Dire Straits - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: In Concert, Woburn Abbey, Bedfordshire, Britain, 6-20-1992

Here's a very nice complete Dire Straits concert from 1992. It's the third and last BBC album I have for them.

Dire Straits became superstars with their 1985 album "Brothers in Arms." It went on to sell thirty million copies, making it one of the top 30 best selling albums of all time. After a long tour to support that album, band leader Mark Knoplfer was exhausted by all the pressures of stardom and took a few years off. Dire Straits came back with a studio album in late 1991, "On Every Street." It was a relative disappointment, selling "only" five million. But still, most musical acts would kill for those kinds of numbers.

Another big worldwide tour followed, lasting a full year, until October 1992. The BBC recorded them while they stopped by Britain. This album is unreleased, but the sound quality and performance is excellent. After the tour ended, the band broke up for good, except for a handful of reunion shows.

As an aside, the opening act for this concert was Lyle Lovett. That was broadcast on the BBC as well, and I plan on posting that eventually.

The album is two hours and two minutes long.

01 Calling Elvis (Dire Straits)
02 Walk of Life (Dire Straits)
03 Heavy Fuel (Dire Straits)
04 Romeo and Juliet (Dire Straits)
05 The Bug (Dire Straits)
06 Private Investigations (Dire Straits)
07 Sultans of Swing (Dire Straits)
08 Your Latest Trick (Dire Straits)
09 On Every Street (Dire Straits)
10 Two Young Lovers (Dire Straits)
11 Telegraph Road (Dire Straits)
12 Money for Nothing (Dire Straits)
13 Brothers in Arms (Dire Straits)
14 Solid Rock (Dire Straits)
15 Going Home [Theme from 'Local Hero'] [Instrumental] (Dire Straits)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/MqTvgX6s

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/aM50zEJMNfqiwu2/file

The cover photo of band leader Mark Knopfler is from this exact concert.

Dire Straits - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: BBC Arena, Rainbow Theatre, London, Britain, 12-21-1979

Back in 2022, I posted an album of the band Dire Straits performing for the BBC. At the time, I thought the only BBC performances they did was what I gathered onto that album from various sessions dating from 1978 to 1992, plus a 1978 concert. I decided not to post the concert because it's very widely available as the official album "Live at the BBC." But I recently found two more BBC concerts, so I'm going to post them. Here's the first one, a full concert from 1979 with Phil Lynott of Thin Lizzy as a special guest on the last four songs.

This concert also has been officially released, in 2023 as part of the box set "Live 1978-1992" and also a stand-alone release at the same time. So I wasn't going to post this either. But then I listened to the album, and realized the lead vocals were low in the mix. I brought them up thanks to the UVR5 audio editing program, and I think the whole thing sounds better now. So I decided to post it, since this is different.

This concert took place about six months after the release of the band's second album, "Communique," but still almost a year before the release of their next album, "Making Movies." Still, some songs for the next album had already been written, and the band played two of them, "Les Boys" and "Solid Rock." They also played "Twisting by the Pool," which wouldn't be released until it came out on an E.P. in 1983. But what really makes this concert special is the encore, where Phil Lynott of Thin Lizzy joined the band on stage and did most of the singing through cover versions of four rock and roll classics from the 1950s or earlier. Dire Straits almost never did that kind of thing.

By the way, now that I have more than one album of BBC material for this band, I renamed the earlier album "BBC Sessions, Volume 1." If you want the updated version with changed cover art and such, here's the link:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2022/12/dire-straits-bbc-sessions-1978-1992.html

This album is an hour and 39 minutes long.

01 talk (Dire Straits)
02 Down to the Waterline (Dire Straits)
03 Six Blade Knife (Dire Straits)
04 Once Upon a Time in the West (Dire Straits)
05 Lady Writer (Dire Straits)
06 Lions (Dire Straits)
07 Sultans of Swing (Dire Straits)
08 talk (Dire Straits)
09 Les Boys (Dire Straits)
10 Portobello Belle (Dire Straits)
11 News (Dire Straits)
12 What’s the Matter Baby (Dire Straits)
13 talk (Dire Straits)
14 Setting Me Up (Dire Straits)
15 In the Gallery (Dire Straits)
16 Solid Rock (Dire Straits)
17 Southbound Again (Dire Straits)
18 Where Do You Think You’re Going (Dire Straits)
19 Wild West End (Dire Straits)
20 Twisting by the Pool (Dire Straits)
21 talk (Dire Straits)
22 Good Morning, Little Schoolgirl (Dire Straits with Phil Lynott)
23 That’s Alright Mama (Dire Straits with Phil Lynott)
24 Nadine [Is It You] (Dire Straits with Phil Lynott)
25 Keep A-Knockin' (Dire Straits with Phil Lynott)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/q1Pzx151

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/oCRVRzhnh7O5POo/file

The cover photo of Mark Knopfler is from a concert in Freiburg, Germany, on June 2, 1979.

