Tower of Power live in Countdown Café, March 14, 1986

The now legendary, almost mythical concert of Tower of Power on March 14, 1986, recorded from FM radio broadcasts of the Countdown Café radio show from Bos en Duin at Bosstraat 80 in Soest, the Netherlands. I found three cassettes I had stored in a box. I think that the concert was broadcast three times back then: the first time live, from half past eleven 'till midnight, the second time a few weeks later with some extra songs played after the broadcast, and the third time sometime that fall, with yet more material. The third time was also remixed, with way too much reverb for my taste.

I once almost destroyed a part of the recordings because I thought I was smart by rewinding a cassette with my father's Commodore 64 cassette player, which caused a hum through a big chunk of it.

I have put the three cassettes together into one recording with the correct order of the tracks to the best of my knowledge, and each time the best sound quality I have. Because the cassettes are 36 years old, there was some dropout here and there and I had to cut and paste quite a bit. ‘This time it’s real’ is pieced together from two tapes.
These 57 minutes are not everything ToP played that night. You can hear that 'You ought to be having fun' was edited out. Still hoping someone someday releases the full concert.

Lineage: recordings of the radio broadcasts on a Toshiba RT 170s boombox in 1986, on Fuji type I normal resp. TDK type II chrome cassettes. Played in April 2022 on a Technics RS-BX606 cassette deck. No Dolby noise cancellation. Digitized via a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 in 32bit 96kHz. Restored in Steinberg Wavelab: Corrected playback speed difference between the Toshiba and the Technics, left right channel azimuth correction, volumes normalized, Waves Q8 EQ to remove the hum, a little bit of Waves X-Noise noise reduction, and a little bit of Steinberg Stereo Expander. Dithered down to 24bit 48kHz.

Tracklist:
1. 0:00 - Intro
2. 0:30 - Down to the nightclub
3. 3:10 - Only so much oil in the ground
4. 6:55 - Baby’s got the power
5. 10:25 - Count on me
6. 14:40 - Credit
7. 19:03 - This time it’s real
8. 23:25 - What is hip?
9. 31:17 - Don’t change horses (in the middle of a stream)
10. 37:22 - Trouble in paradise
11. 42:29 - We came to play
12. 43:08 - And you know it
(44:42 - Countdown Café jingle)
13. 45:44 - Knock yourself out
14. 51:01 - Boys night out

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