Various Artists - Music for Montserrat, Royal Albert Hall, London, Britain, 9-15-1997

Here's a really interesting benefit concert from 1997. Just look at the list of big stars involved: Carl Perkins, Midge Ure, Phil Collins, Jimmy Buffett, Mark Knopfler, Eric Clapton, Sting, Elton John, and Paul McCartney. Most of them performed two or three songs together, and all the big names got together with McCartney to sing some of his songs for the finale. All that, and the sound quality is excellent.

Montserrat is a small island in the Caribbean Sea, and it's still a colony of Britain. In 1979, George Martin, best known as the producer for nearly all the Beatles records, financed the building of a recording studio there. From 1979 to 1989, about 70 albums were recorded there, because musicians enjoyed recording in a beautiful, exotic locale. Many of them were by very big stars, such as "Synchronicity" by the Police and "Brothers in Arms" by Dire Straits.   

Unfortunately, in 1989, the Category Four hurricane Hugo hit Montserrat. It destroyed 90 percent of all buildings on the island, including Martin's recording studio. The studio wasn't rebuilt. Then, in 1995, the main volcano on the island, Soufriere Hills volcano, erupted. The island was basically completely devastated again. Martin then led the effort to stage this benefit concert. All the musicians involved recorded albums on Montserrat. Ultimately, about a million and half British pounds were raised. Later, limited edition lithographs signed by McCartney and Martin raised another million and a half pounds. This money went to help people reconstruct their homes, as well as the building of a new cultural center for the island. 

Here's the Wikipedia entry about this concert, if you want to know more: 

Music for Montserrat - Wikipedia  

For this concert, Martin decided that less was more. He even mentioned in his banter during the concert that he turned down many musical acts who wanted to take part. The focus was just on the biggest stars. One exception was Arrow. He only had one minor hit in 1982, in Britain, "Hot Hot Hot." But he is Montserratian, so it made sense he would be involved. Also, "Hot Hot Hot" went on to be a bigger hit by Buster Poindexter in 1987. 

This concert has been released on DVD, but not in any audio format. So I started with the DVD, converting it to audio format then breaking it into mp3s. "Hot Hot Hot," plus "Volcano" by Jimmy Buffett and "Dancing with Tears in My Eyes" by Midge Ure, were not on the DVD. But luckily I found out they were performed by reading the Wikipedia entry about the concert. Then I found YouTube videos of them. Those had very good sound quality, because they were broadcast on TV. 

In addition to adding some missing songs, I cut some things. Mostly, I cut some interviews that were interspersed between the songs in the DVD. Martin plus some of the big stars like McCartney and Sting were interviewed. It's interesting stuff, but it wasn't part of the concert, so it got the axe. If you want to see that, check out the DVD.

Probably the highlight of the concert was McCartney's set at the end. As he said in the interview which I cut out, he had met the other stars in this concert many times over the years. However, he rarely actually played music with any of them. For instance, he said the last time he played with Clapton was when Clapton guested on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" on the White Album by the Beatles in 1968. But McCartney practiced with Phil Collins, Mark Knopfler, Eric Clapton, and Elton John, and really collaborated with tracks 42 to 46 at the end here.

One final note. This was the last major public appearance for Carl Perkins. He was in fine health at the time of this concert. But he died after a series of strokes in January 1998, at the age of 65. 

This album is two hours and 15 minutes long.

01 talk (George Martin)
02 talk (Carl Perkins)
03 Blue Suede Shoes (Carl Perkins)
04 talk (emcee)
05 talk (Midge Ure)
06 Dancing with Tears in My Eyes (Midge Ure)
07 Vienna (Midge Ure)
08 talk (George Martin)
09 talk (Phil Collins)
10 In the Air Tonight (Phil Collins)
11 Take Me Home (Phil Collins with Ray Cooper)
12 talk (Arrow)
13 Hot Hot Hot (Arrow)
14 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
15 Volcano (Jimmy Buffett)
16 talk (Phil Collins)
17 talk (Mark Knopfler)
18 Going Home [Theme from Local Hero] [Instrumental] (Mark Knopfler)
19 talk (Mark Knopfler)
20 Brothers in Arms (Mark Knopfler with Guy Fletcher)
21 talk (Mark Knopfler)
22 Money for Nothing (Mark Knopfler with Sting, Phil Collins, Eric Clapton & Ray Cooper)
23 talk (Phil Collins)
24 Message in a Bottle (Sting)
25 Fields of Gold (Sting)
26 Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic (Sting)
27 talk (George Martin)
28 talk (Elton John)
29 Your Song (Elton John)
30 talk (Elton John)
31 Live like Horses (Elton John)
32 Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me (Elton John)
33 talk (Carl Perkins)
34 Broken Hearted (Eric Clapton)
35 Layla (Eric Clapton with Mark Knopfler)
36 talk (Eric Clapton)
37 Same Old Blues (Eric Clapton with Mark Knopfler & Phil Collins)
38 talk (George Martin)
39 talk (Paul McCartney)
40 Yesterday (Paul McCartney)
41 talk (Paul McCartney)
42 Golden Slumbers (Paul McCartney with Phil Collins, Mark Knopfler & Eric Clapton)
43 Carry That Weight - The End (Paul McCartney with Phil Collins, Mark Knopfler & Eric Clapton)
44 talk (George Martin)
45 Hey Jude (Paul McCartney, Elton John & Everybody)
46 Kansas City - Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey (Paul McCartney & Everybody)
47 talk (Paul McCartney & George Martin) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/WN5He6az 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/rtae3vnAgivMIJf/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. From left to right: Carl Perkins, Mark Knopfler, Eric Clapton, and Paul McCartney. Sting is right behind Perkins, but all you can really see of him is his hand on the neck of a bass guitar. In the original photo, the neck of Sting's bass guitar went right over Knopfler's face. In my opinion, it kind of ruined the photo. But there were several photos no doubt taken minutes apart from each other from the same spot. I found one where Knopfler's face was fully visible and the bass guitar neck was lower, and I patched in just that part of the image, using Photoshop. I also used the Krea AI program to flesh out some of the detail.