Knebworth Festival, Knebworth House, Knebworth, Britain, 6-30-1990, Part 6: Eric Clapton, Dire Straits & Elton John

The sixth performance at the 1990 Knebworth Festival was a rather unusual collaboration between Eric Clapton, Dire Straits, and Elton John.

Collaboration between these three famous musical forces was rare, but not unprecedented. In particular, Mark Knopfler, leader of Dire Straits, and Eric Clapton became good friends in the late 1980s and toured together a lot in 1987 to 1989. Elton John joined them for at least one full concert, in Tokyo, Japan, in 1988. 

Meanwhile, Dire Straits broke up in 1986, at the conclusion of the tour to promote their 1985 album "Brothers in Arms." They got back together for about five shows in 1988 and 1989, mostly benefit concerts, and usually with Clapton included. Then they did this festival, their only performance of 1990. A full reunion followed, leading to the band's final album, "On Every Street," in 1991. This concert didn't actually include all of Dire Straits. Mark Knopfler, John Illsey, and Alan Clark took part, but Guy Fletcher was missing. Instead, the band was rounded out by Clapton, Ray Cooper, and Phil Palmer. But still, it was considered a Dire Straits reunion.

The first four songs were sung by Clapton. Then Dire Straits joined in. One song played, "Think I Love You Too Much," was an original that never made it onto a Dire Straits (or Mark Knopfler) album, despite being a good song that got played a lot on the Dire Straits world tour in 1991 and 1992. This was the first time it was performed in concert. Elton John joined in for the last four songs, three of which were sung by him.

I don't recall any wind noise trouble with this performance. Also note that it's the longest set of the festival, because it was basically three big acts put together.

This album is an hour and 16 minutes long.

01 talk by Dave Dee (Eric Clapton)
02 Pretending (Eric Clapton)
03 Before You Accuse Me (Eric Clapton)
04 Old Love (Eric Clapton)
05 Tearing Us Apart (Eric Clapton)
06 Solid Rock (Eric Clapton & Dire Straits)
07 talk (Eric Clapton & Dire Straits)
08 I Think I Love You Too Much (Eric Clapton & Dire Straits)
09 Money for Nothing (Eric Clapton & Dire Straits)
10 talk (Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John)
11 Sacrifice (Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John)
12 Sad Songs [Say So Much] (Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John)
13 Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting (Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John)
14 Sunshine of Your Love (Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/HoBf13LZ

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/4oHFJrfaG2Kgn1R/file

For the cover, I wanted a photo of Clapton, Knopfler, and John together at this concert. I couldn't find any, since they were spread out on stage. However, I did find one of Clapton and John.

Mark Knopfler - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: In Concert, Colston Hall, Bristol, Britain, 5-19-1996

Mark Knopfler had been a big star with Dire Straits until 1992, but his solo career didn't really get going until 1996, with the release of his first proper solo album, "Golden Heart." I've already posted one BBC album from him that contains BBC studio sessions starting in 1996. Volume 2 here consists of a 1996 concert broadcast on the BBC. I actually plan to post two BBC concerts he did in 1996 because their set lists are different enough. But first, here's this one.

Everything here is officially unreleased, as far as I know, but the sound quality is excellent. The good news is the concert is fairly long, at an hour and nine minutes. The bad news is I suspect that some of it wasn't broadcast and thus isn't included, because his concerts typically lasted longer than that.

Since Knopfler only had one solo album to draw on at this point, he tended to play more Dire Straits songs than he did later in his solo career. That's the case here. Even with the concert being incomplete, there are still five songs done by Dire Straits: "Walk of Life," "Romeo and Juliet," "Brothers in Arms," "Money for Nothing," and "Going Home." Most of the other songs are from his "Golden Heart" solo album. But "Last Exit to Brooklyn" is from a 1989 movie soundtrack of the same name, and "Father and Son" is from the 1984 movie soundtrack "Cal."

