On The Night - Ridiculously Bad???

[dustyvalentino]

Now, I have never been a fan of On The Night. Even as a 14 year old kid I was disappointed. I was really excited for its release and bought the CD and VHS on day one but it fell flat. Even at that age I could tell something was off with the audio - it sounded cheesy, overprocessed and in no way "live" when compared to the Ticket To Heaven bootleg CD I had of the Basel show,

At that time I had no idea it had been cut together from different shows. Watching the other night it struck me that the video editing is ridiculously bad - by which I mean that when watching Calling Elvis it's clearly obvious which shots are from the different shows, some of them are way darker than the others.

Thoughts?

[JF]

I have planned to write a chronicle for its 30th anniversary release on may 10th 

but I can already say that I have the same thoughts as you 

[Jules]

I think Brunno Nunes did quite a good job with this:

http://universodirestraits.blogspot.com/2021/06/calling-elvis-on-night-performance.html

[superval99]

Yes, I agree with you, dusty, about On The Night video.  I always found it over-produced/over-processed and much preferred the version I recorded from Channel 4 on Christmas Eve 1992.   I almost wore out that recording, but when I bought OTN I was really disappointed and thought my original Basel recording was much more honest.   Since then I found the more complete version from Basel.

[dustyvalentino]

I think Brunno Nunes did quite a good job with this:

http://universodirestraits.blogspot.com/2021/06/calling-elvis-on-night-performance.html

Yes, great job, thanks for sharing.

[quizzaciously]

I dunno, guys. I bought the On The Night DVD when I was 15, and it simply BLEW MY MIND. I played it so much that I practically destroyed the poor thing, to the point it won't play anymore. I loved everything about it. Most importantly, I loved the music and the precision of how well it was played by all musicians.

It's called "On The Night", it's not "Live In Rotterdam" or "Live In Nîmes" or something, so the fact of it being a compilation begins even with the title. I knew it was a compilation because it was quite obvious when they show the audience that it was either a small amphitheatre or whatever, or a big rear stadium.

I still love it, and I still think it's one of the best DVDs from any tour in history, despite missing Telegraph and Sultans, despite all its flaws. I might be biased since I fell in love with it at a such young age, but looking past its flaws and the history of MK and the band at the time, I see a perfectly executed "postcard" of Dire Straits' last tour, which it intended to be in the first place.

[Jules]

I always compared this video with Alchemy, which has also its own tricks but in comparation, Alchemy feels like a real live thing, OTN is like they are miming to soundboard edited recordings.

[quizzaciously]

I always compared this video with Alchemy, which has also its own tricks but in comparation, Alchemy feels like a real live thing, OTN is like they are miming to soundboard edited recordings.

Now, speaking of editing, I don't know if that's a solid argument against this record. As someone who watches this thing under the microscope for my lessons, I can tell that what's showing in the video is exactly what's being played, so nobody's cheating there. I think the whole "overproduced" feel comes purely from the fact it was such a large-scale circus operation with 3 months of rehearsals, it's overproduced by definition.

It was just so perfectly executed to the point of falling into the uncanny valley when it starts to sound "too perfect". But to me, all shows from this tour were like this, they all were "too perfect", "cheesy" and polished, but isn't this why we love Mark's music? For how polished it is? In the good sense of the word of course.

Alchemy was the opposite when MK deliberately tried to make a live album, so it shows. For On The Night, it wasn't a live album, but a postcard. Postcards are always overproduced, cheesy and nothing like the real thing. But it won't stop us from using them!

[Robson]

I dunno, guys. I bought the On The Night DVD when I was 15, and it simply BLEW MY MIND. I played it so much that I practically destroyed the poor thing, to the point it won't play anymore. I loved everything about it. Most importantly, I loved the music and the precision of how well it was played by all musicians.

It's called "On The Night", it's not "Live In Rotterdam" or "Live In Nîmes" or something, so the fact of it being a compilation begins even with the title. I knew it was a compilation because it was quite obvious when they show the audience that it was either a small amphitheatre or whatever, or a big rear stadium.

I still love it, and I still think it's one of the best DVDs from any tour in history, despite missing Telegraph and Sultans, despite all its flaws. I might be biased since I fell in love with it at a such young age, but looking past its flaws and the history of MK and the band at the time, I see a perfectly executed "postcard" of Dire Straits' last tour, which it intended to be in the first place.

Yes, I agree with you

[Robson]

I always compared this video with Alchemy, which has also its own tricks but in comparation, Alchemy feels like a real live thing, OTN is like they are miming to soundboard edited recordings.

