Alchemy: Dire Straits Live is the first live album by the British rock band Dire Straits, released on 16 March 1984 by Vertigo Records internationally, and by Warner Bros. Records in the United States. Recorded at the Hammersmith Odeon in London on 22–23 July 1983, the double album features songs from the band's first four albums, the ExtendedancEPlay EP and Mark Knopfler's Local Hero soundtrack. Many of the songs have reworked arrangements and extended instrumental segments. The album cover is taken from a painting by Brett Whiteley. Alchemy: Dire Straits Live was remastered and reissued with the rest of the Dire Straits catalogue in 1996 for most of the world outside the United States and was remastered and re-released in the USA on 8 May 2001. In November 2023, Alchemy was re-released and expanded for the box set Live 1978–1992.

Recording

Alchemy: Dire Straits Live was recorded live at the Hammersmith Odeon in London on 22–23 July 1983, the final two concerts of Dire Straits' eight-month Love Over Gold Tour promoting their album Love Over Gold. The concerts were recorded by Mick McKenna using the Rolling Stones Mobile unit. The recording was mixed at AIR Studios in London in November 1983 where Nigel Walker was the engineer. The opening track, "Once Upon a Time in the West" is preceded by an uncredited version of the "Stargazer" instrumental from the Local Hero soundtrack. "Tunnel of Love" is preceded by an otherwise unrecorded instrumental (actually faded in from the extended coda of "Portobello Belle", which was left off the album), already played on the 1981 tour, but here re-arranged to showcase Mel Collins' saxophone. It is followed by the brief "Carousel Waltz" intro and standard version of the song.

Cover artwork

The album cover artwork was adapted from a section of a painting by Brett Whiteley titled Alchemy 1974. Alchemy is a hypothetical process once believed to turn ordinary elements into gold. The image of a guitar with lips held by a hand was added for the album design and covers sexually suggestive imagery in the original. The original painting, done between 1972 and 1973, was composed of many different elements and on 18 wood panels 203 cm x 1615 cm x 9 cm. In terms of media it used everything from feathers and part of a bird's nest to a glass eye, shell, plugs and brain in a work that becomes a transmutation of sexual organic landscapes and mindscapes.

Critical reception

Reviewing retrospectively for AllMusic, critic William Ruhlmann wrote of the album "There is an interesting contrast .... 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." Ruhlmann concludes, "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."

Track listing

All songs were written by Mark Knopfler, except where indicated.

LP

CD

"Love over Gold", which had been released as a separate single in 1984, was added into the track list for the CD release, and the fade outs between sides 1 and 2 and sides 3 and 4 have been removed. A number of tracks had their length increased for the CD releases (the closing number, "Going Home", by the addition of another intro from Local Hero, namely "The Rocks and the Thunder"), and the track order is slightly different: "Romeo and Juliet" and "Expresso Love" are in reversed order.

Outtakes

Three more songs were recorded live but not included on the official album release: "Industrial Disease," "Twisting by the Pool" and "Portobello Belle". An edited version of "Portobello Belle" (length: 4:33) and a remixed version of "Telegraph Road" were included on the CD version of the compilation Money for Nothing, released in 1988 (Money for Nothing was re-mastered in 1996 as part of the "Dire Straits Re-Mastered" series. The album was then deleted to make way for the Sultans of Swing - The Best of Dire Straits CD released shortly after). All three missing songs were newly mixed and inserted into the Alchemy running order for the 2023 box set Live 1978-1992 (the other songs were remastered from the original mix), however this version of the album omits the "Rocks and the Thunder" intro to "Going Home" like the original LP did, and swaps the order of "Telegraph Road" and "Solid Rock". Also, "Portobello Belle" (7:22) has the full intro, but a shortened outro.

Personnel

Dire Straits Additional musicians Production

Video release

The concert film was originally released in Beta, VHS video cassette and Laserdisc formats, and digitally remastered in 1995. 2010 saw new DVD and Blu-ray Disc releases of the concert with surround sound mixes prepared by Chuck Ainlay and the original video footage digitally enhanced and cleaned by Dick Carruthers. The song "Love over Gold" is not included in the video, just like the original album, but is available on the compilation Sultans of Swing: The Very Best of Dire Straits. It includes a mix of the live band footage with circus spectacle scenes. The 2010 Blu-ray release also included the BBC Arena documentary about Dire Straits aired in 1980. The Alchemy video opens with scenes of the band in a pub playing pool, interspersed with concert clips. Playing over this is the song Saturday Night at the Movies performed by The Drifters. The music changes to the instrumental "Stargazer", from the film Local Hero, over external shots of a sold-out Hammersmith Odeon. The scene switches to the inside of the venue as Dire Straits are announced and walk onstage for the concert. The closing credits again use the Drifters' "Saturday Night at the Movies".

Charts

Album

Video

Certifications

Album

Video