01 Walk of Life (Mark Knopfler)
02 Rudiger (Mark Knopfler)
03 I'm the Fool (Mark Knopfler)
04 Last Exit to Brooklyn [Instrumental] (Mark Knopfler)
05 Romeo and Juliet (Mark Knopfler)
06 talk (Mark Knopfler)
07 Done with Bonaparte (Mark Knopfler)
08 A Night in Summer Long Ago (Mark Knopfler)
09 Father and Son [Instrumental] (Mark Knopfler)
10 Golden Heart (Mark Knopfler)
11 Cannibals (Mark Knopfler)
12 Brothers in Arms (Mark Knopfler)
13 Money for Nothing (Mark Knopfler)
14 Going Home [Theme From 'Local Hero'] [Instrumental] (Mark Knopfler)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16049325/MarkK1996c_BBSessonsVolum2InConcrtColstnHallBristlBrtain__5-19-1996.zip.html

The cover photo is from a concert in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1996.

Live Aid - Wembley Stadium, London, Britain, 7-13-1985, Part 4: Dire Straits, Queen, and David Bowie

This is the fourth of five albums of the London portion of the 1985 Live Aid concert.

Generally, I had at least four musical acts for each part. But this time, it's only three. That's because they are three very big acts at the time, so they were given longer time spots.

First up was Dire Straits. They only played two songs, but together those totaled nearly twenty minutes. For "Money for Nothing," the band was joined by Sting on backing vocals, just as it was on the original studio recording.

Queen was up next. Many say that this was the best set of all the Live Aid acts. Amazingly, in 2004, a poll of music industry insiders called the "World's Greatest Gigs" voted this as the best concert of all time! I think that's a bit much. It was only 21 minutes long, so it's hard to compare with great full-length concerts. Much of what was great about it was the visual performance of lead singer Freddie Mercury, which obviously can't be captured in an audio recording. But it was so impressive that Queen's albums jumped back up the charts after Live Aid, just like U2's did. And the 2018 movie about Queen, "Bohemian Rhapsody," made their Live Aid performance the emotional peak of the film, and recreated it with great attention to detail.

It must have been tough to follow an act like that, but David Bowie did a commendable job. He would have a rough late 1980s, but in 1985, he was still riding high from his smash 1983 album "Let's Dance." Rolling Stone Magazine later noted that his performance was "arguably Bowie's last triumph of the 1980s," and that "as approximately two billion people sang along to 'Heroes' ... he still seemed like one of the biggest and most vital rock stars in the world."

This album is an hour long.

070 talk (Tommy Vance)
071 Money for Nothing (Dire Straits with Sting)
072 talk (Dire Straits)
073 Sultans of Swing (Dire Straits)
074 talk (Griff Rhys Jones & Mel Smith)
075 Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen)
076 Radio Gaga (Queen)
077 Audience Participation (Queen)
078 Hammer to Fall (Queen)
079 talk (Queen)
080 Crazy Little Thing Called Love (Queen)
081 We Will Rock You (Queen)
082 We Are the Champions (Queen)
083 talk (Andy Peebles)
084 TVC-15 (David Bowie)
085 Rebel Rebel (David Bowie)
086 Modern Love (David Bowie)
087 Heroes (David Bowie)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15749024/LveAidJFKStdiumLondnPA__7-13-1985_Part4.zip.html

As usual for this series, I split the cover into four parts so I could include photos from more of the acts. This is pretty much the only album in the series where there were only three acts: Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits in the top left, Freddie Mercury and Brian May of Queen in the top right, and David Bowie in the bottom left. That left me one more spot to fill. So I chose a crowd scene, since I had one of those for the Philadelphia concert but none for the London one.

Dire Straits - Sydney Entertainment Center, Sydney, Australia, 4-26-1986

In my opinion, this is the best live Dire Straits recording available, even though it's a bootleg. I hadn't posted it prior to now because I thought the lead vocals were rather low in the mix. But I've fixed that, so I believe this new version sounds better than any other.

There are two things that make this concert exceptional, in my opinion. The first is timing. In 1984, the band released the official live album "Alchemy," based on 1983 concerts. And in 1993, another live album was released, "On the Night," based on 1992 concerts. But between the two was the release of the "Brothers in Arms" studio album in 1985. That album was a massive hit, selling over 30 million albums worldwide, making it one of the best selling albums of all time. Whereas the band's 1991 album that the resulted in the tour for the "On the Night" was considered a commercial and critical disappointment. So it makes great sense to have a concert from the "Brothers in Arms" tour that heavily features songs from that album.

