New DS Live Box Set, 3rd November 2023!

[herlock]

Sure. People change. Alchemy was 8 to 9 years earlier.
The line-up was different. Mark had brought in the cream of studio drummers for the two last albums, Brothers In Arms and On Every Street, leaving Terry Williams off the BIA album. I guess it says he was searching for more perfection in the second half of DS career.

Yet, I can promise you one thing. Make a poll on DS fans, ask them which live album they prefer, Alchemy will win hands down over OTN.

OK, part of the reason is that OTN was amputated of the best songs (SOS, TR, TOL) because they were already present on Alchemy, and a double album could not be made for whatever commercial reasons, and Mark wanted a album as different as possible from Alchemy.

But another reason is that Alchemy feels live, whether OTN is often described as "overproduced", "they managed to suck the life out of it"... This is not my view, this poll has been done on this forum.

I would say "Too much perfection kills perfection"

My 2 cents.
Cheers

[Rolo]

This is the kind of over the top commentary that spoils discussions. It's funny, I've read post after post criticising Phil palmer's 'mistake', or saying Mark's solo on a certain song was too fast, blurred. Then in the next breath people want to celebrate the honesty, 'mistakes' and all.
It is NOT about being 'ashamed' of a performance. That is just ridiculous. If you have recorded a fantastic performance of a song and the bass was out of tune (becuase a storm blew in and the temp on stage dropped - hypothetical example), or mark played a blinding solo but fluffed one of his signature moments towards`rds the end - you fix it....everybody fixes it....this is how live albums are made by everyone, which is why most artists do not like audience members recording their shows.

That's exactly what i tried to say here.
I said that MK played blurred notes on Fade To Black in response to the "deep tech" analysis about Phil's "big mistake" on Love Too Much solo.

I am a big fan of MK's work. But, he is human after all. He played a LOT of blurred, mistaken, wrongs or wheteaver notes in his career.

Another thing is that MK and his best man GF said about overbubs, in my opinion, is purely bollocks. They said it only to "keeping the magic" about the Dire Straits live concerts reputation.

I was empolyee of a very small band and the guitar-player made some overbubs for a live DVD record. If a guitar player friend of mine made some overdubs as a emplyeee for a local band for a Local Festival DVD with sold less than 1000 copies, why not the big Dire Straits cannot do it? Because are against their rules.... bollocks.

[Brunno Nunes]

This is the kind of over the top commentary that spoils discussions. It's funny, I've read post after post criticising Phil palmer's 'mistake', or saying Mark's solo on a certain song was too fast, blurred. Then in the next breath people want to celebrate the honesty, 'mistakes' and all.
It is NOT about being 'ashamed' of a performance. That is just ridiculous. If you have recorded a fantastic performance of a song and the bass was out of tune (becuase a storm blew in and the temp on stage dropped - hypothetical example), or mark played a blinding solo but fluffed one of his signature moments towards`rds the end - you fix it....everybody fixes it....this is how live albums are made by everyone, which is why most artists do not like audience members recording their shows.

That's exactly what i tried to say here.
I said that MK played blurred notes on Fade To Black in response to the "deep tech" analysis about Phil's "big mistake" on Love Too Much solo.

I am a big fan of MK's work. But, he is human after all. He played a LOT of blurred, mistaken, wrongs or wheteaver notes in his career.

Another thing is that MK and his best man GF said about overbubs, in my opinion, is purely bollocks. They said it only to "keeping the magic" about the Dire Straits live concerts reputation.

I was empolyee of a very small band and the guitar-player made some overbubs for a live DVD record. If a guitar player friend of mine made some overdubs as a emplyeee for a local band for a Local Festival DVD with sold less than 1000 copies, why not the big Dire Straits cannot do it? Because are against their rules.... bollocks.

I completely agree, although there are many people stuck in myths like Alchemy being a show without overdubs, and that's not so true, we've known for a while that there were overdubs, Terry's mistake at the end of Solid Rock is a great example , they had to use the audio from the previous night to remedy this. Furthermore, the video is not that real, it is known that there are scenes that were filmed after the show in another location, as the filming was not 100% adequate, (lighting and close-ups on the band), this was explained by none other than than Joop de Korte.

