HAND Demos
 

Have there ever been decent sounding versions of the HAND demos released? I know Nothing doesn't exist, but what about the original versions of HAND and I Want To Be Loved?

This is one thing about this band that irks the crap out of me. So many other bands will release their entire vault for their fans. I don't know jack about the music industry, but I would imagine it's very inexpensive to remaster and release these tracks. Hell, just do it digitally. I had so much hope after the NJ special edition came out. Sucks beyond words that the rest of the catalog never got the same treatment.

OT (sort of), but if you want to see how a real special edition is done, check out the upcoming 30th anniversary of Hysteria. Granted, I have the majority of what's extra, but I love that they're including extended versions of hits and remastered live audio from In The Round, In Your Face.

Someone's a little pissed today? :D

Actually, besides Nothing having some sort of static noise (but still very listenable, check out my recent YT remaster), the other tunes are available in fairly good quality from the promo CD back in 2004. I actually prefer the original Have A Nice Day, I Wanna Be Loved and Bells of Freedom over the final album versions.

Hey, just posted a message to your wall. Can't send a PM.

NJ's special edition tanked so badly that it cemented similar projects getting re-released. Not promoting it certainly hurt matters but it happening in the middle of the Richie shitstorm probably hurt it more. You can't avoid talking about the past when the right hand guy there for it all has vanished.

But it DOES Cost money to have things remastered and released and they usually don't sell so it's not really a Bon Jovi is crap so much as a this-won't-sell problem.

I can't imagine the NJ SE tanked any worse than lesser bands similar releases. It's for die-hards only. One of the issues with NJ was the video portion. It was nothing new, and there was no live audio. Bad move.

That was my thought process as well. It would be interesting to see comparable data of copies sold and chart positions for similar anniversary edition releases. All we had was NJ SE chart positions that were terrible, but were they more terrible than similar releases?

The logic suggests that these are profitable - how expensive really is to hire one guy to remix some stuff, then hire another one for new artwork, etc.? it's probably more complicated than that, but should be peanuts compared to a making of a new studio album. If they were not profitable, there would not be so many of them.

Bon jovi don't sell records anymore so the label not gonna release an average albums (hand) unused tracks

Yeah, OK. Any idea how many labels would kill to have an album sell over 100k albums in total, let alone 1st week?

But if you're implying the demos from an album that sold decent 12 years ago are going to sell as good or better, I don't think they will. It's a filter, this won't appeal to Bon Jovi's fan base entirely, it will appeal to the post 2000 fans.

I would love to compare the numbers to NJ to similar type releases, for sure. I've said from day one they should be putting out everything they have digitally and putting a minimal price on it. It'll get torrented and past around the fangroups but it'll still make money with less of an overhead. I would love the whole package with a nice book and dvd but I have to be realistic.

I can't find a single HAND demo CD from 2004 anywhere. Any suggestions?

Just search for Unbreakable, Nothing and These Open Arms on YT.
If you add "demo" to the search of Bells of Freedom, I Want To Be Loved and Have A Nice Day there, you'll find the earlier versions as well.

I've got all those. The sound quality on HAND and IWTBL is crappy.

What about week 2, then 3 , then 4?

100 percent. If AEG had their hand in both the recorded stuff and the live stuff so it not selling didn't matter, it was an advertisement for the tour and gave them another reason to hit the road with a new stage and new songs. Does anyone know if AEG was tied with Island/Def Jam and was that part of their deal?

If you're looking for the original original promo cd that got leaked, that got put out in such small circles. I think I heard there was some beep somewhere on Bells of Freedom so if it ever hit the public they can trace back where it came from. I don't think it ever got massively released in public, easy to find torrent sites.

I've searched on and off for a CDrip of this for years and could never find it. I do have very murky low-quality mp3s of just the "alternate" versions and "Nothing" which I've had since between 2005/06 but could never find a lossless CD quality version of the entire album. And I've looked hard.

"Bells of Freedom" did have a small section of the song cut out on the MP3 I have so I'm guessing that was some digital watermark that would help trace the original owner(s). Would love to have the CD version of the entire 2004 album.

I feel like it was Seb that connected the first verse and chorus to the album version. But yah, it's not easy to find in the least.

HAND Demos
 

Ah ok. It's just in your previous post, you said it was easy to find on torrent sites and I was like, "I've looked high and low for this and can't find it anywhere". I know a few people on this board years ago claimed to have had a copy of the CD but due to the watermark tracking, understandably, didn't want to share it.

It's a shame none of these 2004 alternate versions weren't released as b-sides on the Have a Nice Day singles instead of the so-so live tracks we got instead. An official release would be nice but I understand the likelihood/demand is very slim overall. I don't even care if they don't get remastered. Just a digital release would do as long as they're better quality than the mp3s I have.