But also, this was the very last concert of that tour. As such, the band put in extra effort to have the tour end on a high note. One result was an extra long show, with over two hours of music. There's also the special treat of having the audience sing the famous Australian song "Waltzing Matilda," and lead singer and songwriter Mark Knopfler giving a special thank you speech summing up the tour.

So one factor is the timing. The other big factor is the sound quality. This was professionally recorded and later shown on TV. (You can find the video of the entire concert on YouTube.) So it's an excellent soundboard recording, maybe the best of the tour. The only snag was the lead vocals being low in the mix, as I mentioned above. But I fixed that with the audio editing program UVR5.

This album is two hours and 11 minutes long.

01 Ride Across the River (Dire Straits)
02 Expresso Love (Dire Straits)
03 Industrial Disease (Dire Straits)
04 So Far Away (Dire Straits)
05 Romeo and Juliet (Dire Straits)
06 Private Investigations (Dire Straits)
07 Sultans of Swing (Dire Straits)
08 Why Worry (Dire Straits)
09 Your Latest Trick (Dire Straits)
10 Walk of Life (Dire Straits)
11 talk (Dire Straits)
12 Two Young Lovers (Dire Straits)
13 Money for Nothing (Dire Straits)
14 Tunnel of Love (Dire Straits)
15 Brothers in Arms (Dire Straits)
16 Solid Rock (Dire Straits)
17 talk (Dire Straits)
18 Waltzing Matilda (Dire Straits)
19 talk (Dire Straits)
20 Going Home [Theme from Local Hero] [Instrumental] (Dire Straits) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/89WDHSJP

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/7NAuAbEeRDqLgOm/file

For the album cover, I took a screenshot from the video of this exact concert that I found on YouTube. In February 2025, I upgraded the image with the help of the Krea AI program.

Dire Straits - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1978-1992

Dire Straits played less that I'd expected for the BBC, compared to some of their British contemporaries. They did two short BBC concerts in 1978. The second and slightly longer one has been officially released as the album "Live at the BBC," so I'm not going to bother with that one. (Although, if you're a stickler for accuracy like I am, note that the last song on that, "Tunnel of Love" is from a different, non-BBC concert.) However, I'm using the first BBC show they did plus a few other things to cobble together enough material for this BBC album. In addition, they performed two full concerts later, which I will post separately.

The first BBC show here took place in March 1978, six months before their debut album was released. The first four songs here are from that. There wasn't much applause in the first place, since the band was unknown to the audience at the time, having formed mere months earlier. I've removed what applause remained so the songs fit with some studio tracks later in the album. Note that "Sultans of Swing" was also played at this concert, but the recording of that doesn't seem to have been bootlegged.

Given what a great song "Sultans of Swing" is, it's a lucky thing that the band played it for the BBC again in 1978, for the BBC TV show "The Old Grey Whistle Test." So that version is here. It's officially unreleased, like everything else on this album. The next song, "Tunnel of Love," was also done for that show, but in 1980.

The rest of the album come from non-BBC sources, but they're still radio or TV appearances. These are all such appearances I could find that weren't lip-synced (other than a full show done for the "Rockpalast" TV show in Germany in 1979). The next two songs, "Romeo and Juliet" and "Skateaway," were done for the US TV show "Fridays" in 1980. 

After that, there's a big skip in time. Dire Straits had massive success in 1985 with their album "Brothers in Arms," but I couldn't find any live radio or TV show appearances from that time period. Then there was an extensive hiatus until a final album in 1991. The last four songs come from a US radio station appearance in 1992 supporting that album. It was one of the last things the band did before breaking up. It contains two songs, "Wild Theme" and "The Long Highway," that the band never released. I've put them on the second Dire Straits stray tracks albums I made. But I'm including them here too so one can have all four songs from that radio session together. 

This album is 59 minutes long.

01 Down to the Waterline (Dire Straits)
02 Water of Love (Dire Straits)
03 Wild West End (Dire Straits)
04 Lions (Dire Straits)
05 Sultans of Swing (Dire Straits)
06 Tunnel of Love (Dire Straits)
07 Romeo and Juliet (Dire Straits)
08 Skateaway (Dire Straits)
09 Two Young Lovers (Dire Straits)
10 Iron Hand (Dire Straits)
11 Wild Theme [Instrumental] (Dire Straits)
12 The Long Highway (Dire Straits)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ULpt3UQK

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/rE7XJehJolLC0Z0/file

The cover photo shows the band backstage at the Marquee Club in London in 1978.

