My moment of audiophile madness came with the extravagant purchase of The Flaming Lips album – Zaireeka. This was released on four compact discs which you were supposed to play simultaneously on four CD players.

To achieve this you needed three friends who were willing to transport their expensive hi-fi systems to an agreed location (in this case the lounge in my parent’s house) - a logistical feat on par with construction of Stonehenge. Four sets of megalithic speakers were spaced-out at separate intervals around the edge of the room. Meanwhile we were corralled on a small island of bare carpet in the centre, which we judged as the best position to savour the ensuing audio experience.

After we hit the play buttons at roughly the same time, the reality of our situation began to bite. We were listening to a Flaming Lips record composed of songs we had never heard before. The various parts of the mix seemed to be slightly out of sync with each other. Some of the hi-fi systems seemed to be louder than others. It wasn’t very enjoyable.

Unfortunately Zaireeka is three quarters of an hour long and outlives its novelty by a good 44 minutes. I remember having to bully my friends into seeing it through to the end.

Bernie Taupin and Margaret Thatcher aside, Lincolnshire's main contribution to popular music is Market Rasen-born Rod Temperton, co-writer (with Quincy Jones) of some of Michael Jackson's finest moments.

The (relatively recent) SACD release of Tubular Bells was basically derived from the quadraphonic mix - basically rather than remixing the original they just used the quadraphonic masters from the 70s.

I think the recent Moody Blues re-releases have an SACD layer that has their quadraphonic mixes transferred to 5.1 as well.

at a market. It seemed like a good idea at the time. It was 10p. I do not own an 8-Track player.

Totally agree with David on the appeal of a full covers show from Bruce. Currently playing on repeat the wonderful version of Suicide's Dream Baby Dream that he closed the Diamonds and Dust tour with; my all-time favorite of Bruce's covers, which I don't think he's done for thirty years is the Manfreds' Pretty Flamingo. "All the kids on our block call her Flamingo..." Delicious.

on this year's tour he played :

Wooly Bully\Born To be Wild\It's All Over Now\Save the Last Dance for Me\ Rockin all Over The World\Not fade Away\Little Queenie\Twist & shout\I walk the Line\Good Rockin' Tonight\I Fought the Law\Boom Boom\Gloria\Seven Nights To Rock\ Quarter To three\Little Latin Lupe Lu\Who'll Stop the Rain\Summertime Blues\
Jersey Girl\Santa Claus Is Coming To Town (in mid July)\Hold On, I'm Comin'\It Takes Two\ Tell Him\all i have To Do Is Dream\Turn Turn Turn\Mr Tambourine Man\I'll Fly Away\ Detroit Medley

and 31st July in his hometown - Pretty Flamingo.

So with a few setlists and some websearching there's a Bruce Covers 2008 gig right there

And yes, Dream Baby Dream, was magical when he played it at the Albert Hall stop on the Devils N Dust tour.

who used to do a rendition of a complete album - someone else's album - each year at a special gig. One year was the White Album, another Quadrophenia and so forth. There should be more of it.

This is also the band that once challenged their entire audience to a game of chess...

do that sort of thing regularly too? Seem to remember a recreation of the Dylan Manchester 66 gig, the White Album and various early Floyd\Barrett material.

I attended the 'Games For May' 40th anniversairy show at the QEH last year featuring Hitchcock '& Heavy Friends' which recreated the original show in the first half and then early Floyd n Barrett in the 2nd. Also featured authentic psychedelic light show that I think was done by the guy who did the original gig

Taupin was born just outside Sleaford, a south Lincs town not far from Grantham. He subsequently moved to the northern part of that county to Market Rasen. This is close to Barton-upon-Humber where I was born and brought up. Barton is famous for being the hometown of Henry Treece, a children's historical authour (Ask For King Billy) whose son Richard was in Help Yourself: locally he was known as "Trog" Treece because of his hairstyle. More impressibvely, Iain (formerly Ian) Matthews of Fairport Convention, Southern Comfort and Plainsong lived in Barton and once got his head stuck in the railings on Bowmandale!

In Champaign/Urbana, IL there is a yearly set of shows (now up to 3 nights) done as a benefit for a local charity. All the bands involved do a 20 minute set as another band. It is a closely guarded secret who each band is covering. It has grown immensely over the last 10 years and is a local highlight.

The bands love doing it, the fans in the clubs make it a challenge to figure out who is being covered (it's not announced) and a great time is generally had by all.

In other words, it could certainly be done.

Once upon a time choral composers-admittedly writing for a rather niche market-used to use the acoustic of the space as something to lay out voices spatially in. Perhaps the apex of this was the 40 part motet Spem in Alium by Tallis [DH blogged about this a while ago but I can't find the link right now].

Hearing this in 5.1 with the voices hanging in space was quite remarkable (off a Linn SACD). I can't help wondering what Tallis would have made of a world in which many of us could in principle have 5.1 and yet most of us are apparently happy with stereo ...(or even mono).

[Meanwhile I remember as a young teenager in about 1974 reading a Tina Brown's article about her tour with Mud where she contrasted them with more apparently intellectual bands using a disparaging phrase about "laid back coke-snorters with quadrophonic brains". I was confused for years about what one might gain from inhaling Coca Cola ...]

You were pretty kind to Les - he deserves it. The whole thing was a car crash, but some of the vitroil aimed at him since then is a little unfair. The accusation that he is a rascist is laughable.
If you've not had Les on your radio for the best part of 30 years, you wouldn't know that this is how he treats every interviewee. It's not laziness on his part, it's a style that has served him well over the years.
Les takes the part of a curious listener, and depends on his guests to fill in the blanks in his knowledge, rather than put the answers into his questions.
The cookery/genocide bit was the point where they should have stopped. The mistake was not to stop, apologise and start again.
The whole thing was finally broadcast under the heading of 'This went terribly wrong - who was at fault?'
I'm sure Doris in Dudley and the rest of the audience would have probably have sided with Les.
You do have to question the Station Management's decision to do that. Obviously other BBC employees disagreed - that's how you got the audio (from BBC Radio Newcastle, I think).
Couple of final points :-
* BBC local stations don't have a needletime restriction - the BBC pay PRS a fortune to play as much as they like.
* There are 'live' presenters on some commercial stations overnight, whereas Steve Wright on Radio 2 is voicetracked on a Sunday morning peaktime.
* Cassette speed was one eighth of the professional tape speed of 15 i.p.s.