There is an interesting contrast on this 94-minute double-disc live album (recorded at London's Hammersmith Odeon in July 1983) between the music, much of which is slow and moody, with
Mark Knopfler's muttered vocals and large helpings of his fingerpicking on what sounds like an amplified Spanish guitar, and the audience response. The arena-size crowd cheers wildly, and claps and sings along when given half a chance, as though each song were an up-tempo rocker. When they do have a song of even medium speed, such as "Sultans of Swing" or "Solid Rock," they are in ecstasy. That
Dire Straits' introspective music loses much of its detail in a live setting matters less than that it gains presence and a sense of anticipation.
Alan Clark's keyboards help to fill out the sound and give
Knopfler's spare melodies a certain majesty, but
Dire Straits remains an overgrown bar band with a
Bob Dylan fixation, and that's exactly how the crowd likes it. [The CD version of the album contains one extra track, "Love Over Gold," which adds a needed change of pace to the otherwise slow-moving first disc.] ~ William Ruhlmann