dire straits love over gold tour

LOVE OVER GOLD TOUR 1982 - 1983

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40 Years Ago: Dire Straits Ramps Up on ‘Love Over Gold’

Love Over Gold was something of a calm before the storm for Dire Straits .

Released on Sept. 24, 1982, the LP burnished their reputation as one of mainstream rock's leading musos, three years before the multiplatinum Brothers in Arms transformed Dire Straits into superstars.

"There was a great deal of space in the music on this album," bassist and co-founder John Illsley wrote in his memoir My Life in Dire Straits . "It was truly a collaborative effort. ... It was certainly a very different studio undertaking to anything we had experienced up to then, and all the more satisfying for that."

Love Over Gold was marked by its five lengthy tracks – the shortest, the peppy and tongue-in-cheek "Industrial Disease," came in at 5:50. Particularly noteworthy was "Telegraph Road," an intricately composed and arranged piece that frontman Mark Knopfler had begun working up at sound checks during Dire Straits' Making Movies world tour.

The final version is more than 14 minutes long, as Dire Straits weave an epic tale inspired by traveling on the titular roadway (also known as U.S. 24) that stretches from Michigan to Colorado, at the same time Knopfler was reading the Knut Hamsun novel Growth of the Soil .

"He actually wrote it by-by-bit when we were on the road," keyboardist Alan Clark, who made his recording debut with the band on Love Over Gold , told UCR in 2014 . "At every soundcheck for every gig afterwards, [Knopfler] and I would get together and we'd sort of formulate the next bit of the song. He'd written where we'd gotten up to, and we would then start making it work between us with the piano part and his [guitar] part – and that's how the song was built up."

Listen to Dire Straits' 'Telegraph Road'

Illsley, meanwhile, noted that "Telegraph Road" actually had to be recorded in two parts because drummer Pick Withers' snare would lose tension along the way. The two parts were sliced together by engineer Neil Dorfsman during sessions at the Power Station in New York.

"Private Investigations," which became the first single from Love Over Gold , was also developed during the Making Movies tour, while other tracks were eventually excised and landed elsewhere: "Private Dancer" on Tina Turner 's 1984 comeback album of the same name, and "The Way It Always Starts" for Knopfler's soundtrack to the 1983 film Local Hero , with vocals by Gerry Rafferty .

Love Over Gold also marked Knopfler's first outing as Dire Straits' producer after working previously with Muff Winwood, Barry Beckett and Jerry Wexler, and Jimmy Iovine. "He had very clear ideas about the sound and shape of the music he wanted the band to achieve," Illsley wrote.

Knopfler hand-picked Dorfsman, who had worked with him on Local Hero . Dorfsman was an "amusing man, too," according to Illsley, "and he made all the hard work an absolute delight to look forward to each morning."

Love Over Gold gave Dire Straits its first No. 1 album in the U.K., where it was also certified double-platinum. "Private Investigations" was a No. 2 hit in the U.K. as well. The album's U.S performance was a bit disappointing, however: Love Over Gold was certified gold and shared a No. 19 peak with Making Movies on the Billboard 200. But that was lower than the previous two albums, so Dire Straits elected not to tour North America to support the album.

This also proved to be Withers' last LP with Dire Straits. He departed after the sessions and was initially replaced by Terry Williams of Rockpile. The album's homeland success, however, netted Dire Straits its first Best British Group honors at the 1983 Brit Awards, setting the stage for even greater triumphs to come.

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Love Over Gold

By David Fricke

David Fricke

Love Over Gold is not just the title of Dire Straits ‘ fourth album, it is a statement of purpose. In almost suicidal defiance of commercial good sense, singer-songwriter-guitarist Mark Knopfler has chosen to follow his muse, fashioning a collection of radically expanded epics and evocative tone poems that demand the listener’s undivided attention. Certainly a quantum leap from the organic R&B impressionism of the band’s early LPs ( Dire Straits and Communique ) and the gripping short stories of Making Movies , its 1980 best seller, Love Over Gold is an ambitious, sometimes difficult record that is exhilarating in its successes and, at the very least, fascinating in its indulgences.

Two drastically different moods dominate the new album. One is sharp and fiery (like the bolt of lightning on the cover); the other is soft and seductive. That dichotomy is particularly explicit in “Private Investigations,” a long, unorthodox ballad in which Knopfler plays a private detective hardened by a life of combing through other people’s dirty laundry. Over a discreet synthesizer ring, gurgling marimba and a delicately plucked acoustic guitar, he grumbles into his whiskey glass like Bob Dylan in a trench coat: “You get to meet all sorts in this line of work Treachery and treason There’s always an excuse for it,” he recites in a raspy nicotine snarl. Then John Illsley sounds a quiet warning with a stalking bass line before the song erupts in dramatic bursts of guitar gunfire and tragic-sounding piano playing.