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.

Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John - Tokyo Dome, Tokyo, Japan, 11-2-1988

In the late 1980s, lead guitar legends Eric Clapton and Mark Knopfler performed many concerts together. They actually first played in concert together in 1985 while Mark Knopfler was still leading his band Dire Straits. But then Dire Straits was disbanded for a few years, and Knopfler didn't had a band until the Notting Hillbillies in 1990 and then a Dire Straits reunion in 1991. In 1987 and 1988 especially, the two of them did entire tours together. They were basically Eric Clapton concerts, but with Knopfler adding lead guitar to every song and singing one or two songs as lead vocalist.

Things got even more interesting when their joint tour stopped by Japan in 1988. Elton John joined them there, and the three of them headlined four concerts together. One of them, in Tokyo, was broadcast on TV and radio in Japan only. This got bootlegged, naturally, and it makes for an excellent recording, with soundboard quality sound. That's what this is here.

The first portion of the concert only featured Clapton and Knopfler. Clapton sang most of the songs, but one of his female backing vocalists sang lead on "Can't Find My Way Home" and Knopfler sang lead on his huge Dire Straits hit "Money for Nothing." Then Elton John joined them for the rest of the concert. Most of the songs from that point on were John's hits, but Clapton sang three more, and Knopfler did one more Dire Straits song, "Solid Rock." John naturally played keyboards even on the songs he didn't sing.

So all in all this is a really nice and very rare collaboration between three rock superstars. It wasn't the last time the three of them did this, however. They also played together during the Knebworth Festival in 1990. I have posted that already, which you can find here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2024/05/knebworth-festival-knebworth-house_50.html

This album is two hours and 13 minutes long.

01 Crossroads (Eric Clapton & Mark Knopfler)
02 White Room (Eric Clapton & Mark Knopfler)
03 I Shot the Sheriff (Eric Clapton & Mark Knopfler)
04 Lay Down Sally (Eric Clapton & Mark Knopfler)
05 Wonderful Tonight (Eric Clapton & Mark Knopfler)
06 Tearing Us Apart (Eric Clapton & Mark Knopfler)
07 After Midnight (Eric Clapton & Mark Knopfler)
08 Can't Find My Way Home (Eric Clapton & Mark Knopfler)
09 Money for Nothing [Edit] (Eric Clapton & Mark Knopfler)
10 Candle in the Wind (Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John)
11 I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues (Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John)
12 I Don't Wanna Go On with You like That (Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John)
13 I'm Still Standing (Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John)
14 Daniel (Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John)
15 talk (Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John)
16 Cocaine (Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John)
17 Layla (Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John)
18 Solid Rock (Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John)
19 Saturday Night's Alright [For Fighting] (Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John)
20 Sunshine of Your Love (Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John)
21 Percussion Solo (Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John)
22 Sunshine of Your Love (Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John)

https://www.imagenetz.de/e2iJV

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/873KARqh

second alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/yKoZ6ps2xz0RPgG/file

The cover image was very hard for me to make. It is of this exact concert, right after the end of the final song of the encore. However, I couldn't find any photos of them together, so I had to resort to taking a screenshot from a video of this concert I found on YouTube. But the video was so low-res and blurry that I had to rewatch that section of the video to even figure out Knopfler was holding something (a towel) in his hands. 

The reason this cover looks like it does is due to the free Krea AI program. I ran the screenshot through that program, giving prompts identifying who was in the image. It was a little bit better, but not much. Then I ran that version through the program. Again, some improvement, but still rough. I did it four times in all! Finally, it ended up like this. To show you how drastically things changed, here's the screenshot I started from. Frankly, I'm kind of amazed at what the AI technology is capable of. Yeah, there's a lot of change there, it's not entirely true to reality, but I think the final version looks a hell of a lot better than the screenshot does.

