Alchemy Live

Editorial Reviews
Album Description
Finally repressed! Asian only VCD (playable on all DVD players) features 10 tracks. Highlights include, 'Sultans Of Swing', 'Tunnel Of Love ', 'Romeo & Juliet', 'Private Investigations', 'Telegraph Road' and many more. This performance is only available i

Tracks:

Once Upon A Time In The West
Expresso Love
Romeo And Juliet
Love Over Gold
Private Investigations
Sultans Of Swing

Tracks:

Two Young Lovers
Tunnel Of Love
Telegraph Road
Solid Rock
Going Home-Theme From 'Local Hero'

Customer Reviews:

Live Straits.......2007-05-07

This was a good album when it first came out and gave the listener some image of what it is like to hear this band live. Very few recordings can ever do that experience justice. This remaster of the original goes part of the way to achieving that experience. It has brought out some of the excitement and emotion of being part of that audience. I really like this album and would recommend it to any one who likes Dire Straits.

Extended live songs the way they should always be..........2007-04-07

Remember Cream, Hendrix, The Who? All these bands could play any song at any time for 10 minutes... Remember when live music was really live music? Music that did not always sound just like the record? Well, here you go. Mark Knopfler is a true genius. This live document is a real band effort. He lets all show their skills. Although when it comes right down to it, MK plays lots of great strat out of phase leads to keep you happy. Give it a listen. It might just make you a better guitar player.

great live document.......2007-02-25

This album was the first live album I ever bought. I clearly remember walking to a mall near my home when I was a kid, buying this album and listening to it on the walk back home. I had bought all of their albums by that point and was unsure about this one.

This is a great live album. The songs played here are different than the studio versions with alot of variations added. A simple 5 minute song can be played and expanded upon for 10 minutes here. That's the reason why i love this. Many live albums have songs played note for note, might have a quick ending tagged on and are filled with incessant, overloud cheering. This album has none of those.

The songs here are performed with so much energy that you can't help but be affected by it. The sound is mostly good here, but there are stage buzzes on a few tracks. It becomes noticeable during some of the quiet passages here.

'Romeo And Juliet' is performed wonderfully with a great intro before the song actually kick in. 'Love Over Gold' was a b-side that should have remained on the original album. 'Sultans Of Swing here is performed beautifully and has a nice variation on the main guitar riff.

'Two Young Lovers' is a nice little beach type tune from their 'Twisting By The Pool' EP, which frustratingly is still not available on CD. 'Tunnel Of Love' has a great Rodgers/Hammerstein intro that makes a great instrumental opening. 'Telegraph Road' is a worthy performance with a great solo at the end. 'Solid Rock' has a great keyboard opening before the song really picks up to kick some butt and the album ends with a great version of Going Home which Mark Knopfler had recorded only a few months before for a movie called Local Hero. That soundtrack is also amazing and I recommend picking it up.

So this is a great live album. Another performance from this night (Portobello Belle) was released on the Money For Nothing best of CD in 1988. Its also quite obvious they played 'Industrial Disease' on the same night. I can hear it in the fade of 'Once Upon A Time..." Why these two performances aren't available on an expanded edition of this is frustrating. Even a complete DVD of this entire performance might never see release. And that's a shame really.

4 stars for this. The sound buzzes are a bit intrusive, or i would give this five. Buy this album.

this is the best live album ever. period........2006-08-18

Knopfler's smooth textures mix with sheer rock make every song a winner.

Simply put, the best live album I know........2006-06-24

Just compare the live version of "Sultans of Swing" to the original (from the first Dire Straits album), and you'll get my meaning.

Average customer rating:

Just over-rated.
Wow
Makes you wish they'd go on and on and on!

Alchemy: Dire Straits Live
Dire Straits
Manufacturer: Polygram Int'l
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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On the Night
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Love over Gold

ASIN: B0000242CE
Release Date: 1996-06-10

Tracks:

Once Upon A Time In The West
Expresso
Romeo And Juliet
Love Over Gold
Private Investigations
Sultans Of Swing

Tracks:

Two Young Lovers
Tunnel Of Love
Telegraph Road
Solid Rock
Going Home- Theme From 'Local Hero'

Customer Reviews:

Just over-rated........2004-04-24

I beg to differ from some reviewers that the live renditions of some of the tracks on this LP are better than the studio versions. Some are, maybe but not all and this album definitely has its moments but is a bit overrated I think compared with subsequent live concerts the band did. I had the good fortune of seeing them live in 1985 and was sorry that the 1985-86 tour was never brought out on DVD or CD.

