There are voices, both human and instrumental, that you will always be able to pick out of a crowd of thousands. Mark Knopfler and his guitar are an example of that, and "On The Night" is one of the best albums ever released by Knopfler and friends. Recorded during their 1992 tour at two concerts in Nîmes and Amsterdam, the album shows that Dire Straits were a class act right to the end. While the band underwent multiple transformations in membership over the course of its existence, Mark Knopfler has always had the gift to surround himself with first rate musicians - this is true for the people who have joined him on his recent solo releases and the current "Sailing to Philadelphia" tour, and it was likewise true with regard to Dire Straits, in whatever configuration they existed at any given time. And yet, the excellence of the people who join him on stage and in the studio only serves to enhance the brilliance of the guy whose middle name might, for all intents and purposes, be "Fender Strat," and whose laid back, understated, gruff vocals are as crucial and distinctive to the typical Dire Straits/Mark Knopfler sound as is his guitar play. Like all great musicians, he thrives on the live atmosphere, and not bound by the restraints of studio recording, he and the band delve into the songs, particularly their instrumental sections, with an energy and deep feeling for each piece that lesser musicians are far from achieving even at the height of their careers.

The record opens, as did the band's shows (and as does Knopfler still on the current tour) with a powerful "Calling Elvis," and it is something like a live "best of Dire Straits" album (personally, I'd have wished they would also have included "Sultans of Swings" and "Telegraph Road;" which would of course have made it a "top 12" instead of the "top 10" song collection, though). Highlights include an incredibly soulful "Romeo and Juliet," one of the greatest love songs ever written in rock history, a very dark "Private Investigations," which goes from a slow, moody start to almost 5 minutes' worth of instrumental featuring a number of hard, edgy riffs, only to end on pensive notes again, and of course, "Brothers in Arms," to this day probably Dire Straits' greatest trade mark piece besides "Sultans of Swings," with a guitar solo which gives me goose bumps every time I listen to it.

"We need Dire Straits back," none other than Don Henley proclaimed during the last show of his own recent "Inside Job" tour, "to counter all the crap that's playing on the radio now." "On the Night" more than proves his point. But as long as that's not going to happen, I'll at least take Knopfler solo, with whoever he chooses to play, and I hope he doesn't decide to stop touring any time soon.

Also recommended:
Alchemy: Dire Straits Live
On the Night
Dire Straits
Night in London
Sailing to Philadelphia (CD & DVD Audio)
Local Hero (1983 Film)

During the 1985 Live Aid concert, it gave an opportunity for many bands that had established a cult following to come out and play on the world stage. Perhaps one band that benefited from this more than any other band was Dire Straits. Dire Straits' live performance of "Money for Nothing" and "Sultans of Swing" clearly elevated the band to superstar status. It was also the momentum from Live Aid that propelled "Money For Nothing" to #1 song status and the album "Brothers in Arms" to #1 album status. If you look beyond "Money For Nothing" and "Brothers in Arms", you will discover what a terrific band Dire Straits is. Much of Dire Straits is the result of the awesome guitar work of Mark Knopfler, but there is also some great instrumentation from other band members such as bassist John Illsley.. In many circles, Knopfler is considered as good as they come. For Dire Straits, they would do things much differently than many of the other bands during the "British Invasion" that was taking place. In an era where Punk and New Wave were taking center stage, Dire Straits were doing things the old-fashioned way: a combination of Classic Rock, Blues, Folk, and even some Country. Knopfler has also proven himself to be a top notch lyricist - writing both humorous and serious songs. The combination of outstanding instrumentation, great lyrics and a mix of old-fashioned Rock genres is really what made Dire Straits such a great band. As evidenced by that Live Aid performance, Dire Straits has proven to be an awesome live act. This is reflected in their second live album, "On the Night"

During their career Dire Straits would release three live albums. The first was the legendary 1984 double album entitled "Alchemy". "Alchemy" was considered to be a great live album because of some of the great improvisations taken by Knopfler and the band. "Alchemy" consists of material prior to "Brothers in Arms". The second album is "On the Night", which focuses on the material from Dire Straits' last two studio albums - "Brothers in Arms" and "On Every Street". Dire Straits would also go on to release a third live album called "Live at the BBC" that would consist of much of their early material that they performed at the BBC.

