David Gilmour - Kabuki Theater

David Gilmour
"Live At The Kabuki" (HRV DVD 017)
Kabuki Theater, San Francisco, CA
June 27, 1984

Videotaped by Ken G.
Audio taken from "Feeding The Fever" (T-1212)

NTSC DVD (Widescreen format)/PCM Stereo

Video lineage: Master VHS tapes > AVI (Vegas 6) > MPEG-2 (CBR 8/7.5)
Audio lineage (copied from the "Feeding The Fever" Info file):
"Feeding The Fever" (T-1212)
This CD-R release was made from cassette tapes I got in trade in the late 80's.
Mics and recorder unknown > Cassette > Playback Deck: Tascam 130 > Nikko 32 Band EQ > Akai DR16 Digital Hard Disk Recorder > Sony PCM-R500 DAT Recorder > Sony DAT Tape > HHB CDR-800 Compact Disc Recorder > HHB CDR > WAV > SHN
I did the editing, mastering - digital transfer and the artwork for this version of this show.
March 9, 2004 T________

DVD ONE
Until We Sleep
All Lovers Are Deranged
Love On The Air
Mihalis
Cruise
Short And Sweet
Money

DVD TWO
Out Of The Blue
Let's Get Metaphysical
You Know I'm Right
Run Like Hell
Blue Light
Murder
Comfortably Numb

After transferring Ken's live "Pros and Cons" video ("Exit 16W" HRV DVD 016) he mentioned that he also shot David Gilmour's show at the Kabuki Theater in San Francisco. Unfortunately he never turned on the audio and all he was left with was a silent video. I assured him that I could find the audio for this show and properly synch it up with his video. The audio that I used was from "Feeding The Fever" (thanks to the unknowm taper) which I left untouched for this DVD. The tricky part, as usual, was finding the "stretch" for the video to compensate for the slightly slower running speed which turned out to be 1.015 and while this percent may seem insignificant, it still presented enough of a synching challenge. The video for each song had to be individually matched up with the audio for which I used a very small and blurry Chris Slade for my reference (thanks Chris!). I think that it all stays pretty tight for 99% of the time.

So why the widescreen format? The way that Ken set up the video captured the stage at the very bottom of the screen leaving a lot of dead air from the midpoint to the top. By rendering the MPEG-2 as a widescreen image I was able to take advantage of this aspect ratio by cropping off the top of the picture and raising up the image, centering it for a better visually-balanced viewing experience. Why 2 discs? To keep the bit rate as high as possible in addition to using the original PCM stereo files (upconverted here from 44.1kHz to 48kHz for the DVD). Please note that the audio drops out for several seconds during the playback of this DVD. This was most likely due to the tape being flipped or changed. No musical portions were cut.

While not as elaborately staged as Roger Waters' "Pros and Cons" shows, I find this video just as entertaining... even more so. While some tracks on the "About Face" album may come off as being mediocre, they really come to life for this live performance.

A big thanks again to Ken G. for unearthing yet another buried treasure from the vaults and also kudos to the taper of "Feeding The Fever". Also thanks to Moonwall for the artwork.

Get the links for DVD 1 and DVD 2