Dire Straits - Radio Liverpool, Quaintway's Club, Chester, Britain, 4-19-1978

I've been wanting to post whatever the British band Dire Straits has done for the BBC. It turns out there's not much. They did two short concerts in 1978, plus played a couple of songs for BBC TV, and that's it. The longer of the 1978 concerts has been officially released as the album "Live at the BBC." I do plan to post an album of the other 1978 concert plus some other songs. But first, there's this, since it comes early chronologically.

Often times, the BBC concert is the one to get, if only due to superior sound quality. But in the case of early Dire Straits live music, that's not the case. I found a different concert recorded for a radio station that beats either of the 1978 BBC shows, in my opinion. The sound quality is great despite the fact that it's a bootleg, and it's a bit longer than either of the other two. It's a concert recorded for a radio station in Liverpool about six months before the band's debut album was released. 

There were no problems with this recording. It's impressive how good this sounds considering that it's lucky that this concert bootleg has survived at all. It contains the same songs as the "Live at the BBC" album except it has "In the Gallery" instead of "What's the Matter Baby." (I'm not counting "Tunnel of Love" on the official album, since that doesn't belong there. It's not from the same concert as the others, and although it claims to be from a BBC TV show, it actually is from a concert in Germany.)

01 talk (Dire Straits)
02 Down to the Waterline (Dire Straits)
03 Six Blade Knife (Dire Straits)
04 talk (Dire Straits)
05 In the Gallery (Dire Straits)
06 talk (Dire Straits)
07 Eastbound Train (Dire Straits)
08 talk (Dire Straits)
09 Water of love (Dire Straits)
10 Lions (Dire Straits)
11 Sultans of Swing (Dire Straits)
12 talk (Dire Straits)
13 Wild West End (Dire Straits)
14 talk (Dire Straits)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/3BYYkku8

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/jcATMAaQpkOVCS5/file

The cover photo shows the band playing at the Paradiso club in Amsterdam, Netherlands, in 1978. In February 2025, I upgraded the image with the help of the Krea AI program.

Dire Straits - The Long Highway - Non-Album Tracks (1987-1992)

I just posted a stray tracks album dealing with the first half of Dire Straits' career. While I'm at it, here's a second one, dealing with the second half of the band's career.

As I mentioned in that last post, Dire Straits released the "Brothers in Arms" album in 1985, and it went on to sell over 30 million copies, making it one of the most successful albums of all time. The band's resulting success was so massive that it was all too much for band leader Mark Knopfler. After the obligatory concert tour to support the album, he effectively disbanded the band and seemingly stopping making any new music for a few years. He reformed the band in 1990 and they released the "On Every Street" album in 1991. But it seemed the thrill was gone, and the band disbanded again shortly after that.

You can see from the songs on this album that Knopfler never fully committed to Dire Straits in this second time period. Only five of the 12 songs were actually performed with Dire Straits. He seemingly was more interested in his new band, the Notting Hillbillies, which released an album in 1990 and continued to play in concert until 1998.

But after being overwhelmed with too much fame in the wake of "Brothers in Arms," Knopfler was content to only rarely sing lead with the Notting Hillbillies. I've included the only song from the band's studio album ("Missing... Presumed Having a Good Time") for which he wrote and sang lead vocals. I've also included a song, "When It Comes to You," that the Notting Hillbillies only played in concert. Knopfler wrote it and sang lead for it, and released a version of it on the "On Every Street" Dire Straits album. But this is a very different acoustic arrangement.

"Feel like Going Home" is a cover of a Charlie Rich song. A version of it was released on the Notting Hillbillies studio album, but that version was sung by someone else. This version is sung by Knopfler. Apparently, he only sang it this one time, at a concert that was a tribute to BBC DJ Roger Scott, who had recently died.

Four more songs are collaborations between Knopfler and legendary guitarist Chet Atkins. Two are instrumentals from a concert in 1987. The other two are from a 1990 album they did together called "Neck and Neck." The second of those, "The Next Time I'm in Town," was written and sung by Knopfler, and was later covered by Johnny Cash. I could have included more of the songs from that album, but most of them are as much or more about Atkins than they are about Knopfler.

The one bonus track, "Nadine," is a cover of a Chuck Berry song. Dire Straits played it every once in a blue moon since 1978, and it also was played occasionally by the Notting Hillbillies. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any really good sounding versions of it, due to it being played so rarely. This was the best one I came across, but I still felt it doesn't have the sound quality of the other songs on this album.