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This wracking schizophrenia between the heart and the heartless, the loving and the pain, has always informed Knopfler’s songs and arrangements. Love Over Gold , however, finds Knopfler casting further than ever for ways to articulate the frustrations that color his romantic streak. At nearly fifteen minutes, the album’s opener, “Telegraph Road,” is certainly a challenge to the average pop fan’s attention span. But the song’s historic sweep and intimate tension — the building of America and the dashing of one man’s dreams in the wake of its accelerating crumble — enable Knopfler to deploy a variety of surprising instrumental voices, from the synthesized sunrise whistle at the beginning to the baroque piano motif in the middle. The song closes with an extended solo guitar crescendo that’s heated up by Pick Withers’ galloping drums. “Love Over Gold” is a whispery ballad that plays the jazzy tingle of vibes against an almost classical piano air and the violinlike pluck of a synthesizer to heighten its images of a casual, even cavalier, sex life. On the other hand, “Industrial Disease” — at five minutes, the shortest of the LP’s five songs and its most conventional rocker — crackles with a cynicism underlined by its cheesy “Wooly Bully” organ and coughing guitar effect.

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At times, Mark Knopfler, who also plays producer here, seems to try too hard. “It Never Rains” is a harsh chip off the “Like a Rolling Stone” block. And nearly all the songs end in guitar solos, as if he had too many ideas and was unsure how to reconcile them. But in a period when most pop music is conceived purely as product, Love Over Gold dares to put art before airplay.

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Dire Straits: Love Over Gold

Love over gold.

• by Dire Straits | Nov 26, 2012

One hazard of being on the retail side of the audio biz is that you end up hearing a lot of the same music— ad nauseam. And while I haven’t sold high-end gear for 16 years now, it’s taken that long for me to again enjoy, say, Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side Of The Moon or Stravinsky’s Firebird . (As to Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours or the 1812 Overture , uh, let’s not go there.)

Dire Straits’ 1982 Love Over Gold might well have remained on that never-want- to-hear-it-again list, if not for Warner’s outstanding new reissue mastered by Bernie Grundman and plated and pressed at Pallas in Germany. A five- song collection, filled with lengthy, highly atmospheric instrumental passages and Dylanesque lyric imagery—most strongly exemplified on the 14-minutes-long “Telegraph Road,” and the following “Private Investigations”— Love Over Gold remains the band’s high-water mark. It was also the first Dire Straits album to be entirely produced by bandleader Mark Knopfler, and the sound is a knockout. Granted, that sound is tinged with a bit of 80s, in-your-face brightness. But it also possesses real instrumental body, bottom-end punch, and a remarkably wide dynamic range. And the famous, sometimes eerie, sense of air and space is tremendously appealing, these nearly 20 years on. 

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By Wayne Garcia

Although I’ve been a wine merchant for the past decade, my career in audio was triggered at age 12 when I heard the Stones’ Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out! blasting from my future brother-in-law’s giant home-built horn speakers. The sound certainly wasn’t sophisticated, but, man, it sure was exciting.

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Dire Straits

• July 23, 1983 Setlist

Dire Straits Setlist at Hammersmith Odeon, London, England

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Tour: Love Over Gold Tour 1982-1983 Tour statistics Add setlist

• Once Upon a Time in the West ( Last performance ever ) Play Video
• Industrial Disease Play Video
• Expresso Love Play Video
• Romeo and Juliet Play Video
• Love Over Gold ( Last performance ever ) Play Video
• Private Investigations Play Video
• Sultans of Swing Play Video
• Twisting by the Pool Play Video
• Two Young Lovers Play Video
• Portobello Belle Play Video
• Tunnel of Love Play Video
• Telegraph Road Play Video
• Solid Rock Play Video
• The Rocks and the Thunder ( Mark Knopfler  song) Play Video
• Going Home: Theme of the Local Hero ( Mark Knopfler  song) Play Video

Note: Recorded for 'Alchemy' live album; last show of the 'Love Over Gold Tour 1982-1983'

Edits and Comments

13 activities (last edit by Hendre , 23 Jul 2021, 09:14 Etc/UTC )

Songs on Albums

• Industrial Disease
• Love Over Gold
• Private Investigations
• Telegraph Road
• Expresso Love
• Romeo and Juliet
• Tunnel of Love
• Once Upon a Time in the West
• Portobello Belle
• Twisting by the Pool
• Two Young Lovers
• Going Home: Theme of the Local Hero by Mark Knopfler
• The Rocks and the Thunder by Mark Knopfler
• Sultans of Swing

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Setlist History: Dire Straits Live Debuts "Romeo & Juliet"

Dire straits gig timeline.