Part one of 'Alchemy' is tedious. Too slow in the main, the instrumentals ramble at times and the weakest track on the set 'Love Over Gold' (which was not included on the vinyl version of the album) should have been left off - the original studio version of this track was definitely better; ditto 'Romeo & Juliet' which also drags on. By far the best cut on the first disc is 'Sultans of Swing'.

The second disc is much better in the main. 'Telegraph Road' is superb and so is 'Tunnel of Love', these are unquestionably the best two tracks on the album. 'Going Home' is good too.

Knopfler's singing is weak much of the time. The stage buzzes (which are especially audible on 'Private Investigations') can be a bit intrusive at times as well. Not my favourite live album by any means and certainly not among their best work.

Wow.......2004-01-06

Listening to Knopler's guitar work on a studio album sends chills, he is amazing. The only thing better is hearing him live. Alchemy is a fantastic live album. What he does live on Sultans of Swing and Telegraph Road alone is worth it, but the whole damn thing is great. If you are a Dire Straits fan this is essential.

Makes you wish they'd go on and on and on!.......2003-02-22

Have you ever wondered how many variations of a song, or of song's theme a band can perform live without ever getting boring? Ever listened to somebody play and wished he'd never stop because he is just that great? "Alchemy" is exactly that kind of experience. Recorded two years before what was probably their most successful studio album ("Brothers in Arms"), this more than 90 minute-long live release easily explains why Dire Straits took off with rocket speed in a time otherwise dominated by disco music on the one hand and punk on the other, and why to this day they are considered one of the greatest rock bands ever to have existed. Listen to the first chords of "Once Upon a Time in the West," and you'll know why Mark Knopfler is, in addition to all his other accomplishments, a much sought-after film score composer. Listen to "Romeo and Juliet," and you'll understand why the greatest love story ever told truly is more than a story of two rich kids born to feuding families a couple of centuries ago in Italy, and holds as much truth for us streetwise teenagers of the late 20th century as it did 400 years ago. Listen to "Telegraph Road," and you`ll find a dark, brooding novel of epic proportions condensed into one song, culminating with as haunting and intense a guitar solo as you'll ever hear - by Mark Knopfler or others.

From their first studio album on, Dire Straits defied the three-minute limits imposed by the conventions of radio airplay. But it has always been in a live venue that Mark Knopfler's talent shines most, and that he is able to fully explore all that his Fender will give him ... and more. Each song on this double CD is extended as compared to its respective studio version; no less than four of them ("Once Upon a Time in the West," "Sultans of Swing," "Tunnel of Love" and "Telegraph Road") are over ten minutes long, three even over 13 minutes - only a Dire Straits live album would make it necessary for "just" 11 songs to be spread out over two discs. But these recordings are not about length. They are about one man's dialogue with his guitar, the poetry of his lyrics, his awareness of society; in short, all that great music stands for and can express. Gifted as he is, Mark Knopfler has always found musicians who are exceptionally talented in their own right to provide a foundation he can build on, and this early (although not the earliest) incarnation of Dire Straits is no exception. Yet this band, in all of its formations over the course of the years, was as dominated by Knopfler's musical genius as few other bands have ever been, and nothing could have made this clearer than their live recordings; an experience only surpassed by actually witnessing Knopfler live on stage, particularly as he just seems to get better and better over the course of the years. "Telegraph Road" alone, the dramatic finale of his unforgettable live appearance during the recent "Sailing to Philadelphia" tour, left me completely stunned and wishing the show would go on and on for hours more.

"Anybody who finds nothing to love here has either got a problem with the essential fabric of rock and roll or cloth ears," writes British music journalist Robert Sandall in the introduction to Dire Straits' greatest hits album, "Sultans of Swing." And while this is true for anything they have ever released over the course of their career, and likewise for each and every one of Knopfler's solo albums and movie scores, you have to have more than cloth ears and a problem with the things that rock music is all about not to be inspired by this incredible piece of live recording.

