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Saturday, March 14, 2020

Album Review: Dire Straits - On the Night (1993)

My favorite live album is, and probably always will be Mad Dogs & Englishmen by Joe Cocker.  Now, I rarely listen to live albums - but this is an album that everybody should own, and with a little help of his friends, such as Rita Coolidge and Leon Russell, Cocker came up with what should rightly be considered a legendary album that is sorely underrated.  Now, after having listened to a couple of tracks from Dire Straits' On the Night, and being subsequently impressed with what I heard, I was expecting yet another cracker of a live album, and whilst it lacks the sentiment and character of the aforementioned Joe Cocker classic, it's nonetheless an impeccable live rendition of a band that, at their finest, was the best in the business.  Some of the live versions here are, dare I say it, perhaps better than the studio originals - the keyboards on "Walk of Life" capture the spirit and essence of the song far better than the studio version ever did, and I'm loving the extended saxophone work on "Romeo and Juliet."  "Brothers in Arms", too, sounds just as good as it does on Brothers in Arms.  But the biggest surprises for me here are "On Every Street" and "You and Your Friend."  Both songs come off On Every Street, an album I have yet to listen to.  But that will change soon.  Very, very soon.  I'm loving this live album, every song, every minute.  It's fantastic, no matter what others think.  A


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