The MP3s I do have though, I can pretty much "make" the 2004 version myself by combining them with the remaining tracks from the official album.

Sorry, what I meant was the original, lossless cd distributed in 2004 is very very hard to find. The bootleg of that is pretty easy to find. Those are the versions most people have but the original, lossless Bells of Freedom in full has never been leaked out to public places like youtube.

Most of the HAND demos are just not different enough to warrant an official release. The pronoun changing is all that's incredibly different in I want to be loved. Would love to see the original Bells released, the lyrics are incredibly better and less about personal empowerment.

That's ok, thanks for clearing that up for me. I appreciate a physical CD copy of the 2004 version is scarce to say the least but I'm not the least bit bothered about a physical copy. I would love to have just a lossless wav/flac rip of the whole 2004 album, even if "Bells of Freedom" is clipped a bit. Never been able to find it and like I say, I've been looking high and low for it (on and off) for a good 10 years now.

I agree that the entire 2004 album in itself probably wouldn't warrant an official release due to now not-very-different it sounds compared to the final album but as part of a digital deluxe edition or something would do.

I actually have a full copy of Bells Of Freedom in MP3 format, just gave it a listen and I don't hear any edits, clips or anything. It's just not perfect quality, but better than Nothing...

My "Bells of Freedom" MP3 has a segment cut out that make the first verse merge into midway through the chorus. I can't for the life of me remember the lyrics for the 2004 version off hand and haven't heard it for some time. My copy has decent quality compared so the other 2004 songs I have.

Hmm, no mine doesn't have that. But I noticed that I probably do have that "watermark" in there in the first verse, but it's not too distracting.

Yet I'm wondering if I have a version that's cut together, since the lyrics don't seem to make a whole lot of sense just before the bridge, though no edits are audible. Does anyone have the lyrics to the demo version?

The quality is identical for all the songs in the source I got it from. Just that that noise (from the cymbals?) in Nothing is way too much, especially in this version, since all files are only 160 kbit/s MP3.

EDIT: this seems like the version that I have. The "watermark" is at 0:24, and the lyrics I talked about at 0:46:

Hi i found this bootleg called have a nice day outtakes. I bought this from a japanese site
http://rockcollectors.shop-pro.jp/?pid=30817740
I was wondering where they got all the recordings from cuz it kinda sounds pretty decent

Does that have a version of Nothing without all that noise? Probably not?

Actually, yah, that Youtube is the full version. I didn't even realize it was on Youtube, thanks guys!

These Japanese sites sell about any kind of bootleg, no matter what the quality is. That being said - the quality of most of the tracks on the original CD (bar Nothing) was really nice.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking, hence the question. The quality of my version is really nice as well, albeit only 160 kbit/s MP3. Would be happy to find it in 320 kbit/s, but other than that, it's great.

The original rip (although shared as FLAC files) in fact is lossy and cuts off at around 160kHz. As I found out lately, many of "rare original rips" from that person were in fact horribly compressed files.

Sorry, I take it back, this Bells demo is the cut is the one Seb I think made. It cuts back into the released version then back into the demo.

It's just strange that you don't hear any (even subtle) sound differences. And it's obviously the version used for the demo lyrics floating around the net. It's just that they don't make a lot of sense to me around the 0:45 mark, or is it just me?

Have a nice day demo has a weird noise during the chorus but its still a little decent compared to the one on youtube
Nothing is better
I want be loved demo has a noise only on the last chorus
Who says is a bit rough but its still good
Bell of freedom and complicated are both good
Saturday night was excellent
Welcome to wherever you are was excellent too
Who says acoustic version was good too
Where do the noises come from for the demos?

Tempted to pick that Japanese bootleg up. Is the sound quality an improvement over the old mp3s? I remember my copy of "Bells of Freedom" sounding decent enough (save for that segment clipped out) and "Complicated" sounded ok as well but "I Want to be Loved" and "Nothing" sound quality wasn't so good.

Yes better than the ones On YT. Nothing was fair enough have a nice day was a little disturbing but i think its fair enough. Saturday night was excellent!

Saturday Night?

Yeah they have someday I'll be Saturday night studio acoustic demo
http://redbankbj.com/wp/?p=4668

Even without having that one I'm almost certain that Saturday Night isn't the acoustic demo from the studio rather than some acoustic live performance like this one:

Didn't sound like a live performance....
I doubt they will get rid of the crowd noise so well ok maybe not a demo but it was some sort of studio recording...

I don't want to kill the flow of this thread, but if anyone has the Complicated demo I would love to hear it. That's completely new to me that there even is a demo of the song so would be a thrill to hear!!