Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Was wondering if anyone knew how much re-recording went into Wings over America? The background vocals especially, sound to perfect to have been the actual vocals from these shows. Paul's vocals are amazing on much of the album. Don't think he ever got enough credit for his amazing voice. I think he was vocally at his peak around this period.

Don't know for sure, but I was there in Cincinnati in 1976 and saw the show. Pretty amazing vocal sound live.

I think their was a good deal of cleaning up. You can even hear some edits if you listen close enough. However, if you watch the movie ROCKSHOW, the entire concert is amazing. That was a very tight band.

Is the movie ROCKSHOW (or Wings Over America) available on DVD?
I asked to some big retailers here in Italy but none of the importers has Wings live concerts in catalogue

I saw them on this 1976 tour at Madison Square Garden and I still think it was the best sounding concert I've ever been to! Just seems that a lot of tweaking and overdubbing was done later. I'm not sure "Lovely Linda" would have nailed every vocal & musical note on every song, same for the others as well! I guess this would be a very common practice, probably even more so now with digital! Well regardless, it was a Great Show !!!

The book "Eight Arms To Hold You" stated that there have been many rumours over the years whether or not it was re-recorded in the studio. They have confirmed that it was false and they concluded that by listening to many bootlegs from that tour. Any overdubs like fan clapping, etc, were done for the film Rockshow.

That amazon link is a bootleg, Bob. I don't think there was ever an official release on dvd.

I got mine on the bay, and I love it.

I was at the Cincinatti show in 1976 also. Great show, great sound.

Did you almost get crushed in the in-surge of people when they opened the doors? We almost did. General Admission concert, and they only opened one door in each bank of eight. Riverfront Coliseum, a couple of years before eleven people got trampled to death trying to get into a Who concert at that very place under the same conditions.

The four friends I was with and myself all looked at each other when the crowd started surging forward, and we all locked arms. We had to try and navigate around someone who had fallen in front of us (there was no way to try to help them to their feet). One of my friends (not a small guy at all) said his feet never touched the ground until he was inside. We were lined up straight in front of the open door, but the crowd kept pushing us towards the side. We pushed back with all our might, and somehow managed to stay right in front of the open door. As we got closer, you could see people pushed up against the glass, who weren't able to get lined up to door, or move, or anything. I'm surprised the glass they were shoved up against didn't shatter.

The closer we got to the open door, the faster the influx went. It was like high water pressure being squeezed through a small opening. By the time I got a few feet in front of the door, I was being carried also. We went through so fast, I was never able to give my ticket to the guy taking them! I had my ticket out, I saw the ticket taker and he saw me. he reached for the ticket, but I was by him so fast, it's still almost unbelievable. I still have my whole ticket for that concert to this day.

I always heard he did a lot of clean up on the backing vocals, which, if you listen to pretty much any other show taped on that tour, seems reasonably true.

The camera work on the Wings Over America DVD is terrible, and the lighting is worse. Horribly dark. It was this way even on the laserdisc copy I had back in the early '80s. The sound and songs are great, though.

The film just needs to be remastered, is all. I'm sure it would be a great film.

My high school had the wings over america book, which had some great pictures and described how some vocals were off mic or not as perfect as Paul and Denny wanted so they fixed "touched" them up in the studio.

Kiss Alive II was "touched up" in a similar way. Gene Simmons described it as "better than live"!

Wasn't this common on 70's live albums?