01 I'll See You in My Dreams [Instrumental] (Mark Knopfler & Chet Atkins)
02 Imagine [Instrumental] (Mark Knopfler & Chet Atkins)
03 Feel like Going Home (Mark Knopfler)
04 When It Comes to You [Acoustic Version] (Notting Hillbillies)
05 Your Own Sweet Way (Notting Hillbillies)
06 I Think I Love You Too Much (Dire Straits with Eric Clapton)
07 Poor Boy Blues (Mark Knopfler & Chet Atkins)
08 The Next Time I'm in Town (Mark Knopfler & Chet Atkins)
09 Kingdom Come (Dire Straits)
10 Millionaire Blues (Dire Straits)
11 The Long Highway (Dire Straits)
12 Wild Theme [Instrumental] (Dire Straits)

Nadine [Is It You] (Dire Straits)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15110367/DireSts_1987-1992_TheLongHighwy_atse.zip.html

For the album cover art, I used the cover of a bootleg Dire Straits concert DVD, with some adjustments. The "On Every Street" cover art is in the background as a part of that.

Dire Straits - Dance Play - Non-Album Tracks (1978-1984)

There are lots of great musical artists I haven't posted anything for yet. Dire Straits is one of them. So here's the first.

Dire Straits don't have a lot of stray tracks. The band's main force, Mark Knopfler, broke up the band around 1993, after he felt it got too big with the massive success of the 1985 "Brothers in Arms" album, which sold an incredible 30 million copies. Ever since then, he's tried to do as much as he can to promote his post-Dire Straits career and downplay his Dire Straits career, for instance playing the bare minimum of Dire Straits songs in concert to keep his fans from getting upset. As part of this approach, there has been very little in terms of archival releases or even bonus tracks.

Thus, there probably aren't as many stray tracks as there would be if the vaults were opened up. Happily, there are a few B-sides and other obscure releases, as well as some songs that were only played in concert. I believe all the songs here are originals (not counting the bonus tracks).

Probably the heart of this album is the three songs that make up the "Extended Dance Play" EP, released in 1983. One of those songs, "Twisting by the Pool," was a hit. But Dire Straits always had high standards and consistency, and all the songs here are good.

I don't know the name of the two acoustic instrumentals that end the album. The first part of the second one sounds like the Elvis Presley classic "That's Alright Mama," but that's only a snippet and then the song goes in very different directions. The start of the first song and the end of the second one had a French DJ talking over the music, because these come from some French TV show. I removed the parts with the talking, but it was only a few seconds in each case.

Speaking of high standards, I kept high standards when it comes to sound quality. The two bonus tracks are good, but they've been relegated to bonus tracks because their sound quality isn't as good as the others. "Bernadette" is written and sung by David Knopfler, Mark's brother, who was in the band as rhythm guitarist for their first two albums. The start of the song sounds remarkably similar to "London Calling" by the Clash. But this may just be coincidence, because "Bernadette" was first played in concert in September 1979, and "London Calling" wasn't released until December 1979. However, perhaps it was never officially released due to the similarity (and/or maybe simply because it was a David Knopfler song instead of a Mark Knopfler one).

01 Eastbound Train (Dire Straits)
02 Real Girl (Dire Straits)
03 What's the Matter Baby (Dire Straits)
04 Move It Away [Me and My Friends] (Dire Straits)
05 Making Movies (Dire Straits)
06 Badges, Posters, Stickers and T-shirts (Dire Straits)
07 Twisting by the Pool (Dire Straits)
08 Two Young Lovers (Dire Straits)
09 If I Had You (Dire Straits)
10 Going Home [Theme From 'Local Hero'] [Instrumental] (Dire Straits)
11 Acoustic Instrumental No. 1 (Mark Knopfler)
12 Acoustic Instrumental No. 2 (Mark Knopfler)

Bernadette (Dire Straits)
In My Car (Dire Straits)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15110328/DireSts_1978c-1984_DancePly_atse.zip.html

The album cover art uses the cover for the "Extended Dance Play" EP I mentioned above. The album title "Dance Play" doesn't make much sense for the type of music it is, but I have to admit I picked that title so I could use this cover with a minimum of changes. All I did was remove "Extended" from the title text, as well as greatly shrinking the "E" at the end of "Dance" and the "P" at the start of "Play." (Those two letters - "E" and "P" - had been emphasized to reflect the fact that the release was an EP.