Another point, even though Alchemy is more crude and less overproduced than OTN, and that was Mark's philosophy at the time, 1982/1984, in 1992/1993 he was no longer the same person, people change, their interests and stance were others, of course he could use overdubs for OTN with more emphasis, what would stop him if this had already been a very common practice for some time?

Are we talking about something that is not contained in the Box DS Live 78/92? I think OTN and Alchemy are in the box.

[Chris W]

I think that the Alchemy tour was more rough and rock and roll. The OES tour reflected the previous two releases (BIA and OES) which are heavily produced and attempting to achieve perfection. Alchemy has five people on stage, OTN nine. That was entirely Mark's decision and reflected the way he wanted the tour to sound.
It doesn't matter to me which live album people prefer, or which line-up, just so long as they don't blame individual musicians for the way things sounded, because Mark was 110% in control. Likewise the mixing of the OTN album. No one did anything they weren't asked to do by Mark.

[drparkinson]

Thanks to Chris W for your reply to my question re the length of the OES tour and thanks to jbaent for the extra info from the pics and scans.

I am from Sydney and I think part of the reason that the Australian leg did not meet expectations as expressed by Ed Bicknell above, was that they were comparing to the BIA tour which was an extreme success (eg 20 shows in Sydney) which could never be matched by another artist, even DS five years later.  But they still managed to do 9 shows in 1991, which as Chris W pointed out was still more than most other artists would have done at the time.  MK had said the DS experience in Australia in 1986 had been comparable to Beatlemania in some ways, but like Ed Bicknell later said about the OES tour in general, things had changed "The last tour was utter misery, Whatever the zeitgeist was that we had been part of, it had passed."

I attended the first Sydney '91 show and loved every minute of it (especially the new songs). Some interesting things I remember from that night:

At that time, there was some Musicians Union type ruling that any overseas touring act had to have a local Australian artists as an opening act. DS managed to get around this by having a small band playing quietly in the main bar area which meant that only DS played the main show without the distraction of a support band.

I also remember a funny thing with the audience that I haven't seen with any other show. As the audience on Alchemy is mixed very loud, the cheers, shouts, whistles, claps etc are a distinctive part of that record. For most of the songs played that night that had been on Alchemy, it seemed like parts of the audience were replicating these in exactly the same places and exactly the same way to match what had appeared on the album!

[herlock]

I think that the Alchemy tour was more rough and rock and roll. The OES tour reflected the previous two releases (BIA and OES) which are heavily produced and attempting to achieve perfection. Alchemy has five people on stage, OTN nine. That was entirely Mark's decision and reflected the way he wanted the tour to sound.
It doesn't matter to me which live album people prefer, or which line-up, just so long as they don't blame individual musicians for the way things sounded, because Mark was 110% in control. Likewise the mixing of the OTN album. No one did anything they weren't asked to do by Mark.

Agreed 100% with you on this one, Chris
Just one thing, the LOG tour in 1983 had 8 people on stage, not 5: Mark, John, Hal, Alan, Tommy, Terry, Mel, and Joop (who was not seen, but was there on percussions). Same number for BIA tour, just a change of personnel. The OES only added Pedal Steel. Not that much bigger...

[Chris W]

I am from Sydney and I think part of the reason that the Australian leg did not meet expectations as expressed by Ed Bicknell above, was that they were comparing to the BIA tour which was an extreme success (eg 20 shows in Sydney) which could never be matched by another artist, even DS five years later. 

This is true. Also, Australia had just, or was just about to go into an economic depression.
The band were talking about Australia a couple of months before we even got there. the anticipation was high!
Let's be honest here, most of us in the 1991 band had a fantastic time in Australia and New Zealand and really enjoyed the shows.

[herlock]

This is the kind of over the top commentary that spoils discussions. It's funny, I've read post after post criticising Phil palmer's 'mistake', or saying Mark's solo on a certain song was too fast, blurred. Then in the next breath people want to celebrate the honesty, 'mistakes' and all.
It is NOT about being 'ashamed' of a performance. That is just ridiculous. If you have recorded a fantastic performance of a song and the bass was out of tune (becuase a storm blew in and the temp on stage dropped - hypothetical example), or mark played a blinding solo but fluffed one of his signature moments towards`rds the end - you fix it....everybody fixes it....this is how live albums are made by everyone, which is why most artists do not like audience members recording their shows.

