Vigotone 218 - 234 Encore

Thirty Days - Encore Edition (Ltd. Ed.) (2003 Japanese reissue)

The Beatles

Number	Year	Format
VT-218-234	2003 (2000 on discs and packaging)	CD

Special Features

Comes with a denim CD wallet, 20-page booklet, a Thirty Days magnet, and a 3-D serial-numbered seal.


Front	Booklet	Magnet	Back insert w/numbered 3-D seal

Inside the set.

The Booklet

The booklet included with this title features the following information:

- Introduction by the folks at Vigotone
- Complete track information
- Recording information

First, some background on the Japanese Vigotone CDs:

The collectors' CD market in Japan is very developed and Japanese collectors are very discriminating. Collectors in Japan don't care for CDR bootlegs, instead preferring real "pressed" CDs.

Vigotone's Japanese distributor was able to get real CDs pressed in Japan for the seven releases between Thirty Days and More Music For A Rainy Day:

1. Thirty Days - The Beatles - 17 discs - Vigotone label
2. Brandy Alexanders & The Wall Of Sound - John Lennon - 3 discs - Vigotone label
3. Goodbye Surfing, Hello God - The Beach Boys - 5 discs - Vigotone label
4. All Things Must Surface - George Harrison - 2 discs - Reproman label
5. Aloha From Hawaii (And Hollywood) - The Beach Boys - 1 disc - Spank label
6. Alf Together Now - The Beatles - 1 disc - Spank label
7. More Music For A Rainy Day - Jan & Dean - 1 disc - Vigotone label

When Vigotone went out of business in 2001, their Japanese distributor obviously had leftover discs waiting for Vigotone packaging to come over from the U.S.A. But, obviously the packaging wasn't on its way and the discs sat in storage.

Fast forward to 2003:

The leftover CDs started to find their way into shops again, albeit in newly-created, non-original packaging. Judging from the paper stock used for the Alf Together Now and Brandy Alexanders reissues, the same person prepared both (as well as doing the Last Flight reissue from scratch). It's still unclear if the original distributor prepared the new packaging himself, but it looks more like he sold the discs in bulk to a different dealer who came up with the new packaging.

A different dealer was able to buy the leftover copies of Thirty Days (and was offered the Beach Boys & Jan & Dean CDs, but turned those down. It remains to be seen what happened to the All Things Must Surface CDs...)

Now that you're caught up on the history of the Vigotone Japanese CDs, that brings us to the Thirty Days - Encore Edition!

This set includes all 17 original CDs, packaged in a denim CD wallet with the Thirty Days artwork on the front. A 20-page booklet of track information is included, as is a Thirty Days magnet. The set is a limited edition of 35 units. It comes with a 3-D logo sticker that has the serial number on it.

Unlike the other Vigotone re-issues ("Alf" & "Brandy"), this set doesn't have mass-produced packaging. (The low number of units available made that unfeasable.) The packaging is "home grown", but very high quality. And, unlike the other reissues, this has value-added bonus items that Vigotone was known for. A lot of thought was put into the making of this collection.

For more information about just what Thirty Days contains music-wise, please see the main page on this site! Click here!

Package Back Text

So what makes this collection "ultimate"? First off, everything on these 17 discs has been digitally transferred with great care from master tapes. So they sound better than they have ever before! More than 500 rolls of tape were sifted through, and only the best and most interesting performances were chosen for inclusion. In some cases, performances have even been painstakingly reconstructed from as many as three tape sources. Secondly, the dialogue and stop-and-go rehearsals that sometimes made listening to "Get Back" sessions a chore have been bypassed, with only "takes", serious run-throughs, oldies, and the more interesting and structured jams being presented. All the performances that made up the "Let It Be" album (except for those recorded outside the time frame of the "Get Back" sessions) can be heard in their original, unadulterated form. And for the very first time the January 30th rooftop concert has been meticulously reconstructed from ALL existing source material, while the January 31st session that produced "Two of Us", "The Long and Winding Road", and "Let It Be" is presented in a form more complete (and enjoyable!) form than ever before. Most importantly, there's tons of new material heard here for the first time. So, hit play and enjoy the Get Back sessions like you never have before.