As mentioned the tracks from "Brothers in Arms" and "On Every Street" are going to account for the majority of the tracks (8). The contributions from "Brothers in Arms" are: "Walk of Life", "Your Latest Trick", "Money For Nothing", and "Brothers in Arms". The contributions from "On Every Street" are: "Calling Elvis", "Heavy Fuel", "On Every Street", and "You and Your Friends". The pre-"Brothers in Arms" tracks included are "Romeo and Juliet" and "Private Investigations". There are several missing tracks - most notably, "Sultans of Swing", "So Far Away", "The Bug", and "Telegraph Road". However despite "On the Night" only having 10 tracks, it is jam-packed with 75 minutes of music, so this might have been done to keep the price down to an economical single CD.

Like "Alchemy", Dire Straits aren't going to be afraid to improvise. "Alchemy" also had plenty of longer tracks that gave the band the opportunity to showcase their outstanding instrumentation. "On the Night' isn't going to be afraid of long tracks either. There are 11 tracks on this collection - all of them over 5 minutes with 8 of the tracks over 6 minutes and two tracks over 10 minutes. "On the Night" is going to provide much of the mix of Rock genres that have been heard throughout their careers - namely the mix of Classic Rock, Blues, Folk, and even some Country. I think it's fair to say that the harder rock sound is probably going to be the one that stands out.

One thing that disappointed me was the version of "Money For Nothing". If you have heard Dire Straits' versions at Live Aid or Knebworth, these versions are going to blow you away. This version is going to definitely have a heavier guitar sound - with some incredible drum work. However, I feel Knopfler's vocals are not up to par with the other versions I have heard him do of this song. At times, Knopfler is too drowned out by the guitar - especially during "he's banging on his bongos like a chimpanzee".

There are some great live versions of tracks. "Calling Elvis", "Heavy Fuel", "Romeo and Juliet", "Your Latest Trick", and "On Every Street" are going to be the standout tracks. "Calling Elvis" will completely blow you away - showing the mix of the genres. I like how the band does a 10 minute jam of this song. The song really pays homage to Presley's music

When I review a live album, I usually prefer the album to basically be a full recording of a concert. In other words, I prefer the tracks come a single night's performance and be arranged in the order that they were played in concert. I normally am not one for edited concerts or live compilations. "On the Night" is a mix of the performances from 1992 performances in the Netherlands and France. It also doesn't include all of the tracks from those performances (The DVD has 2 additional tracks, but again this might have been done to keep things to a single CD). Despite these shortcomings, producers Knopfler, Guy Fletcher, and Neil Dorfsman do a great job at assembling the tracks to give the impression of a single concert.

The liner notes don't contain much information other than the musician credits and a lot of photos. Overall, this is still going to be a pleasing album - especially for the Dire Straits fan who will want to have a live album of their later material. This album will probably also be pleasing to the more casual Dire Straits fan as it will contain a nice spin on some of the more familiar material. Highly recommended.

First off, in my humble opinion this is a recording of the tour in which Dire Straits really started to get tired. The band is well-known for reinventing ways to play songs on different tours, but in this case, they left behind the spark that made new versions shine (see "Once Upon A Time In The West" off of their other live album "Alchemy"), and opted for operatic bombast instead.

