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Found this old clip (2012ish?) while looking through a drive for something else. The G-Life Caribbean Ocean Blue (COB) Standard has been EOL for years. I still have a 2016 DSG Classic-Ash COB (rosewood fretboard with inlays) that is also EOL.
GIGO - attempt to upscale this is an example of the limits of a poor source; result is garbage out
March 16, 2012 was the final day of operations for the 300 series Shinkansen. This rolling stock made its debut in 1992 and operated on both the Tokaido and Sanyo Shinkansen lines. Initially, the 300 series was utilized for the fastest Nozomi service, but were later repurposed to the slower but more highly utilized Hikari and Kodama services when newer train series were unveiled (500, 700 and N700). As a result, the 300 series became a venerable workhorse during its 20 years of operation. Most sets were pulled back in February but a few specially tagged trains ran until March 16th. Those trains sported a special graphic on both its nose and on the side just to the front of the cabin door; Shinkansen Series 300 ありがとう Last Run 2012.3.16 Several of us went across the country to capture the runs from various points. This is a compilation of those final runs. As someone who personally put a lot of mileage on this series, thank you and goodbye old friend!
Circa 2008. One of those "off the wall" types of content that comes out of having this sarcastic sense of "humor" (developed from having to deal with corporate ignoramuses just a few years earlier) where it was originally something like finding guys who would dress up like salaryman (shirt with tie, slacks, and dress shoes) and running up stone pathed steps (but that never happened).
This was what did end up happening; an entire production (45 minutes in the final edit) of girls who took up the "challenge" of doing a mini interview, then donning sandals (not completely flat either), and running up steps (without anyone face planting; safety measures were taken to remove obstacles) in neighborhoods during the wonderful Tokyo summer.
Triumph re-united in 2008 after being inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame after nearly 2 decades of not having spoken to each other; Rik Emmett (guitars) left the band in 1988 (which turned out to be a messy and acrimonious breakup). Part of reunion led to them performing two shows; the Sweden Rock Festival and Rocklahoma (with the three of them together for the first time since 1988 while for Levine and Moore, the first time since 1993 when Phil X replaced Emmett until they decided to call it quits that same year during a time when the music industry was undergoing major changes).
At the time, there was hopes they would really get back again to do new material and lives (that didn't really materialize and seemed to be destined never to happen).
While pro shot, the entire production of this was not the best quality (tried enhancing/upscaling as best as possible). Rik also had come down with a cold (additionally, he had been tuning down his guitar and vocals for several years by this point).
For the time being, this is about the best upscaling I could get from the GYAO VOD (320x240 15fps low bitrate) to 480p at 30fps. The player on this site unfortunately scales it larger than 480p (when played in a 480p window, it looks decent).
300th live (for context, her 200th show was back on December 31, 2000-January 1, 2001). The number of concerts per year began declining by 2004 since this was during a multi-year period when the Japanese music industry was under going a lot of change (what the rest of the global music industry had been experiencing with the iPod, iTunes, music downloads and streaming services). Additionally, pro shot lives being fully produced became a rarity for her after 2004 due to declining sales of releases (it's a long story due to how the music industry is structured in Japan).
Steve Augeri era
Digital audio (PM1-D) soundboard (raw) + DAT (audience)
Fly over via Excel Air of the Tokyo metropolitan area (circa 2003). Mori Tower in Roppongi was the newest skyscraper at the time. Note: Excel Air used to offer cruising tours out of Urayasu Heliport near Tokyo Disney (but had to relocate in April 2025 and are now located in Tsukuba and also have flying tours in Okinawa)
Pro-shot at 日本武道館 (Nippon Budokan).
Nostalgic trip down memory lane… one of the more interesting side things I got to experience ~25 years ago was being part of the rollout for the then new Yamaha PM1D professional modular digital mixing console for Shiina Hekiru’s 2001 Precious Garden Summer tour. For this 2004 New Years Day show, the 2003 show served as a reference where lessons were taken from it with the presets and production audio mix being dialed in more tightly.
Regardless, I’ve long wanted to “visually re-master” the original pro-shot footage (480p) to at least 1080p but that tech didn’t really exist until recent years. Hours of experimenting with different settings plus GPU processing has resulted in this video which now more closely matches the audio. Getting this to 4K (with excellent quality) is years away BUT I almost got a usable 1440p60 version (maybe a few software iterations away). Anyway, this is the fully “remastered” version in 1080p60.