Update (1/21/03)

Update (11/10/03)

While I found the quality of the performance was very good, I can't believe the song selections chosen for the cd. Anyone who went to the show will agree that the "highlight" was "Never Without You". Besides eliminating that song, also missing was "You're Sixteen", "Photograph", "No No Song", and "Don't Go Where The Road Don't Go" from Ringo, and a couple of others from the band that I think would be a better choice. Most of the songs on this release, were in fact issued previously, from past tours. On a positive side "Memphis On My Mind", and "Who Can It Be Now", from Colin Hay, were great to hear!

Update (11/8/03) More comments on the Ringo tour CD. First from Frank C. Branchini:

I love Ringo, I have loved each of his tours including this one, and I love the recorded souvenirs, even if they are exasperating. I have one major complaint about this disc and one minor one. The major complaint is the absence of Here Comes The Sun and Never Without You. What were they thinking when they left these off?!!!!! This is a huge disappointment. The minor complaint is that either the audience was sedated or crowd noises have been mixed so low that this sounds like a studio recording. For the most part that is okay except there are places where the band is clearly interacting with an audience that is audibly invisible. Most notably, Sheila E does a call and response routine where she does the call and there is dead silence in response. Somewhat disconcerting it is!

Ringo is the Starr of the procedeeings. Sheila E is the queen of the All Starrs. Colin Hay and Paul Carrack are fine. John Waite is the weak link on this disc as he was in the show. When I See You Smile is the low point of the disc. A completely unmemorable tune. Missing You is a much better song.

I would give this disc three out of five stars (I'm taking one off because it doesn't contain Never Without You). Because it has Memphis In Your Mind and Don't Pass Me By I would rate it as an ESSENTIAL purchase for fans.

The new All-Starr CD arrived today, with the same cover note Kris mentioned. It was worth the wait.

The title is "Tour 2003." Its a single disc clocking in at just a tad under 70 (!) minutes. The chatter between songs is left in. Its the July 24th show minus, Never Without You, Photograph, The No No Song, Overkill, Tempted, Isn't It Time, We Can Work It Out, Here Comes The Sun, Act Naturally, You're 16, and Don't Go Where The Road Don't Go. The sixteen songs which made the final cut are presented somewhat in the order of the show, with a couple of exceptions for the All-Starr guest soloists. The production is very clean, almost studio-like. The lead vocals are mixed to the front, so that I can finally understand the lyrics to Memphis In My Mind, A Love Bizarre, etc. (just kidding, kidding). The clean vocals make the instruments sound sparse and the audience sound incidental. Paul Carrack's piano is also procted up in the mix, which is nice 'cause I couldn't hear the keyboards well at the show my wife and I saw in Easton,Pa.

I've caught a show from every one of the All-Starr tours and I've bought every one of the All-Starr albums. I am admittedly disappointed that We Can Work It Out, Here Comes The Sun, and Tempted (the highlight of the Easton show) were omitted here. That notwithstanding, this is an excellent record. It rivals the l993 tour (with Walsh, Cummings et. al.) and its Montreux album for "Best of the Bunch" honors.

I received my copy of the "Tour 2003" Ringo CD today (Friday). I'm assuming "Tour 2003" is the title of the CD, as that is the only thing listed on the CD other than of course the band's name.

My overall feeling about this CD is good. There are nit-picky things, of course. The CD features a very democractic two songs per artist for everybody except Ringo, who gets exactly half of the 16 tracks. The song selection is good overall. We get two of the three "new" songs Ringo added to the setlist, "Don't Pass Me By" and "Memphis In Your Mind." It would have been nice to have "Never Without You", but we've heard reports that the performance of this song was a bit ragged at the beginning of the tour, and to some degree throughout the tour, so it's deletion is not surprising.

However, I would have like to see Colin Hay's "Overkill" and Paul Carrack's "Tempted", especially since 6 of the 8 Ringo songs on the CD have already seen release on past live albums, as have both of Shiela E's songs.

The performance overall is actually quite good. I've heard that they were a bit more ragged at the beginning of the tour. I was certainly surprised to read some negative reviews of their shows from early in the tour, but by the end of the tour (when I saw them), they seemed to be pretty tight. In any event, they actually sound pretty tight on this performance as well. Waite hits a few sour bass notes, those are the only very prominent flubs. They did sound tighter than this when I saw them at the end of the tour, but the performance on this CD overall is still pretty good.

The mix on the CD is excellent, much better than the DVD or either of the CD releases from the 2001 tour (which had way too much echo/reverb added). I really can't tell how much if any post-production work/overdubbing was done on this CD, but I would guess it was very little if any.