That's exactly what i tried to say here.
I said that MK played blurred notes on Fade To Black in response to the "deep tech" analysis about Phil's "big mistake" on Love Too Much solo.

I am a big fan of MK's work. But, he is human after all. He played a LOT of blurred, mistaken, wrongs or wheteaver notes in his career.

Another thing is that MK and his best man GF said about overbubs, in my opinion, is purely bollocks. They said it only to "keeping the magic" about the Dire Straits live concerts reputation.

I was empolyee of a very small band and the guitar-player made some overbubs for a live DVD record. If a guitar player friend of mine made some overdubs as a emplyeee for a local band for a Local Festival DVD with sold less than 1000 copies, why not the big Dire Straits cannot do it? Because are against their rules.... bollocks.

I completely agree, although there are many people stuck in myths like Alchemy being a show without overdubs, and that's not so true, we've known for a while that there were overdubs, Terry's mistake at the end of Solid Rock is a great example , they had to use the audio from the previous night to remedy this. Furthermore, the video is not that real, it is known that there are scenes that were filmed after the show in another location, as the filming was not 100% adequate, (lighting and close-ups on the band), this was explained by none other than than Joop de Korte.

Another point, even though Alchemy is more crude and less overproduced than OTN, and that was Mark's philosophy at the time, 1982/1984, in 1992/1993 he was no longer the same person, people change, their interests and stance were others, of course he could use overdubs for OTN with more emphasis, what would stop him if this had already been a very common practice for some time?

Are we talking about something that is not contained in the Box DS Live 78/92? I think OTN and Alchemy are in the box.

It's not a myth, Alchemy is made only of songs from July 23rd July, as they were, save for Solid Rock which is from 22nd. That's not overdubbing, just picking from another show for one item.
Yes the video is another story, but that was because they were really lacking images, one camera didn't work of something, I would have been very static. For a concert the audio matters so much more IMHO...

[Robson]

This is the kind of over the top commentary that spoils discussions. It's funny, I've read post after post criticising Phil palmer's 'mistake', or saying Mark's solo on a certain song was too fast, blurred. Then in the next breath people want to celebrate the honesty, 'mistakes' and all.
It is NOT about being 'ashamed' of a performance. That is just ridiculous. If you have recorded a fantastic performance of a song and the bass was out of tune (becuase a storm blew in and the temp on stage dropped - hypothetical example), or mark played a blinding solo but fluffed one of his signature moments towards`rds the end - you fix it....everybody fixes it....this is how live albums are made by everyone, which is why most artists do not like audience members recording their shows.

That's exactly what i tried to say here.
I said that MK played blurred notes on Fade To Black in response to the "deep tech" analysis about Phil's "big mistake" on Love Too Much solo.

I am a big fan of MK's work. But, he is human after all. He played a LOT of blurred, mistaken, wrongs or wheteaver notes in his career.

Another thing is that MK and his best man GF said about overbubs, in my opinion, is purely bollocks. They said it only to "keeping the magic" about the Dire Straits live concerts reputation.

I was empolyee of a very small band and the guitar-player made some overbubs for a live DVD record. If a guitar player friend of mine made some overdubs as a emplyeee for a local band for a Local Festival DVD with sold less than 1000 copies, why not the big Dire Straits cannot do it? Because are against their rules.... bollocks.

I completely agree, although there are many people stuck in myths like Alchemy being a show without overdubs, and that's not so true, we've known for a while that there were overdubs, Terry's mistake at the end of Solid Rock is a great example , they had to use the audio from the previous night to remedy this. Furthermore, the video is not that real, it is known that there are scenes that were filmed after the show in another location, as the filming was not 100% adequate, (lighting and close-ups on the band), this was explained by none other than than Joop de Korte.

Another point, even though Alchemy is more crude and less overproduced than OTN, and that was Mark's philosophy at the time, 1982/1984, in 1992/1993 he was no longer the same person, people change, their interests and stance were others, of course he could use overdubs for OTN with more emphasis, what would stop him if this had already been a very common practice for some time?

Are we talking about something that is not contained in the Box DS Live 78/92? I think OTN and Alchemy are in the box.