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 - What Have I Got to Do - Non-Album Tracks (1990-1996)

I've posted some BBC albums from Mark Knopfler's solo career. Now I want to post a few stray tracks albums. This is the first one.

Knopfler's band Dire Straits kind of ended in 1986, after a long world tour supporting the massively successful "Brothers in Arms" album. He seemed exhausted by the stardom and basically took a few years off from music. Then in 1990, he revived the band, and put out a final studio album, "On Every Street," in 1991. Then, after another massive world tour, he retired the band again, this time for good. He later said, "I put the thing to bed because I wanted to get back to some kind of reality. It's self-protection, a survival thing. That kind of scale is dehumanizing."

Knopfler clearly didn't have the personality for that level of stardom, because he again took off a couple of years to recover before putting out his first solo album, "Golden Heart," in 1996.

But that's not the whole story of that time period, because he had some other music projects going on as well. The most important one was a role in another band, the Notting Hillbillies. That resulted in a 1990 album, "Missing... Presumed Having a Good Time." 

He also played a lot of concerts with guitarist Eric Clapton, and had a major role for a studio album by guitarist Chet Atkins. The first song here is a song he did with Clapton for the big 1990 Knebworth Festival. Technically, one could call this a Dire Straits performance, since there were other Dire Straits band members with him on stage at the time, even though they weren't officially reunited yet. But the original song was never officially released by Dire Straits or anyone else. The next four songs are from the 1990 album "Neck and Neck," which was billed as a Knopfler and Chet Atkins album. Knopfler produced it and played guitar all over it, but I've only included the four songs where Knopfler sang with Atkins as well. All the songs were covers, except "The Next Time I'm in Town," which was written by Knopfler.

After this, there's a big time jump to 1995, while Knopfler recovered and prepared for a proper solo career. He next emerged with an appearance on a 1995 album by the Chieftans, which is track 7, "The Lily of the West." Track 6, "No Wonder He's Confused," is an unreleased studio track, no doubt a song that he considered putting on his 1996 solo album "Golden Heart." Tracks 8 and 9 are B-sides from singles released from that album. The last song, "Blues Stay Away from Me" comes from an appearance on a 1996 album by guitarist Steve Phillips, who was one of his bandmates with the Notting Hillbillies.

This album is 46 minutes long.

01 Think I Love You Too Much (Mark Knopfler & Eric Clapton)
02 Poor Boy Blues (Mark Knopfler & Chet Atkins)
03 Just One Time (Mark Knopfler & Chet Atkins)
04 There'll Be Some Changes Made (Mark Knopfler & Chet Atkins)
05 The Next Time I'm in Town (Mark Knopfler & Chet Atkins)
06 No Wonder He's Confused (Mark Knopfler)
07 The Lily of the West (Chieftains with Mark Knopfler)
08 My Claim to Fame (Mark Knopfler)
09 What Have I Got to Do (Mark Knopfler)
10 Blues Stay Away from Me (Steve Phillips & Mark Knopfler)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16505919/MARKKNPFLR1990-1996WhtHveIGttDo_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is a promo photo from 1995.

Various Artists - Prince's Trust Rock Gala, Royal Albert Hall, London, Britain, 6-5-1988

The Prince's Trust is a charity founded by then Prince Charles, the British crown prince. (He is now King Charles III) as I write this in 2024.) There have been a bunch of benefit concerts for the charity, each with many stars participating. Here's another one.

These Prince's Trust concerts have happened in a very irregular pace. I've already posted benefit concerts from 1982, 1986, and 1987. This one is from 1988. There were more from 1989 and 1990, so it started to seem like an annual thing. However, I think the next one after that took place in 1996. There have been at least five more since then, although I may well be missing some.

This one was similar to the previous two in similar ways. The concert started with some newer acts, like T'Pau and Wet Wet Wet, and they played more songs than one might expect, given the stature of the other acts in the concert. Both T'Pau and Wet Wet Wet actually played four songs each, according to setlists, but I only have two from T'Pau and three from Wet Wet Wet. I can't say I'm lamenting the missing songs, since I don't think one could compare them with nearly all of the acts that came later. Rick Astley and Black were a couple other acts that appeared early, and played the one big hit each of them was known for.

After that, there were many of the same "usual suspects" who played in previous Prince's Trust concerts, such as Phil Collins, Elton John, Howard Jones, Mark Knoplfer, and Eric Clapton. But there were some first timers too, like Leonard Cohen, the Bee Gees, Peter Gabriel, and Joe Cocker. It's frustrating to me that you have someone like Peter Gabriel, whose most recent album at the time, "So," had sold five million copies in the U.S. alone, only getting to play one song. But it is what it is, I guess.