Now, speaking of editing, I don't know if that's a solid argument against this record. As someone who watches this thing under the microscope for my lessons, I can tell that what's showing in the video is exactly what's being played, so nobody's cheating there. I think the whole "overproduced" feel comes purely from the fact it was such a large-scale circus operation with 3 months of rehearsals, it's overproduced by definition.

It was just so perfectly executed to the point of falling into the uncanny valley when it starts to sound "too perfect". But to me, all shows from this tour were like this, they all were "too perfect", "cheesy" and polished, but isn't this why we love Mark's music? For how polished it is? In the good sense of the word of course.

Alchemy was the opposite when MK deliberately tried to make a live album, so it shows. For On The Night, it wasn't a live album, but a postcard. Postcards are always overproduced, cheesy and nothing like the real thing. But it won't stop us from using them!

 

For many years I did not know that the concert was edited. But that doesn't ruin my impression. I have a special fondness to On The Night.

[Jules]

Well Quizzy, that's not what I want from a live record. The fact that the Basel or Nimes broadcasts are better as live postcards says it all for me.

[dustyvalentino]

Well Quizzy, that's not what I want from a live record. The fact that the Basel or Nimes broadcasts are better as live postcards says it all for me.

Agreed. Perception is an interesting thing. Quizzy, if you had seen Basel before as some of us had then you might not have been blown away by On The Night. The playing is still as good (they are all recorded within weeks of each other) but it genuinely "feels" like a live recording (because it was!) in the same way that Alchemy does.

[quizzaciously]

Well Quizzy, that's not what I want from a live record. The fact that the Basel or Nimes broadcasts are better as live postcards says it all for me.

Agreed. Perception is an interesting thing. Quizzy, if you had seen Basel before as some of us had then you might not have been blown away by On The Night. The playing is still as good (they are all recorded within weeks of each other) but it genuinely "feels" like a live recording (because it was!) in the same way that Alchemy does.

To my mind, no live recording can match the feeling you get on a live show, so we can go as far as saying that no bootleg, live album or broadcast can recreate the real deal, which is probably true. The real live show is like a rainbow, which is individual for each observer. This "unedited" bootleg or broadcast is just slightly better at capturing this unabridged feeling, but it won't change the music itself, it's only about the feeling, and small amounts of it. Just like Dusty said.

A live album, or any recording, is something a microphone hears, or mixing board hear, or sound engineers hear. On a live show you stay on one point, listen to the band (or speakers for that matter) from one point, and watch it from the same angle. So if you record it from a single camera and single stereo binaural microphone with no edits, that will be the closest to a live show. So for the most part every live DVD is more like a movie. In a movie, you're not seeing events as it's happening, you see them how you would REMEMBER them. And by this definition, I think any live album or bootleg works.

So to me personally, there's no difference between Basel, On The Night or any other bootleg, they all work should you look at them with the right attitude. On The Night is a movie about Dire Straits' last tour, it's not a live album by any means. It's like Titanic movie is not a documentary on the ship's fate, it's an attempt of recreating how one would remember the events. Some like it to be true to life (see "Titanic Sinks Real Time" videos on YouTube), some like it to be cheesy, some like both. I'm from the latter group.

[JF]

I agree with Pavel. To me, Basel, Nimes or any show of the 91-92 tour sounds the same : ultra-polished, far too much reharsed, no improvisation at all (maybe few shows at the start of the tour had a little bit this flavour of "improvisation")
personnally, I don't find any diffrence between Basel broadcast or On the night : it's the same overproduced music

I was never found of this last tour. and any live recordings, being official release or TV broacast are the same for me.

I fell in love with Dire Straits by listening BIA and Alchemy. So I had the same impression Pavel had with OTN when I saw the Alchemy video for the first time.
Of course I am aware that our impressions are linked to our personnal life. It's all subjective.
But I will always far prefer Alchemy over OTN

[dustyvalentino]

Although it's not the reason I started this thread, the main difference between Basel and OTN is in the sound.

Without even taking into account the fact that solos etc are seemingly dropped in from multiple recordings or possibly rerecorded altogether, there are choices made in production, like reverbs etc. MK's vocals just don't sound "live" on OTN because of the way they have been processed.

I'd rather not have the cheese personally. You can literally visualise someone pressing the fader up on the crowd noise when the percussion/drum duel starts on Calling Elvis and its cheesy as hell.