The artwork is pretty straight-forward, formatted much like the tour program. Strangely, there actually are no credits listed for which artist performs which song. It's pretty obvious to most listeners, but the only credits for each song listed are the songwriting credits, which often aren't the same as the person who performs the song, obviously. The disc itself looks nice, it features the same artwork as the cover art, and in full-color.

Also worth noting is that while the CD is listed as being owned and produced by Ringo and David Fishof, the Koch Records logo is also on the CD. It's a bit odd that Koch is involved in this release, yet they have not announced any plans to release the CD in any form other than David Fishof's company selling them via mailorder. I would imagine an "official" or "in-store" release will take place at some point, likely through Koch. Which brings me to my final point. This CD was sold for $30, $25 plus $5 for shipping and handling. (The package I received had $1.06 in postage stamps on it, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that their "handling" really cost them almost $4 per CD). $25 is a bit steep for a single CD, but I was assuming this was an independent release, which usually end up costing more. But I'll admit that I'll probably be a bit upset if this pops up from Koch in stores for something like $14.99. I'll be even more upset if this thing gets released in stores with "bonus tracks".

In any event, the slight nit-picks about the track lineup and the pricing aside, this CD is a good thing. Despite a lot of overlap between each of Ringo's tours, I think it's worthwhile to have a released record of each tour. Ringo has done this on the last two tours, (2003 and 2001), and also included a few 2000 tracks on the "Anthology...So Far" CD set, leaving the 1999 tour as the only totally unrepresented tour on either video or CD. I look forward to the DVD of the 2003 tour (assuming that is still released, which of course I do not know). I would reccomend this CD to any fans of Ringo's All-Starr band, it actually is one of the best single-disc CD releases from an All-Starr tour that Ringo has done. (Had they released the full 1997 show on CD, that would be my favorite).

Update (11/7/03)

Hey Steve,

My copy of the Ringo live disc from this past summer's tour arrived in the mail today. Packaging is very similar to the program for the tour, and liner notes contain a message from Ringo and an excerpt of a Detroit review by Gary Graff. Here's the track listing:

1. It Don't Come Easy
2. Honey Don't
3. Memphis in Your Mind
4. How Long
5. Down Under
6. When I See You Smile
7. Love Bizarre
8. Boys
9. Don't Pass Me By
10. Yellow Submarine
11. Living Years
12. Missing You
13. Glamorous Life
14. I Wanna Be Your Man
15. Who Can It Be Now
16. With a Little Help From My Friends

Steve,

Came home this afternoon to find the new Ringo Tour 2003 CD in my mailbox! It was accompanied by a short note on a blue piece of paper, that reads:

Dear Fan,

Thank you for buying the Ringo Starr and the All Starr Band Live CD, and for your patience in the delay of its arrival. You are one of the first to receive this album and I hope you enjoy it!

Regards,
David Fishof Presents

... I ordered it within a day or two of getting the flyer at Westbury. The official title is Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band Tour 2003. There is a photo of Ringo giving his familiar peace sign on the cover, along with small photos on the side of each of the other band members.

The inside cover piece is 2 pages, and includes a review of the 8/7 Detroit show, the same small pix of the band that are on the cover, and a sweet quote from Ringo: "I am truly blessed to be performing with these talented artists. I give warm thanks to all of you in supporting the All Starr Band and myself these past fourteen years. It's true what they say. Music makes the world go round. Stay tuned to my website at www.ringostarr.com. Peace and Love, Ringo Starr. Special thanks to Barbara."

The CD itself has the same cover pic of Ringo, along with the little coat of arms that was displayed on the T-shirt that was for sale on the tour. Credit is given to Ringo and David F. as exec producers.

I haven't listened to it yet, but I'm sure it'll be

great. Wanted to let you know that it's finally out!

Update (10/28/03)

"We should have them in our office this week and will be sending them out as soon as we get them."

Update (10/6/03)

The CDs are being made this week and will go out next week. There needed to be some studio work done and it needed work done after the tour completed.

Update (9/10/03)

Please tell the people who have inquired that the CD is still in the final stages of production and as soon as it gets to us that we will ship them immediately. Thank you for your patience.

Update (9/9/03)

Update (8/17/03) We've updated our pic of the flyer with another version that David Fishoff Presents sent that's easier to read and printable. (Note: We have nothing to do with the distribution of this CD, so any questions should be sent to the address on the flyer.)

(8/8/03) At left is the flyer handed out at the Westbury shows. Patti Murawski says, "At the merchandise stall there was a blue paper flyer on the counter advertising a live CD from this tour with the recording having been done at Casino Rama in Canada. There is an address to send check, money order, etc., but according to the flyer you can find the info on one of Ringo's websites, too." (It doesn't seem to be there yet.) (Thanks to Grappa6771 for the scan of the flyer.)