I don't know the exact details, but I believe that many of the big stars backed each other towards the end of the concert, as was the case in previous years. Because people pay extra close attention to Eric Clapton's guitar playing, I was able to find out that once he took the stage with track 26 ("Behind the Mask"), he stayed on stage for the rest of the concert, including playing guitar on songs sung by Knoplfer, John, and Cocker.

Similarly, I was able to determine that Brian May of Queen didn't sing lead vocals on any songs, but he played lead guitar on a bunch of them: tracks 6, 8, 10, 16, 19, 24, 26, and 35. John Deacon, the bassist for Queen, also apparently played on some songs.

Currently, I'm only able to find a few songs from the 1989 and 1990 concerts. If anyone has the full concerts, please let me know. I may try to post the 1996 concert, but I'm probably missing about half of that one.

This album is two hours and two minutes long.

01 Heart and Soul (T'Pau)
02 China in Your Hand (T'Pau)
03 talk (Wet Wet Wet)
04 Wishing I Was Lucky (Wet Wet Wet)
05 Sweet Little Mystery - Twist and Shout (Wet Wet Wet)
06 Dancing with Tears in My Eyes (Midge Ure)
07 talk (Midge Ure & Rick Astley)
08 Never Gonna Give You Up (Rick Astley)
09 talk (Rick Astley & Black)
10 Wonderful Life (Black)
11 talk (Black & Leonard Cohen)
12 Tower of Song (Leonard Cohen)
13 talk (Phil Collins)
14 Doesn't Anyone Stay Together Anymore (Phil Collins)
15 talk (Phil Collins & the Bee Gees)
16 You Win Again (Bee Gees)
17 Jive Talkin' (Bee Gees)
18 talk (Bee Gees & Peter Gabriel)
19 Sledgehammer (Peter Gabriel)
20 talk (Peter Gabriel & Howard Jones)
21 What Is Love (Howard Jones)
22 talk (Phil Collins)
23 I Missed Again (Phil Collins)
24 You Can't Hurry Love (Phil Collins)
25 talk (Phil Collins & Joe Cocker)
26 The Letter (Joe Cocker)
27 talk (Eric Clapton)
28 Behind the Mask (Eric Clapton)
29 Cocaine (Eric Clapton)
30 talk (Eric Clapton & Mark Knopfler)
31 Money for Nothing (Mark Knopfler)
32 talk (Elton John)
33 I Don't Wanna Go On with You like That (Elton John)
34 Layla (Eric Clapton)
35 With a Little Help from My Friends (Joe Cocker)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/cbyrisBH

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/jJV74b5uh8a36UP/file

alternate:

https://www.imagenetz.de/gP7SW

Just like previous years, there was a group photo taken of the performers. Here are all their names.
Back row: Rick Astley, Howard Jones, Peter Gabriel, Joe Cocker, Phil Collins, Midge Ure
Middle row: Mark Knopfler, Brian May, Elton John, Eric Clapton
Front row: The Bee Gees, Robin, Barry and Maurice Gibb

Various Artists - Prince's Trust Rock Gala, Wembley Arena, London, Britain, 6-20-1986

Hmmm. I could have sworn I'd posted this months ago. I'd posted the 1982 Prince's Trust concert a while back. I was getting to post the next one in the series, from 1987, when I did a search and noticed this one wasn't here. So now you'll get two in a row, as I'll be posting the 1987 one today as well. 

Prince Charles, the crown prince of Britain at the time, ran a charity to help troubled youths. It's still going as I write this in 2024, and Charles has finally become king. 

These concerts didn't happen every year. In fact, I don't think there was any after the 1982 one I mentioned until this one, although there was a Dire Straits concert in 1985 that benefited the charity. This one, though, was truly a star-studded event. Perhaps inspired by Live Aid in 1985, the big names showed up in droves.

In fact, I find this concert frustrating, because so much big name talent was underused. The concerts started with sets by Big Country, Suzanne Vega, and Level 42. I definitely like Big Country and Suzanne Vega (whereas Level 42, not so much), and I've posted albums by them here. But it seems very odd to me that they got to play four or five songs each, while much bigger names like Sting, Mark Knopfler, George Michael, David Bowie, and Mick Jagger got less than one full song, since they only appeared as part of duets. Very strange.

That said, what there is here is quite good. It's just that I wish there had been a lot more of it. But as far as I can tell, this was the complete concert. I guess the organizers had to keep things relatively short because the concert was broadcast live on TV and radio in Britain. I gather the reason Big Country, Suzanne Vega, and Level 42 had such surprisingly long sets was because one purpose of the show was to showcase new talent. This is a trend with the other Prince's Trust concerts I'm aware of. At least in this year the new acts would end up being pretty good. (Some other years weren't so lucky.)