• Jul 20 1983 Dominion Theatre London, England Add time Add time
• Jul 22 1983 Hammersmith Odeon London, England Add time Add time
• Jul 23 1983 Hammersmith Odeon This Setlist London, England Add time Add time
• Apr 25 1985 Š.C. Gripe Split, Croatia Add time Add time
• Apr 30 1985 Sultan's Pool Jerusalem, Israel Add time Add time

4 people were there

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Love Over Gold (studio album) by Dire Straits

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Dire Straits bestography

Love Over Gold is ranked 3rd best out of 16 albums by Dire Straits on BestEverAlbums.com.

The best album by Dire Straits is Brothers In Arms which is ranked number 219 in the list of all-time albums with a total rank score of 7,630.

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Love Over Gold ratings

Showing latest 5 ratings for this album. | Show all 522 ratings for this album.

Rating metrics: Outliers can be removed when calculating a mean average to dampen the effects of ratings outside the normal distribution. This figure is provided as the trimmed mean. A high standard deviation can be legitimate, but can sometimes indicate 'gaming' is occurring. Consider a simplified example* of an item receiving ratings of 100, 50, & 0. The mean average rating would be 50. However, ratings of 55, 50 & 45 could also result in the same average. The second average might be more trusted because there is more consensus around a particular rating (a lower deviation). (*In practice, some albums can have several thousand ratings) This album is rated in the top 2% of all albums on BestEverAlbums.com. This album has a Bayesian average rating of 78.7/100, a mean average of 77.4/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 78.8/100. The standard deviation for this album is 15.2.

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Showing latest 10 comments | Show all 35 comments | Most Helpful First | Newest First | Maximum Rated First | Longest Comments First (Only showing comments with -2 votes or higher. You can alter this threshold from your profile page. Manage Profile )

A very good record but not their best. Telegraph Road is one the best pieces of music ever put down by anyone.

This is another excellent Dire Straits record, I prefer debut, but I think this one is more consistent than Making Movies. However all of these albums are incredibly strong, this one is by far the most consistently great.

Telegraph road is amazing

Best tracks: Telegraph Road, Private Investigations. Industrial Disease is an oddball song from a different style of an album, that breaks the cohesion markedly.

Telegraph Road is absolutely exceptional and everything after that doesn't really live up to that same level. For those 14 minutes you are treated to some of the very best of Dire Straits and it is the reason I have come back to this album so many times. It just captivates me and the performances on that song are just incredible. The Title Track is the next closest in terms of quality and without it I would skip this album and just listen to Telegraph Road. The other 3 tracks just never clicked with me and I feel like they were elongated just for the sake of it. I find this with most of Dire Straits songs as they just seem to want to keep the song going when it had reached its natural end already. Obviously there are glimpses of quality in the other 3 songs and they are still decent but they just miss the mark for me. Overall, an inconsistent album that is saved by the 14 minute epic that might be Dire Straits best ever song.

El cambio que se intuía en los temas más largos de Making Movies se consolida aquí. Un álbum más cercano al rock progresivo, de temas más desarrollados (especialmente en la monumental Telegraph Road). espectacular.

I think this is what most people hear when they listen to Bruce Springsteen.

Well, I love it now so I guess I'm officially boring. I love all their stuff apart from bits of brothers in arms. Yep, old and boring. Shoot me if I start to dig Phil Collins.

Love the first two albums and this also has some very good tracks on it. One of the big differences for me is in the production. On this one Knopfler takes control of production and it's very polished and hitting that sound that would conquer the world and test your new cd player to the max. Give me the first two anyday, even though this has plenty merits, it's too shiny and adult for it's own good which is a shame as there is some of their best stuff under the artifice.

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DS:UK - The Dire Straits Tribute Show

The definitive tribute show to Dire Straits, The Alchemical Tour

Date and time

Whittles@Tokyo Project

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About this event.

• Event lasts 4 hours 30 minutes

Friday 29th November 2024 - DS:UK The Dire Straits Tribute Show

Whittles@Tokyo, 57 Roscoe Street, Oldham, OL1 1EA

Doors & Bar open 7pm - Band on stage 9pm Strictly Over 18's

This is DS:UK - The Dire Straits Tribute Show's fourth tour, taking fans back to the Straits first live album - Alchemy, which was recorded during the last nights of the Love over Gold Tour in 1983.

This performance brings a genuine and unique experience that will bring fans the tracks they love from all of the early Dire Straits albums, alongside the classic Dire Straits songs that can't be left out, and a very special inclusion that no one would expect.

This will be DS:UK's most packed and exciting set yet!

Lets let it rock and let it roll!

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