Tokyo Showdown

[Gums]

This one was a strange choice. They probably should have just pulled the plug when the recording quality didn't turn out. I remember when it came out, I was disappointed. Even when collecting In Flames albums, I couldn't bring myself to spend money on this one.

Please share all of your innermost thoughts, memories and prayers regarding this record. Is there anybody here who listened to it on a regular basis at any point in time?

 

[The Grayfox]

I can clearly remember downloading it off of WinMX on release day and feeling an enormous amount of disappointment. It's easily the worst sounding live album I've ever heard. As a lover of fine live albums, I put this at the very bottom. As I recall, it was mixed by the band themselves and that's probably why it sucks so much. I guess they didn't want to pay for proper mixing, which really is a shame because it had the potential to be a great one. It has a nice setlist and artwork, but my god, what a piece of shit of an album. There are In Flames radio broadcasts from 99-01 that sound like the best live albums of all time in comparison to this fucking thing.

 

[DE4life]

The 1999 recording from Sweden sounds a million times better than Tokyo Showdown. Even the band hate that album. I didn't really know about TTS until years after it was released, so I can't say it disappointed me, as I'd already heard a ton of live IF in good quality by the time I found out an official live album even existed.

WinMX, that takes me back. 56k and 5kb/s transfers. Shit times, but I got a lot of IF songs that way before I had the money to buy the albums myself.

 

[Gums]

I can clearly remember downloading it off of WinMX on release day and feeling an enormous amount of disappointment. It's easily the worst sounding live album I've ever heard. As a lover of fine live albums, I put this at the very bottom. As I recall, it was mixed by the band themselves and that's probably why it sucks so much. I guess they didn't want to pay for proper mixing, which really is a shame because it had the potential to be a great one. It has a nice setlist and artwork, but my god, what a piece of shit of an album. There are In Flames radio broadcasts from 99-01 that sound like the best live albums of all time in comparison to this fucking thing.

The same thing happened to me. I was really excited for this, and when I heard it, I was confused. Fan sentiment was universally negative for this one. For me it kinda set the tone negatively heading into Reroute as well. When I played the first RtR (somebody sent me mp3's in random order on Messenger, as they became available), I remember immediately thinking.. this sounds like shit too.. wtf. Tokyo Showdown was the beginning of a snowball.

Before I made this thread, I checked Spotify to give it a quick (very quick) listen. I'm surprised to see it there, really. If even the band hates it, and it's that bad..what is the point. I guess it's not their decision, and it could get a few extra clicks.

 

[eochaid]

I bought it. Listened to it once. Tried again a couple of years ago but I couldn't. The sound is atrocious

 

[Gums]

 

[The Grayfox]

The 1999 recording from Sweden sounds a million times better than Tokyo Showdown. Even the band hate that album. I didn't really know about TTS until years after it was released, so I can't say it disappointed me, as I'd already heard a ton of live IF in good quality by the time I found out an official live album even existed.

WinMX, that takes me back. 56k and 5kb/s transfers. Shit times, but I got a lot of IF songs that way before I had the money to buy the albums myself.

Yeah, there's a couple '01 and '02 radio broadcasts that put it to shame also. The 1999 show is pretty legendary. Great setlist. I have a HD around with a ton of IF bootlegs and it has all of those broadcasts on it.

I found a lot of great bands through WinMX back in the day. And also a lot of stuff that was mislabeled.

The same thing happened to me. I was really excited for this, and when I heard it, I was confused. Fan sentiment was universally negative for this one. For me it kinda set the tone negatively heading into Reroute as well. When I played the first RtR (somebody sent me mp3's in random order on Messenger, as they became available), I remember immediately thinking.. this sounds like shit too.. wtf. Tokyo Showdown was the beginning of a snowball.

Before I made this thread, I checked Spotify to give it a quick (very quick) listen. I'm surprised to see it there, really. If even the band hates it, and it's that bad..what is the point. I guess it's not their decision, and it could get a few extra clicks.

I got RTR on IRC on release day and was appalled. I've detailed it many times at this point, but I cannot stress enough how disappointing that album was as a fan of their previous work.

What I don't understand about The Tokyo Showdown is why it hasn't been re-mixed. Surely they still have all of the stems somewhere.

 

[Gums]

Yep, it's impossible to adequately communicate what it was like when this came out, as a 19 year old guy that had spent the previous formative years with In Flames basically being a part of my identity.

IRC eh.. nice. The way I found out about In Flames was through a friend at school, whose brother recommended Ordinary Story. We tried to download it but couldn't find it. Instead we found Zombie Inc, and played it, and my brain just about melted. After he left, I started downloading more In Flames, and the guy I was downloading from messaged me. Some random guy from somewhere in Europe. He started telling me all the albums I should download straight from his list. I got every In Flames and DT album and burned them onto cds. That night I listened to Jester Race on my personal cd player, and the rest is history. Whoever you are, random Napster guy.. thank you!