One special aspect of this concert is how much the big stars in the second half of the show performed together. You don't really see it in the artist credits on each song. For instance, typically, Phil Collins played drums, Elton John played piano, Midge Ure of Ultravox played rhythm guitar, and Eric Clapton or Mark Knoplfer played lead guitar. At one point, you can hear Rod Stewart joke about how happy he is to finally get Elton John in his backing band. But that's not all. You really the watch the video this (the whole thing can be found on YouTube as I type this) to see all the stars backing each other.

The highlights are many, too many for me to describe. But I'll point out that the biggest start of the evening had to be Paul McCartney, who closed the show. Keep in mind that, from the perspective of 1986, McCartney hadn't barely played in any concerts since the 1970s. Starting in 1989 he would go on a world tour, and he would tour often after that. But he'd only made three other concert appearances in the 1980s prior to this, and each one was just for a couple of songs at most. (For instance, he played one song for Live Aid in 1985.)

By the way, note that there's a flaw with the duet of "Dancing in the Street" by David Bowie and Mick Jagger. For some reason, Bowie's vocals are way down in the mix. I currently don't have the means to fix that, since it's tricky with them singing together most of the time. But with audio editing technology advancing recently, it probably will be fixable eventually.

Note that various versions of this concert have been officially released, both on audio and video. But as far as I can tell, none of them are complete. The audio version, for instance, is only the length of a single album. So there's a lot more music here.

This album is two hours and 17 minutes long.

01 Introduction (Emcee)
02 talk (Big Country)
03 Wonderland (Big Country)
04 Fields of Fire (Big Country)
05 talk (Big Country)
06 Look Away (Big Country)
07 Chance (Big Country)
08 talk (Big Country)
09 In a Big Country (Big Country)
10 talk (Big Country)
11 talk (Suzanne Vega)
12 Tom’s Diner (Suzanne Vega)
13 talk (Suzanne Vega)
14 Cracking (Suzanne Vega)
15 Small Blue Thing (Suzanne Vega)
16 talk (Suzanne Vega)
17 Marlene on the Wall (Suzanne Vega)
18 talk (Emcee)
19 Lesson in Love (Level 42)
20 Leaving Me Now (Level 42)
21 Something about You (Level 42)
22 talk (Level 42)
23 Your Song (Elton John)
24 talk (Phil Collins)
25 In the Air Tonight (Phil Collins)
26 talk (Emcee)
27 Better Be Good to Me (Tina Turner)
28 talk (Tina Turner)
29 Tearing Us Apart (Eric Clapton & Tina Turner)
30 talk (Eric Clapton)
31 Call of the Wild (Midge Ure)
32 talk (Midge Ure)
33 Money for Nothing (Mark Knopfler & Sting)
34 talk (Mark Knopfler)
35 Every Time You Go Away (Paul Young)
36 talk (Paul Young)
37 Reach Out (Joan Armatrading)
38 No One Is to Blame (Howard Jones)
39 talk (Rod Stewart)
40 Sailing (Rod Stewart)
41 I’m Still Standing (Elton John)
42 talk (Elton John)
43 Every Time You Go Away (Paul Young & George Michael)
44 talk (George Michael)
45 I Saw Her Standing There (Paul McCartney)
46 Long Tall Sally (Paul McCartney)
47 talk (Paul McCartney)
48 Dancing in the Street (David Bowie & Mick Jagger)
49 Get Back (Paul McCartney & Everyone)
50 talk (Paul McCartney)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/kFX6wzSe

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/FFh3i4FUiXCUiKw/file

Each time one of these concerts happened, there typically was a group photo. If anyone wants to identify all the people in the photo, that would be great.

Mark Knopfler - BBC Sessions, Volume 5: Music Club, Simon Mayo Show, London, Britain, 10-5-2007

This is the fifth, and probably the last, album in my BBC series for Mark Knopfler. (I say "probably" because it's possible he'll recorded more for the BBC, who knows.) This is an unreleased concert. But it seems that instead of just having the BBC record one of his full concerts in some big arena, he did a truncated show for a small studio audience.

This concert was to promote his 2007 album "Kill to Get Crimson," which had just been released. But actually, only three songs here are from that: "True Love Will Never Fade," "The Fizzy and the Still," and "Let It All Go." The rest are from his earlier solo albums, plus three songs from his years with Dire Straits ("Going Home," "Brothers in Arms," and "So Far Away.")

The sound quality is excellent, as you'd expect. However, I suspect there was banter between songs that got removed. I base this on the fact that for many of the songs, though not all, the applause quickly faded out in an unnatural way. And Knopfler did make one brief comment near the end that seemed to be a follow up to an earlier comment that's missing. So if anyone has the complete version with the banter, let me know so I can use that.

I did my best to fix the edited applause. For those songs, I patched in more applause from other songs, so at least it should sound like there's a decent amount of applause after each song.

This album is 49 minutes long.