Average customer rating:

Alchemy Live

ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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Classic Rock | Imports | Stores | Music

Rock | Imports | Stores | Music
ASIN: B0002JC6W4
Release Date: 2003-12-02

Album Description

Finally repressed! Asian only VCD (playable on all DVD players) features 10 tracks. Highlights include, 'Sultans Of Swing', 'Tunnel Of Love ', 'Romeo & Juliet', 'Private Investigations', 'Telegraph Road' and many more. This performance is only available i

Average customer rating:

Alchemy : Dire Strait Live
Dire Straits
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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General | Rock | Styles | Music

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ASIN: B000J3AMAQ

Average customer rating:

From Berlin to Broadway, Vol. 2

Manufacturer: Pearl
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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ASIN: B000000WSN
Release Date: 1997-11-18

Tracks:

Konjunktur: Petroleum Song - Otto Pasetti/Alfred Schlee
Die Dreigroschenoper: Moritat Von Mackie Messer - Harald Paulsen
Die Dreigroschenoper: Kanonensong - Harald Paulsen
Die Dreigroschenoper: Die Seerauber-Jenny - Carola Neher
Die Dreigroschenoper: Barbara-Song - Carola Neher
Die Dreigroschenoper: Moritat And Chor - Orch/Theo Mackeben
Die Dreigroschenoper: Tango-Ballade Und Kanonensong - Orch/Theo Mackeben
Die Dreigroschenoper: Jomfru Dilemma - Gerda Madsen
Die Dreigroschenoper: Complainte De Mackie - Mme. Damia
Die Dreigroschenoper: Chantes Des Canons - Marianne Oswald
Die Dreigroschenoper: La Fiancee Du Pirate - Odette Florelle
Die Dreigroschenoper: La Fiancee Du Pirate - LYS GAUTY
Die Dreigroschenoper: Chant De Barbara - LYS GAUTY
Aufstieg Und Fall Der Stadt Mahagonny: Alabama Song - Lotte Lenya
Aufstieg Und Fall Der Stadt Mahagonny: Denn Wie Mann Sich Bettet - Lotte Lenya
Happy End: Der Song Von Mandalay - Lewis Ruth Band
Happy End: Matronensong - Lewis Ruth Band
Happy End: Surabaya-Johnny - Marianne Oswald
Knickerbocker Holiday: September Song - Walter Huston
Excerpts From Broadcast: Intro/A History Of New York/Clunk, Clunk, Swish/Entrance Of The Council - Robert Shackleton
Excerpts From Broadcast: It Never Was You - Jeanne Madden/David Brooks
Excerpts From Broadcast: One Touch Of Alchemy/All Hail The Political Honeymoon - Walter Huston

Tracks:

Knickerbocker Holiday: Excerpts From Broadcast: Act Two Intro/There's Nowhere To Go But Up - Walter Huston
Knickerbocker Holiday: Excerpts From Broadcast: Marching Song: To War! - Walter Huston
Knickerbocker Holiday: Excerpts From Broadcast: The Scars - Walter Huston
Knickerbocker Holiday: Excerpts From Broadcast: Second Act Finale: September Song (Reprise)... - Cast
Broadcast Performance: September Song - Frank Sinatra
Ulysses Africanus: Lost In The Stars - Walter Huston
Lady In The Dark: Jenny - Danny Kaye
Lady In The Dark: The Princess Of Pure Delight - Danny Kaye
Lady In The Dark: My Ship - Danny Kaye
Lady In The Dark: One Life To Live - Danny Kaye
Lady In The Dark: The Saga Of Jenny - Hildegarde
Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory: Battle Hymn Of The Republic - Helen Hayes
Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory: The Star Spangled Banner - Helen Hayes
Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory: America: Pledge To The Flag - Helen Hayes
Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory: Beat! Beat! Drums! - Helen Hayes
One Touch Of Venus: Very, Very, Very - Kurt Weill
One Touch Of Venus: Wooden Wedding - Kurt Weill
One Touch Of Venus: That's Him - Kurt Weill
One Touch Of Venus: Speak Low - Kurt Weill
One Touch Of Venus: Jersey Plunk - Kurt Weill
One Touch Of Venus: The Trouble With Women - Kurt Weill