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Afterimage video footage?

Grace :)

Grace :)

GUP Fangirl
Staff member
I am curious as to whether or not better-quality video footage of Afterimage exists currently. I'm pretty sure the official pro-shot footage of the tour was of the whole concert, but I don't believe Afterimage was played those nights (Kid Gloves was played on the latter 2/5 of the tour, with the remaining 1/5 omitting both songs altogether). The only known footage I can find is here:



If anyone knows where I can find better footage, please let me know. This is one of my favorite songs from the album (aside from Between the Wheels, which video of it exists). I have all I desire in the sound quality department (aside from a soundboard of this song), but video would make it even better.
 
I'll have to double check later, but from what I can remember, this is indeed the only known footage of Afterimage. You are correct that by the time the pro-shot Toronto show was filmed, Afterimage had already been swapped out of the setlist in favor of Kid Gloves. If the full concert was filmed, it may or may not have been stored away in the "vault", but at the least it has never been released in any version other than the hour long cut we're all familiar with.

Footage from the 70s and early-mid 80s is super rare, so not much is out there. I think there were two or three audience videos of the GUP tour, the only other I can remember at the moment is the one from Japan at the end of the tour, which by that point neither Afterimage or Kid Gloves were being played.

At some point in the future I'll upload all this rare Rush footage on the site, I would first just like to try to see if there is a better quality version of each known video, as some of what is on YouTube is a bit degraded, having been captured from higher generation copies.
 
By-Tor X-1 said:
I'll have to double check later, but from what I can remember, this is indeed the only known footage of Afterimage. You are correct that by the time the pro-shot Toronto show was filmed, Afterimage had already been swapped out of the setlist in favor of Kid Gloves. If the full concert was filmed, it may or may not have been stored away in the "vault", but at the least it has never been released in any version other than the hour long cut we're all familiar with.

Footage from the 70s and early-mid 80s is super rare, so not much is out there. I think there were two or three audience videos of the GUP tour, the only other I can remember at the moment is the one from Japan at the end of the tour, which by that point neither Afterimage or Kid Gloves were being played.

At some point in the future I'll upload all this rare Rush footage on the site, I would first just like to try to see if there is a better quality version of each known video, as some of what is on YouTube is a bit degraded, having been captured from higher generation copies.
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Yeah, I feel like the raw footage itself isn't terrible, but the fact that it was uploaded with heavy compression makes it look and sound worse than the original would.

Hopefully the current owners of the masters can be contacted to either digitize, or even sell their masters to someone that can digitize them.
 
That's the problem with most of these 80s audience videos on YouTube, the compression and/or generational loss just makes it seem much more awful than they actually probably are.

So I checked one of my sources, and what it contains are three audience videos from the GUP tour, so I'm going to assume these are the only GUP audience footage out there:
1984-07-14 - Montreal Forum, Montreal, Quebec (first night) (the one you posted)
1984-07-15 - Montreal Forum, Montreal, Quebec (second night)
1984-11-21 - Nippon Budokan, Tokyo, Japan

So that would mean we have two live videos of Afterimage. I imagine it was recorded by the same person, and I'm going to make a wild guess that it was the same person who recorded the two nights at the Montreal Forum in 1983 on the Signals tour as well. I often wish I could contact owners of masters, not just for video but a lot of audio, to get better generational sources of so many shows, but finding out who owns these tapes and how to contact them seems like a great undertaking and I wouldn't really know how to start.

I'm going to check out the quality of these videos, but I think these will be as close to the masters that are in circulation, I'll try to get them uploaded sometime fairly soon. I've got a couple other requests on my list right now, alongside my own current plans to work chronologically through Hemispheres tour recordings.

I'll keep you updated as soon as possible.
 
Honestly, the first step to contact the original owners would probably be making some post on some social media platform where the original owner of the masters may be registered. Like you said though, it's quite a far stretch and may not be worth the effort. Of all the footage, the Tokyo one is probably the most valuable, considering it has the best audio of them all, despite having some weird discoloration effect on the film.

On that note, would you happen to know what type of discoloration the Tokyo footage has. If we know what it is, it may be possible to revert some of it.
 
Sad thing is: the quality of this footage is even worse than the footage of the previous Signals tour at the same location. With so many details missing, there is no real way to recover or remaster it with software unless you do it by hand for each frame.
 
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By-Tor X-1 said:
That's the problem with most of these 80s audience videos on YouTube, the compression and/or generational loss just makes it seem much more awful than they actually probably are.

So I checked one of my sources, and what it contains are three audience videos from the GUP tour, so I'm going to assume these are the only GUP audience footage out there:
1984-07-14 - Montreal Forum, Montreal, Quebec (first night) (the one you posted)
1984-07-15 - Montreal Forum, Montreal, Quebec (second night)
1984-11-21 - Nippon Budokan, Tokyo, Japan

So that would mean we have two live videos of Afterimage. I imagine it was recorded by the same person, and I'm going to make a wild guess that it was the same person who recorded the two nights at the Montreal Forum in 1983 on the Signals tour as well. I often wish I could contact owners of masters, not just for video but a lot of audio, to get better generational sources of so many shows, but finding out who owns these tapes and how to contact them seems like a great undertaking and I wouldn't really know how to start.