01 Donegan's Gone (Mark Knopfler)
02 Rudiger (Mark Knopfler)
03 True Love Will Never Fade (Mark Knopfler)
04 The Fizzy and the Still (Mark Knopfler)
05 Let It All Go [Electric Version] (Mark Knopfler)
06 Our Shangri-La (Mark Knopfler)
07 Going Home [Theme From 'Local Hero'] [Instrumental] (Mark Knopfler)
08 Postcards from Paraguay (Mark Knopfler)
09 Brothers in Arms (Mark Knopfler)
10 So Far Away (Mark Knopfler)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16177703/MRKKNPF2007_BBSessnsVlum5MscClbSmnMyoShwLndnBrtin__10-5-2007_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is from a concert in Rome, Italy, on June 6, 2008.

Mark Knopfler - BBC Sessions, Volume 4: 2004-2018

This is the next volume of Mark Knopfler performing for the BBC. This time, it consists of studio sessions.

Everything on this album is unreleased. But it's all top notch in terms of sound quality. Only one song, "Haul Away," was played in front of an audience. 

The first three songs are from a 2004 radio session. The next two are from a 2007 session, and then one song is from a 2009 session. The song after that, "Haul Away," is the one live one I just mentioned, from a BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards ceremony in 2016. The remaining songs are from three different sessions in 2018.

This album deals with a pretty large period in time - fourteen years. I must say I'm surprised Knopfler didn't do more BBC performances in those years, since it seems like an ideal way for him to promote his music. However, he did do one much longer session in 2007. That's not here because it's enough for an album of its own, which will be Volume 5. If anyone knows of anything I missed, please let me know.

This album is 52 minutes long.

01 Everybody Pays (Mark Knopfler)
02 Boom like That (Mark Knopfler)
03 Song for Sonny Liston (Mark Knopfler)
04 Let It All Go [Acoustic Version] (Mark Knopfler)
05 Secondary Waltz (Mark Knopfler)
06 Get Lucky (Mark Knopfler)
07 Haul Away (Mark Knopfler)
08 Waterbound (Mark Knopfler)
09 Romeo and Juliet (Mark Knopfler)
10 Good on You Son (Mark Knopfler)
11 The Boxer (Mark Knopfler)
12 Going Home [Theme From 'Local Hero'] [Instrumental] (Mark Knopfler)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16116458/MRKKNPF2004-2018_BBSessonsVlum4_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is a promo photo taken at Knopfler's house in London in January 2004.

Mark Knopfler - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: In Concert, Royal Albert Hall, London, Britain, 5-23-1996

I previously posted a 1996 Mark Knopfler BBC concert. In fact, that one took place a mere four days before this one. But I'm posting both concerts because the set lists are different enough to justify that. 

Here are the six songs that were played in this concert and the one I posted as "BBC Sessions, Volume 2": "Walk of Life," "Last Exit to Brooklyn," "Romeo and Juliet," "Done with Bonaparte," "Brothers in Arms," and "Money for Nothing." In particular, this concert has some key Dire Straits songs not played in the other one: "The Bug," "Calling Elvis," "Sultans of Swing," and "Telegraph Road." This version of "Telegraph Road," which is 15 minutes long, is a particular highlight.

Seven of the songs here were officially released on a deluxe version of the album "Sultans of Swing: The Very Best of Dire Straits" (tracks 2, 6, 7, 8, 9, 13 and 14.) The rest are unreleased. But the sound quality is excellent throughout. There were no problems.

This album is an hour and 36 minutes long.

01 Darling Pretty (Mark Knopfler)
02 Walk of Life (Mark Knopfler)
03 Imelda (Mark Knopfler)
04 The Bug (Mark Knopfler)
05 Je Suis Desole (Mark Knopfler)
06 Calling Elvis (Mark Knopfler)
07 Last Exit to Brooklyn [Instrumental] (Mark Knopfler)
08 Romeo and Juliet (Mark Knopfler)
09 Sultans of Swing (Mark Knopfler)
10 talk (Mark Knopfler)
11 Done with Bonaparte (Mark Knopfler)
12 Telegraph Road (Mark Knopfler)
13 Brothers in Arms (Mark Knopfler)
14 Money for Nothing (Mark Knopfler)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/k7aqn4es

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/PDub1JNZR2RZEOQ/file

alternate:

https://www.imagenetz.de/ejRS6

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

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.

Mark Knopfler & the Notting Hillbillies - BBC Sessions (1988-1990)

I previously posted a live album of Mark Knopfler and the Notting Hillbillies. Between that and this BBC sessions album, you should get a good sense of what the band was all about. I prefer both to the band's lone studio album, in 1990, "Missing... and Presumed Having a Good Time," which was a little overproduced and lacked many lead vocals by Knopfler.

