared the pic on the last page with the lp pic...rocker dude looking on is erased from history!

finally got it when i got back home and played the fuck out of it
listened to it 3 times the night i got it
then at least another 5 or 7 more times that week
its a fucking great sounding show
way better then what i was thinking
because i wasn't under the impression it'd be a 4 track tape with a board feed
as i haven't really heard alot of the live shows they have put out
but i think this one tops Hold That Tiger
which i mustve heard 100s and 100s of times by now
but wow!
just fucking wow!
amazing preformance!
i was under the impression it was to be a 180 gram pressing
i'm guessing that i'm wrong
i've seen it in a few stores along the ways and didn't see any at 180 gram