Toyah - Warrior Rock: Toyah On Tour (Deluxe Edition) [2024 Remaster] (1982)

Remastered and expanded release of Toyah’s 1982 Top 20 album. Originally released as a live double album in October 1982, ‘Warrior Rock’ was recorded at Hammersmith Odeon, London across the final two nights of the tour.

The album presents 15 songs centred around material from the band’s Top Ten albums ‘Anthem’ and ‘The Changeling’. The album is named after ‘Warrior Rock’, the B-Side of Toyah’s 1982 single ‘Brave New World’. The band’s hit singles ‘It’s A Mystery’, ‘I Want To Be Free’ and ‘Thunder In The Mountains’ all feature on the album alongside fan favourites ‘Ieya’, ‘Danced’ and ‘War Boys’.

This expanded re-issue now documents ‘The Changeling Tour’, Toyah’s highly successful run of 25 UK concert dates in June/July 1982 in a more comprehensive fashion. The 3CD set was compiled by Craig Astley and Joel Bogen and presents 41 remastered tracks from master tapes/archive sources featuring 26 previously unreleased bonus tracks. A total of 19 different songs feature from 11 different gigs, recorded at nine different locations.

For the first time ever, the “four sides” of the original live double album are included on CD - unabridged and uncut. Nick Watson/Fluid Mastering has remastered the package from the original master tapes and archive sources, overseen by Joel Bogen.

A wealth of bonus tracks have been unearthed from the archives to provide both a glimpse backstage at concert preparations, and act as a definitive souvenir of the tour’s journey across the UK.

This includes:

• “Street Creature” - a fully mixed and mastered LP outtake from the Hammersmith Odeon concert recording.

• Two recordings from the soundcheck at Hammersmith Odeon from the afternoon of 18 July 1982, including an improvised band jam.

• Five recordings of the tour rehearsal, captured at Brixton Fair Deal (later to become Brixton Academy) including Bird In Flight, Warrior Rock and Life In The Trees, the latter never performed live on any date of The Changeling Tour, and never on any subsequent Toyah tour or gig.

• CD3 presents an alternate to the Warrior Rock LP, capturing 14 songs of ‘Toyah On Tour’ across the UK drawn cherrypicked from recordings at concerts in Newcastle, Bristol, Portsmouth, Sheffield, Liverpool, Birmingham, London and Brighton.

• Neon Womb and Bird In Flight, two songs regularly performed at concerts on the tour, make their release debut.

• A further four tracks on CD2 complete the ‘Toyah On Tour’ selections: It’s A Mystery (Preston), Street Creature (Newcastle) and the uncut, segued Dawn Chorus/War Boys (Liverpool).

• The 3CD package includes a new introductory sleevenote by Toyah Willcox, sleevenotes by Toyah archivist Craig Astley and previously unseen photographs of the Hammersmith Odeon concerts on 17/18 July 1982.