Band on the Run Archive Collection

After a couple of just "okay" albums ("Wild Life" and "Red Rose Speedway"), Paul McCartney and Wings released "Band on the Run" in December of 1973. I remember "Bluebird" and "Mamunia" being good recordings for checking out hi-fi at the time. Bluebird had several percussion instruments and a very breathy sax solo, and Mamunia had very distinct bass guitar and great overtones in the congas. It wasn't until recently that I learned about how poor the recording conditions were in Lagos, Nigeria, where most of the album was recorded over a seven week period. The EMI studio had an 8 track recorder with only 4 tracks with working "sync" amps (so you can hear pre-recorded tracks from the record head for over-dubbing), a few dozen inexpensive microphones and only a couple of Neumanns, no drum or vocal booth, poor isolation, heat and humidity, etc. Geoff Emerick's recording engineering talents really triumphed over the many challenges he had to deal with on this project. The record won two Grammy Awards, one for Best Contemporary Pop/Vocal and the other for Best Engineered Album.

The first decent sounding CD of Band on the Run came out as an import in 1993 in The Paul  McCartney Collection of CDs simply saying "Digitaly Remastered". If I remember right Geoff Emerick did the remastering for those, though the CD does not credit anyone.  The CD also includes "Country Dreamer" and "Helen Wheels" as bonus tracks. The loudest passage on this version is found about in "Bluebird" around 3:15.

The next remaster for Band on the Run was the 25th Anniversary Edition in 1999. Re-mastering done by Greg Calbi and Geoff Emerick. The sound is better still and it came in a box with a miniture of the LP's full size poster and second CD containing containing various interviews and previously unreleased versions of some of the album's songs. It is about 2.5 dB louder than the 1993 CD.  The loudest passage on this version is found on the title track about 3:00 in.

The newest remaster, Archive Collection, was released November 2010 and in many forms; LP, CD, double CD, with DVD, with book, download, etc., etc. Remastered at Abby Road by Sam Okell, Steve Rooke and Allan Rouse, it also is about 2.5 dB louder than the 1993 remaster and sounds even better. There is more bloom in the instruments. They sound fuller, more individual, articulate and present. I know of at least one noise that has been removed; 10 seconds into track one there used to be a clicking noise for a couple of seconds on the right channel that is now gone. Other similar noises seem to have been left intact. It seems that there is some sweetening around 3-5 kHz. and some low frequency limiting added with great finesse. For example; the 12 string in "Mamunia" rings more, the bass guitar and kick drum are quicker to stop and there is more punch now to the beater striking the bass drum head. The loudest passage on this version is found in "Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five" at about 4:45.

I wondered again why "Jet" doesn't sound as good. I turned to the book "Here, There and Everywhere" by the recording engineer Geoff Emerick to see if there was any mention (I haven't read that far yet) and sure enough, there was. It turns out that it was a new song recorded at AIR Studios in London, and while doing overdubs, the 16 track recorder began to shred oxide off of the tape, reducing the high frequency content, so quite a bit of equalization was added to save the performance of the backing tracks.

The second CD contains 9 tracks at about 34 min. and starts off with "Helen Wheels" and "Country Dreamer". The first recorded in Lagos, the second recorded and mixed by Alan Parsons at Abby Road. There are 7 live tracks from the "One Hand Clapping" movie session. The last track is "Zoo Gang" recorded by Alan Parsons and mixed by Geoff Emerick.

The DVD of 85 min.contains the videos for "Band On the Run", "Mamunia" and "Helen Wheels", 3 min of home movies of  "Wings in Lagos", the 15 min. film footage of the album's cover shoot, and the 50 min. "One Hand Clapping" movie shot live in the EMI studios in Fall of 1974 that includes 16 additional tunes from that session, only four of which are from "Band on the Run".

In addition, the version I bought (at a big box store) came with an extra DVD (24 min.), with Paul's reasons for this reissue and video of 3 live Band on the Run tunes from last year's New York CTI Field DVD.

For about $15, this is a great value; good music, good sound and lots of live versions, videos, etc.

Cat: Hear Music HRM-32564-00
Format: 2 channel 16/44.1k CD, DVD.
Remastered by: Sam Okell, Steve Rooke and Allan Rouse at Abbey Road Studios, London.
Sound Quality: 4 of 5  The best yet
Content: 4 of 5  Classic "must have" rock
Extras: 4 of 5  Mainly interesting for major fans