The music is so choreographed and inflated on this show that it feels like the band is actually getting bored. "Romeo and Juliet", initially a dry and sweet ballad, has turned into a slow and greasy orchestral mushy mass. Same with "Private Investigations", where it's just a zillion keyboards - even the sparse bass line towards the end of the song is drowned out in long sustained synthesizer chords and saxophone riffs. "Calling Elvis", initially lunar, sparse and odd, becomes a Vegas-style all-singin', all-dancin', "let's swap solos" deal, and is interminable. Worst of all, Mark Knopfler's solos, which used to stir the soul, now seem mechanical. On "Brothers in Arms", you hear the same riff is used about 10 times in a row - there isn't much creative spark there, unfortunately. The same can be said of "You and Your Friend" - although Paul Franklin's slide guitar/dobro solo on that one is still very good.

I saw this tour back in '91, and again in '92. It was good fun, but with nine musicians on stage trying to rock, there was little room for improvisation. This definitely comes through in "On the Night".

Perhaps also adding to the sense of fatigue are the track-listing and production. Where is "Sultans of Swing"? Where is "Telegraph Road"? Where is "Two Young Lovers"? All three songs were staples of the "On Every Street" tour, and they still rocked pretty soundly. A lot of thought has been given to the production of this record, but in all honesty I don't think Guy Fletcher (also keyboardist for DS) is the best person for the job. In all honesty, Guy's a great musician, but he's also a bit of a nerdy engineer (who loves his equipment, and extensively documents all the aspects of each tour in his on-line journals, including how good the food is, etc.). He's a perfectionist, and therefore tries to get the most "perfect" sound for each song. The result is that he tries to get the sound of things as close as possible to the studio recordings. "Walk of Life" is a clear example: live, it has more of a raw edge, because the guitars tend to be less echoey, and Knopfler's voice isn't as playful, but here it sounds exactly like the studio version, with a slide guitar thrown in. A "perfect" version is not what we want - we want the full live recording, warts and all. The "warts and all" approach is what DS had opted to do on their far superior live album "Alchemy".

The more creative moments of the show were also cut off - where is the drum solo at the end of "Money for Nothing" (also a staple of this tour)? Where is the playful interaction with the audience during "Walk of Life" (here reduced to nothing)?

So why still 3 stars? Well, simply, it's Dire Straits. Although pompous, inflated, and very mellow for a Dire Straits record, "On the Night" still translates the band's great musicianship, and does have very moving moments. You just need to force yourself to forget the production and convince yourself they're having fun on stage if you really want to enjoy it. You can get there, most of the time, but it hurts when the recording doesn't let you.

If you find a better live CD than this, please let me know! The live recording brings Dire Straits' music to life. Calling Elvis and Heavy Fuel are OK on the On Every Street CD, but they are pure hard rockers here. Paul Franklin's pedal steel adds a lot to the album, particularly on Walk Of Life. Romeo And Juliet is back, a much better version than their first Live CD set. Even the songs that are played much like the originals have more immediacy. Oddly enough, the least satisfying cut is Money For Nothing, the "anthem". Perhaps they've simply played it too much. (I've certainly heard it too much!) When the album ends with Brothers In Arms, you'll simply let it start playing all over again. This is one of the very few CDs that I never get tired of. This is a masterful, powerful album, great musicianship, music that makes you listen. You may find the vocals muddy on occasion, and the crowd noise is prominent (which I happen to like), but the crowd noise is used to blend the entire CD into one seamless performance, with no fades. All live albums should do this. Enjoy!

A lot of people seem to tend to shy away from live shows for a variety of reasons including lack of ambience (listening to it is nothing like being there), the band doesn't sound that great live (see ambience comment), too much crowd noise, missing a favorite song etc...This album, thankfully, fails in none of these categories.

While the ambience of a cd will never match that of actually being there for the show, the producer of this live effort took the time to carefully bring the crowd in but not too much to take away from the music giving you a small feeling of being there. The sound quality of the instruments and Mark Knopfler's voice is incredible. They can just flat out play and this cd shows it. Finally, the song line up is great and show cases much - if not all - of their best work. I can't say this cd has everything for everyone but the line up of songs shouldn't leave anyone disappointed.

Over all I highly this recommend this amazing cd and would also recommend the DVD version that goes along with it.