It's not a myth, Alchemy is made only of songs from July 23rd July, as they were, save for Solid Rock which is from 22nd. That's not overdubbing, just picking from another show for one item.
Yes the video is another story, but that was because they were really lacking images, one camera didn't work of something, I would have been very static. For a concert the audio matters so much more IMHO...

Portobelo Belle from July 22 

[Brunno Nunes]

This is the kind of over the top commentary that spoils discussions. It's funny, I've read post after post criticising Phil palmer's 'mistake', or saying Mark's solo on a certain song was too fast, blurred. Then in the next breath people want to celebrate the honesty, 'mistakes' and all.
It is NOT about being 'ashamed' of a performance. That is just ridiculous. If you have recorded a fantastic performance of a song and the bass was out of tune (becuase a storm blew in and the temp on stage dropped - hypothetical example), or mark played a blinding solo but fluffed one of his signature moments towards`rds the end - you fix it....everybody fixes it....this is how live albums are made by everyone, which is why most artists do not like audience members recording their shows.

That's exactly what i tried to say here.
I said that MK played blurred notes on Fade To Black in response to the "deep tech" analysis about Phil's "big mistake" on Love Too Much solo.

I am a big fan of MK's work. But, he is human after all. He played a LOT of blurred, mistaken, wrongs or wheteaver notes in his career.

Another thing is that MK and his best man GF said about overbubs, in my opinion, is purely bollocks. They said it only to "keeping the magic" about the Dire Straits live concerts reputation.

I was empolyee of a very small band and the guitar-player made some overbubs for a live DVD record. If a guitar player friend of mine made some overdubs as a emplyeee for a local band for a Local Festival DVD with sold less than 1000 copies, why not the big Dire Straits cannot do it? Because are against their rules.... bollocks.

I completely agree, although there are many people stuck in myths like Alchemy being a show without overdubs, and that's not so true, we've known for a while that there were overdubs, Terry's mistake at the end of Solid Rock is a great example , they had to use the audio from the previous night to remedy this. Furthermore, the video is not that real, it is known that there are scenes that were filmed after the show in another location, as the filming was not 100% adequate, (lighting and close-ups on the band), this was explained by none other than than Joop de Korte.

Another point, even though Alchemy is more crude and less overproduced than OTN, and that was Mark's philosophy at the time, 1982/1984, in 1992/1993 he was no longer the same person, people change, their interests and stance were others, of course he could use overdubs for OTN with more emphasis, what would stop him if this had already been a very common practice for some time?

Are we talking about something that is not contained in the Box DS Live 78/92? I think OTN and Alchemy are in the box.

It's not a myth, Alchemy is made only of songs from July 23rd July, as they were, save for Solid Rock which is from 22nd. That's not overdubbing, just picking from another show for one item.
Yes the video is another story, but that was because they were really lacking images, one camera didn't work of something, I would have been very static. For a concert the audio matters so much more IMHO...

Whether it was an overdub or not for the end of Soid Rock, Alchemy was sold as a show 100% without overdubs and the result of a single night, which is why I mentioned "myth", if it weren't for the Bootleg on 07/23/ 83, we wouldn't know that they used something from the show on 7/22/83, as there is no such information in the release.
 
But, of course, Alchemy has this more raw aspect and brings an almost complete experience of a single night, something that doesn't happen in OTN, especially because the proposal was different, different from Alchemy, everything had changed, including the thing itself Mark Knopfler.

[Brunno Nunes]

This is the kind of over the top commentary that spoils discussions. It's funny, I've read post after post criticising Phil palmer's 'mistake', or saying Mark's solo on a certain song was too fast, blurred. Then in the next breath people want to celebrate the honesty, 'mistakes' and all.
It is NOT about being 'ashamed' of a performance. That is just ridiculous. If you have recorded a fantastic performance of a song and the bass was out of tune (becuase a storm blew in and the temp on stage dropped - hypothetical example), or mark played a blinding solo but fluffed one of his signature moments towards`rds the end - you fix it....everybody fixes it....this is how live albums are made by everyone, which is why most artists do not like audience members recording their shows.

That's exactly what i tried to say here.
I said that MK played blurred notes on Fade To Black in response to the "deep tech" analysis about Phil's "big mistake" on Love Too Much solo.

