Brillant OL tour

[herlock]

I am just now listening to a lot of 80/81 shows and I just would like to share with you how amazed I am.

So far, in my mind, the OL tour was some kind of old prehistoric tour - a reharsal for Alchemy...
Well, nothing could be further from the truth ! watching Dormund'80, the level of energy, the crowd enthousiasm, Alan's first steps on keyboards... awsome !

I find the late tour set list to be so well balanced ! 2 years later, the LOG tour setlist would drop most songs from the 2 first albums, to focus on MM and LOG; but in the OL tour, you still had a nice share of the two first albums: DTTW, Lions, News, WDYTYRG... plus most of the MM album including Skateway, plus... a nice share of the LOG album that had yet to be released ! PI was already present partially at the end of News, and Telegraph Road was already there ! and what a version of TR ! very emotional, refreshing, not primitive at all, actually it is now one of my very favourites of all times ! You don't have the Log song (but the live version was not so great anyway), Industrial Disease (but it is no big loss), nor do you have Twisting by the pool / Two Young Lovers, but the early songs more than make up for it; it is actually a dream set list, a superb summary of the band career before BiA, only "Going Home" would have made it 100% perfect !

And what to say of the renditions of old songs ! This is where I discovered how underrated, little songs can be beautiful when extended ! I especially think of Lions and News, the Dortmund versions are just amazing ! "This is a song for John Lennon...", and the line "you're just gambling with your life", with such emotion !

Of course, it is not perfect. The (ab)use of synth is unbearable sometimes; I especially think of the end solo of Sultans, almost unlistenable, the synth ruins Mark's guitar ! this would be luckily corrected for the Log tour.

But overall the tour is so fresh, energetic, emotional... Watching Dormund '80 I though: "this is the real birth of DS". I learnt my lesson well: old does not necessarily mean bad, and newer does not necessarily mean better.

Cheers

[Ingo]

Yeah, I also love the 1980/81 period. In fact that Dortmund show was my first live concert ever, I wrote a blog post about it (including some pictures from the soundcheck) at http://www.mk-guitar.com/blog/2011/03/29/the-dire-straits-rock-pop-in-concert-tv-show-in-dortmund-1980/ , check out if you don't know it yet.

The sound in the arena was much better than on the TV show, the 'awful' keyboards occasionally are partly a matter of being just too loud (e.g. the hammond organ on Lions)

Ingo

[dmg]

I am just now listening to a lot of 80/81 shows and I just would like to share with you how amazed I am.

So far, in my mind, the OL tour was some kind of old prehistoric tour - a reharsal for Alchemy...
Well, nothing could be further from the truth ! watching Dormund'80, the level of energy, the crowd enthousiasm, Alan's first steps on keyboards... awsome !

Well said.  It's a two-way thing between the performer and the audience;  the more energy from the stage, the greater the response from the audience.  I guess one could relate it to a football match.  No own goal jokes please!

[JF]

The 80/81 period is the more innovating DS period
lot of experimentation, trying diffrents sound, adding diffrents chords in the songs, etc....
It brought DS in the "progressive" side of rock
Alan Clark was of course an important element of this muscial direction

Alan's first steps on keyboards... awsome

You even have Mark's first step on hammond B3 on TOL intro  (then followed by Ron eve's hand)

old does not necessarily mean bad, and newer does not necessarily mean better.

of course, it depends on songs
I'd say that songs played in 80/81 and 82/83 were "better" in 82/83
I prefer portobello belle , once upon a time, tunnel of love, sultans in 82/83, it's more "developped"

but 80/81 is great for songs that have never been played since : news, gallery, single hand sailor, lions....

and I love Telegraph road version in 80/81, with the Schecter Tele on neck PU !

[herlock]

[quote author=Jean-Fran

[dmg]

100% agree with all of that.
Portobello Belle was smoothened in the Log tour and I prefer that; same with TOL, which was even a bit better in the BIA tour later; Sultants is maybe the one I dislike on the OL tour, too much old fashing synth in the end solo, Alchemy was much better.
But in the OL tour, little, unassuming songs like Lions and News became moving masterpieces. Can't understand why Mark has never played them since then. They would fit so well with his solo career.