I'm going to check out the quality of these videos, but I think these will be as close to the masters that are in circulation, I'll try to get them uploaded sometime fairly soon. I've got a couple other requests on my list right now, alongside my own current plans to work chronologically through Hemispheres tour recordings.

I'll keep you updated as soon as possible.
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Do you happen to know where I can view the second night recording? I can't seem to find it anywhere.
 
Grace said:
Do you happen to know where I can view the second night recording? I can't seem to find it anywhere.
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Dave said:
Lordy, how I’d love to see this. (I’ve had the other two vids for years, both on VHS even.)
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I'll see if I can get it uploaded soon, maybe this week. I never even checked it out yet, I just know the file is available in one of my sources.

I'm eager to get back around to uploading shows more frequently again. Unfortunately my output has plummeted for quite a while now, since my time and energy has been greatly lacking.
There's lots of Rush for me to share and I still plan on reaching that end goal.
 
By-Tor X-1 said:
I'll see if I can get it uploaded soon, maybe this week. I never even checked it out yet, I just know the file is available in one of my sources.

I'm eager to get back around to uploading shows more frequently again. Unfortunately my output has plummeted for quite a while now, since my time and energy has been greatly lacking.
There's lots of Rush for me to share and I still plan on reaching that end goal.
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I found an audio-only bootleg of the second night (Afterimage sounds amazing here), but am really excited to see video of it. I really do hope it is better quality like the one from the Signals Tour or Power Windows Tour.

 
One of the things I love about listening to p/g shows is every time the audience loses its mind for lasers and video. (We were a simple folk back in the ’80s. 😄)

You have to watch the boot vid linked above to see the cool laser shit they did for “Between the Wheels,” and the insane cartoon during the breakdown in “Red Lenses.”
 
Dave said:
One of the things I love about listening to p/g shows is every time the audience loses its mind for lasers and video. (We were a simple folk back in the ’80s. 😄)

You have to watch the boot vid linked above to see the cool laser shit they did for “Between the Wheels,” and the insane cartoon during the breakdown in “Red Lenses.”
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Red lenses is always a treat when looking at Rush bootlegs. Not just because of the audience reaction, but from Geddy's Scream, the drum solo, or in the case of the Japan/Hawaii concerts, the bass solo. I almost exclusively listen to these bootlegs for the Afterimage, Kid Gloves, Between the Wheels, and Red Lenses.
 
Just a heads up, I've been doing a few things with the video this morning, so hopefully I can upload it today or by the weekend at the latest.
It's clearly an old VHS rip, high generation, doesn't look too great, but it is fairly watchable I suppose. Sound is average, and nothing near as bad as the Rochester 1985 footage.
If a better audio source is available, the sound could be swapped out, but that usually leads to a syncing nightmare at various speeds, and if so, is outside of my skill range.
I can take a look at my separate audio source, and if it is better, I'll see if I can sync it, but that'll take me a bit more time before I'd be able to share it.
I will upload it as is for now so you guys don't have to keep waiting, I just removed about 10 or so loud digital bleeps from the raw audio, so after I reprocess the video, it should be good to go.
 
Bad news, I was watching it and started to get suspicious, so I went check out the previous night in Montreal, and come to find this alleged second night is just a much worse quality VHS copy of the same recording, with the date mislabeled. I'm very sorry, I wish I'd known this sooner.
 
With that being said, I plan to upload the full footage of the better quality version I have. It's the same copy that @Grace shared in the first post, with the watermark at the bottom. That seems to be the best version in public circulation.

While I'm at it, I may upload the Budokan '84 footage, the Uniondale '86 footage, and I suppose the nasty sounding Rochester '85 footage as well.
There are also two or three from the HYF tour I may do as well, then I'll have all the known 1980s sound footage uploaded.
I can also double check my old uploads of the two Montreal '83 footage and the Quebec '86 footage to make sure I have the best quality versions available.
 
It's ok, at least we have audio from that night. Otherwise, I wonder if we can find 1st gen masters of those concerts. The YouTube footage suffers from bad compression, so having a less-compressed version would be better.
 
I will upload the video files directly as a download link here on the site. Also, the version I reupload to YouTube should be less compressed than those old videos. A lot of old YouTube uploads have high compression, I can't remember if they used to have a file size limit, or if it's just that he uploader didn't know what they were doing, but for some reason many old uploads don't look that great.

To truly get a lower generation source, the original taper would have to be found and contacted, or some deep digging by contacting old traders to get a new transfer of any low gen copy they may have. The source I have is very likely the best one in known circulation, so finding anything better won't be easy.
 
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