I am a big fan of MK's work. But, he is human after all. He played a LOT of blurred, mistaken, wrongs or wheteaver notes in his career.

Another thing is that MK and his best man GF said about overbubs, in my opinion, is purely bollocks. They said it only to "keeping the magic" about the Dire Straits live concerts reputation.

I was empolyee of a very small band and the guitar-player made some overbubs for a live DVD record. If a guitar player friend of mine made some overdubs as a emplyeee for a local band for a Local Festival DVD with sold less than 1000 copies, why not the big Dire Straits cannot do it? Because are against their rules.... bollocks.

I completely agree, although there are many people stuck in myths like Alchemy being a show without overdubs, and that's not so true, we've known for a while that there were overdubs, Terry's mistake at the end of Solid Rock is a great example , they had to use the audio from the previous night to remedy this. Furthermore, the video is not that real, it is known that there are scenes that were filmed after the show in another location, as the filming was not 100% adequate, (lighting and close-ups on the band), this was explained by none other than than Joop de Korte.

Another point, even though Alchemy is more crude and less overproduced than OTN, and that was Mark's philosophy at the time, 1982/1984, in 1992/1993 he was no longer the same person, people change, their interests and stance were others, of course he could use overdubs for OTN with more emphasis, what would stop him if this had already been a very common practice for some time?

Are we talking about something that is not contained in the Box DS Live 78/92? I think OTN and Alchemy are in the box.

It's not a myth, Alchemy is made only of songs from July 23rd July, as they were, save for Solid Rock which is from 22nd. That's not overdubbing, just picking from another show for one item.
Yes the video is another story, but that was because they were really lacking images, one camera didn't work of something, I would have been very static. For a concert the audio matters so much more IMHO...

Portobelo Belle from July 22 

Looks like Twisting by the Pool too! Things seem to have started to change!

[Robson]

Every time I see this bus and the countries that Dire Straits didn't reach, I feel sorry.

[Matchstickman]

Frankly, I have always been more of a fan of the OES tour than LOG/Alchemy. Back in 1983, DS was still something of a retro-rock band. Mark's guitar sound was mostly pretty thin for rock guitar. Later, after the BIA tour and around the time of 1988, the Mandela gig and the Clapton tour, Mark moved into the Pensas and a fatter overdriven sound.

The live intro to Heavy Fuel on OTN seems inconceivable in 1983 - by 1992, Mark had reached full guitar hero status, stadium rock mode. (He probably picked up the habit of introducing songs with some improvised loud noodling from Clapton on the tour with him (like on Crossroads in 1988).)

As much as I like the Sultans version from Alchemy, overall that record does simply not feature my favourite type of sound overall. Industrial Disease, Expresso Love... They sound a bit thin for rock songs, whereas the OES tour sound on CE, When it Comes to You, ITILYTM, Solid Rock, etc., is great - fatter, with more bite. Phil Palmer probably played a part in this, and was mixed louder than Hal Lindes (at least on recordings, Hal is often barely audible).

But of course Alchemy is more famous album - it was the first, after all, and the first "live" encounter with DS on record. And it had THE Sultans version.

[herlock]

My criticism was more directed to OTN as an overproduced live album, than to the OES tour itself. The OES tour was the only one I got to see for real, I have fond memories of it. Mark was on top on this playing. I'm one of the few here who really appreciate TOL from this era. Even Sultans, I overall prefer the Alchemy version, but I find the sax break so lovely on the OES tour.
I don't find the earlier sound "thin", the Schecter sound is pretty heavy to me, I find the Pensa tone rather soft in comparison.
And Mark may have moved to Stadium Rock for the OES tour, but then he got sick and tired of it, and came back to basis: smaller scale Fender, Les Paul, rather than "one size fits all" Pensa...

[JF]

Chris, you say that 99,99% live album have overdubbs

I hope you are talking about thoses recorded during eighties and nineties and afterwards, but it's not the case in "legendary" live albums right ?

I can't think that there are overdubbds in :

- get yer ya-ya's out !
- rock'n'roll animal
- ABB at Filmore East
- woodstock
- Wight
- Derek & the Dominos at the Fillmore
- Cream at the fillmore
- Live/dead
- The last waltz
- Rust never sleeps

etc...

I know some of them do have editing, but that's not the same think than overdubbing in the studio...