I posted the live album before this one because I wanted to start out strongly and that album has better sound quality overall than this one. That's not to say this one has bad sound quality, but it's taken from five different radio sessions, and some sound better than others. They appear chronologically, and it just so happens that the first one sounds the worst and the last two sound the best. So if you're disappointed with the sound quality, keep at it, it gets better.

I explained about the Notting Hillbillies when I posted the live album. Suffice to say that it was a true band, not just Mark Knopfler and a backing band. For instance, he shared lead vocal duties, and only sings lead on about a third of the songs here. But at the same time, Knopler was the clear star, due to his fame from his previous band Dire Straits, and the main people listen to this is to hear his singing and lead guitar work. Don't worry, while he doesn't sing all the time, his guitar is all over this.

Everything here is officially unreleased. The first two songs actually come from a 1988 BBC session, which I think is before the band officially became the Notting Hillbillies, but it was the same group of musicians. The rest are from 1990. Most everything else is from various BBC TV or radio sessions, except for the last five songs. Those come from a concert broadcast on a different British radio station, Radio Clyde. That features highlights from a concert the band did in Glasgow, Scotland, in April 1990. 

"Tennessee Blues" has "[Edit]" in the title because there was a spot near the end of the song where a few seconds of music were missing. Luckily it was during a repetition of the chorus, so I patched it up with a part of a chorus from earlier in the song.

This album is 52 minutes long.

01 Weapon of Prayer (Notting Hillbillies)
02 Please Baby (Notting Hillbillies)
03 Feel like Going Home (Notting Hillbillies)
04 That's Where I Belong (Notting Hillbillies)
05 Blues Stay Away from Me (Notting Hillbillies)
06 When It Comes to You (Notting Hillbillies)
07 Tennessee Blues [Edit] (Notting Hillbillies)
08 The Next Time I'm in Town (Notting Hillbillies)
09 Bewildered (Notting Hillbillies)
10 Setting Me Up (Notting Hillbillies)
11 Down the Road Apiece (Notting Hillbillies)
12 Let's Have Some Fun Tonight (Notting Hillbillies)
13 One Way Gal (Notting Hillbillies)
14 talk (Notting Hillbillies)
15 Running On Down This Road (Notting Hillbillies)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16026070/NottngHillbllies_1988-1990_BBSessons_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is the same as the one featured on the cover of the band's only studio album. However, that version was in black and white, and only filled up the middle section of the cover. I was lucky to find a color version of the same photo.

Mark Knopfler & the Notting Hillbillies - The Maltings, Snape, Britain, 5-15-1990

I recently started posting some solo stuff from Mark Knopfler, the leader of Dire Straits, and I plan on posting a bunch more. But I decided that before I get any further, it would be good to post a couple of things from his early 1990s band the Notting Hillbillies.

I put Knopfler's name in the title of this post to help his fans find this music. But actually, it's not entirely accurate to call the Notting Hillbillies Mark Knopfler's band. The band put out only one album, in 1990, called "Missing... Presumed Having a Good Time." That happened during a time when Knopfler was still feeling burned out from the massive success of Dire Straits. With the Notting Hillbillies, he could be just another member of the band, and take part in a much more low key project than Dire Straits ever was. On their sole album, I believe Knopfler only wrote and sang one song. The band was more rootsy, doing lots of country and blues covers.

So, in theory, Knopfler was just one member. But in reality, he was a massive star and everyone else in the band were relative nobodies. Few people would have paid any attention had it not been for his involvement, and the band went just as far as the amount of time and energy he was willing to put into it. They toured in 1990. But then Dire Straits reunited for a final album and world tour in 1991 and 1992, so the Notting Hillbillies went into hiatus while that happened. Then Knopfler went on to other things, but he still reformed the band from time to time. They did a couple dozen concerts between 1993 and 1999, often for charity concerts. There have been no reunions since then.

The roots of the band went waaaay back, thanks to the relationship between Knoplfer and band member and guitar player Steve Phillips. They met in 1968, when both of them were about twenty years old. They were a musical duo for about five years, called "The Duolian String Pickers." After Knopfler left town in the mid-1970s (and later went on to fame and fortune with Dire Straits), Phillips connected with a singer-songwriter named Brendan Crocker, and played with him for many years. So the core of the Notting Hillbillies was Knopfler, Phillips, and Crocker, with all them taking turns singing songs, plus three more musicians playing pedal steel, bass, and drums.

The sole Notting Hillbillies studio album is nice, but I find it a bit slick and overproduced. I think they were better in concert. Plus, they only did 11 songs on that album, but they played more than 50 songs in concert, with the vast majority of those being covers.

Given all that, I think this concert here is an ideal introduction to the band if you've never heard their music before, even more so than their studio album. It's a soundboard bootleg, and the sound quality is excellent. Knoplfer only sang about a third of the songs, but his famous lead guitar playing was all over the place. Plus, the other band members all admirably played their roles.