[/quote]
I'd say the early songs like News, Lions etc. sound better less developed as they were performed in 78/79.  In my opinion the very reason the keyboards were introduced (the band made larger) was to accomodate the more epic songs starting to be introduced on the albums starting with ToL, then TR and other new songs MK thought were more suited to development.  The new songs sounded great on this tour. 

The early songs were only played around with on an experamental basis to fill in the set due to lack of material, possibly and inevitably they were soon dropped by the next tour.

[herlock]

I'd say the early songs like News, Lions etc. sound better less developed as they were performed in 78/79.  In my opinion the very reason the keyboards were introduced (the band made larger) was to accomodate the more epic songs starting to be introduced on the albums starting with ToL, then TR and other new songs MK thought were more suited to development.  The new songs sounded great on this tour. 

The early songs were only played around with on an experamental basis to fill in the set due to lack of material, possibly and inevitably they were soon dropped by the next tour.

Well... I can agree with you on the reason why the keyboards were introduced, and why the old songs were dropped in the LOG tour; but personally I think this is a pity, it is only now that I am discovering the marvels of the OL tour, the highly publicized Alchemy overshaded these old gems...
I disagree with you on the fact that the old songs were better less developped; I got convinced by Pottel to listen to "Where do you think you're going" in the OL tour, and this actually changed my previous opinion that the version of the BBC arena documentary was the best ever... Not that I find it bad, it is quite wonderful, but I think the keyboards add a lot to it; same for Lions and News, more depth and emotion I think.

dmg, where'nt you the one to advocate the added complexity, overdrive, sax, synth... of the BIA tour over the LOG tour ? yet you seem here to prefer the raw sounding of 78/79 over the more developped versions of 80/81... isn't it a contradiction ?

Cheers

[dmg]

I guess it does sound like a contradiction but it's my personal opinion.  The reason for it is just that I find the OL tour sound a lot less polished than the BIA tour and the keyboards are just everywhere and too cheesy on the OL tour also for my taste.  As I said though some songs sounded great, especially the new ones - Skateaway being a prime example.

The LOG tour really in my opinion is just very similar to the OL tour with sax added.  There is a much bigger jump between OL and BIA than OL and LOG.

[herlock]

I guess it does sound like a contradiction but it's my personal opinion.  The reason for it is just that I find the OL tour sound a lot less polished than the BIA tour and the keyboards are just everywhere and too cheesy on the OL tour also for my taste.  As I said though some songs sounded great, especially the new ones - Skateaway being a prime example.

The LOG tour really in my opinion is just very similar to the OL tour with sax added.  There is a much bigger jump between OL and BIA than OL and LOG.

I was teasing you Yeah, I see what you mean. True that the keyboards can be very cheesy on the OL tour (Sultans is horrible for instance). On the other hand, the raw piano is beautiful (intro to TOL, TR). For Skateaway there are a lot of versions which I find less good than the studio version... but the one filmed for Fridays Live is just awsome, this should be on offical video, and this song should have been kept !
The LOG tour was a lot more polished the OL in my mind, tough - less cheesy keyboards, more depth, more complex arrangements (think of SR, TOL, OUATITW). I find the jump to be rather small between LOG and BIA (a little more polished, guitars and drums more overdriven, more breaks and more sax).

[Rollergirl]

This is bugging me, what does OL stand for?

[herlock]

"On Location". This was the name of the tour promoting the Making Movies album.
To my knowledge this was the only time the tour was not named by the album, but by a line from a song in the album ("Making Movies on location", in Stakeway. The unreleased "Making Movies" song that we can see and hear on the wonderful BBC Arera documentary also features this line. Maybe the song was just transformed to the point of being totally different and renamed "Skateaway".).

On everybootleg.nl, though, the tour is simply referenced as "Making Movies tour". I guess this name is also correct, and meaningful, so, who cares

Cheers

[Rollergirl]

thank you! that was really bugging me

[Rollergirl]

so it was not Lyon's football team 

[Simon]

I am having a block here - OL?

[koobaa]

"On Location"