Only the first 12 songs here are from the 1990 Snape concert in the album title. The last four are from a benefit concert held in Newcastle, Britain, on July 6, 1993. For that, I only included the songs that weren't performed at the Snape concert or weren't on another album I'll soon be posting. By chance, that happened to be four Dire Straits songs, even though it was a Notting Hillbillies concert and not a Dire Straits one.

For the Snape concert, there's no banter between songs, and often a minimum amount of applause at the ends of songs. I suspect this was broadcast on TV or radio, which would explain the excellent sound quality, but probably everything but the music was edited out. Chances are, there were more songs that didn't get included. And for both the Snape and Newcastle portions, I felt the lead vocals were too low in the mix, so I boosted them for all the songs by using the UVR5 audio editing program.

This album is an hour and 16 minutes long. Just the Snape portion is 55 minutes long.

01 One Woman Man (Notting Hillbillies)
02 When It Comes to You (Notting Hillbillies)
03 Water of Love (Notting Hillbillies)
04 That's Alright, Mama (Notting Hillbillies)
05 Your Own Sweet Way (Notting Hillbillies)
06 Run Me Down (Notting Hillbillies)
07 Hobo's Lullaby (Notting Hillbillies)
08 I Think You Love Me Too Much (Notting Hillbillies)
09 Roll, Roll, Roll (Notting Hillbillies)
10 Railroad Worksong (Notting Hillbillies)
11 Feel like Going Home (Notting Hillbillies)
12 Dallas Rag [Instrumental] (Notting Hillbillies)
13 Calling Elvis (Notting Hillbillies)
14 So Far Away (Notting Hillbillies)
15 Why Worry (Notting Hillbillies)
16 Setting Me Up (Notting Hillbillies)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16014083/NottngHillbllies_1990_ThMaltngsSnpeBrtain__5-15-1990_atse.zip.html

The cover photo was taken during the band's appearance on the Saturday Night Live TV show in 1990.

Mark Knopfler - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1996-2004

Mark Knopfler is best known as the main figure in the band Dire Straits, but he's had a long, successful solo career as well. I've already posted what little material Dire Straits did for the BBC, so now I'm turning my focus to Knopfler's BBC stuff. It turns out there's a lot more of it. I'll have some BBC concerts to post, but this is one of two albums of BBC studio sessions.

In the early 1990s, Knopfler alternated between taking more of a backing role in the band the Notting Hillbillies and putting out one last Dire Straits studio album. Then he went silent for a few years before emerging with his first mainstream solo album in 1996, "Golden Heart." (I say "mainstream" because he'd done the music to some movie soundtracks.)

Knopfler went all-in with BBC appearances to promote his album. I plan on posting two BBC concerts from 1996. In addition, he also performed for a full hour on the BBC TV show "Later... with Jools Holland." I've only included one song from that, the first one, "Gravy Train." That's because I thought it would be overkill to have two 1996 concerts and more versions of those same songs sometimes for a third time. "Gravy Train" is the only song from that show that wasn't included in either of the two concerts.

The next three songs are from a 1996 concert that was broadcast on a French radio station. These also are songs that weren't performed in either of the two 1996 concerts I'll be posting. Between all these sources, I have at least one version of the vast majority of the songs he played in concert in 1996.

Tracks five through eight are from 2000, when he was promoting his next studio album, "Sailing to Philadelphia." (I mention that "Song for Sonny Liston" is the acoustic version, because on the other volume of studio sessions I have a full band version of the same song.) 

The next session, tracks nine through 12, is an unusual one. It happened in 2001, and Knopfler wasn't promoting a new album at the time. He appeared on a jazz-themed show, and played with the house band. As a result, all of the songs were unusual choices, with none of them appearing on his studio albums. Two of the songs, "I'll See You in My Dreams" and "The Next Time I'm in Town," came from a 1990 album co-billed to him and guitarist Chet Akins.

The final two songs are from another session in 2004.

This album is an hour long.

01 Gravy Train (Mark Knopfler)
02 Water of Love (Mark Knopfler)
03 A Night in Summer Long Ago (Mark Knopfler)
04 Long Highway (Mark Knopfler)
05 Baloney Again (Mark Knopfler)
06 Marbletown (Mark Knopfler)
07 Song for Sonny Liston [Acoustic Version] (Mark Knopfler)
08 What It Is (Mark Knopfler)
09 Blues Stay Away from Me (Mark Knopfler)
10 Dallas Rag (Mark Knopfler)
11 I'll See You in My Dreams (Mark Knopfler)
12 The Next Time I'm in Town (Mark Knopfler)
13 Brothers in Arms (Mark Knopfler)
14 Going Home [Theme From 'Local Hero'] [Instrumental] (Mark Knopfler)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16003967/MarkK_1996b-2004_BBSessonsVolum1_atse.zip.html

The cover photo of Knopfler was taken at a concert in Hamburg, Germany, in June 1996.

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.