DIRE STRAITS-STRATOSPHERIC SOUNDS-LIVE

A few notes about this excellent 2011 release dvd.
I saw the item available whilst in Spain a couple of weeks ago, ordered it on UK Amazon and had the pleasure of watching it last night!
There is other live material now available from this final period of the group though mostly they are unofficial releases. This is another one. Looks like it was originally broadcast for television and there is a rather annoying Show Time circular logo constantly in the upper top left of the screen. However, I found this to be only periodically distracting. Another feature of this dvd is that the title of each song appears in the bottom right hand corner a short time into each new track.
Details of the 15 tracks are provided elsewhere here and the run time of 123 minutes means for once we are getting the entire concert. Often tracks tend to be omitted due to time constraints - even now and especially so for some of the original video releases. Here there are no such concerns.
No real surprises in the tracks or their run order. It is the typical set-list the group performed at this time.
The Bug and an excellent version of Telegraph Road are included.
Stand out tracks for me would be Sultans and Private Investigations.
A note about picture and sound quality as this is very important when making a decision about whether to purchase or not. This is particularly so here as this is the first review about the dvd.
Both sound and picture quality are fine. The picture stays steady throughout. Obviously, this is no high definition release but the transfer from original source tape to dvd is adequate. The concert is so enjoyable that you will soon focus just on the music.
I personally would have preferred to have paid a lot more for the dvd having known it was an official release that had been "cleaned up", but up to now for so many artists and groups, the only source of "new" material is from recordings such as this. I am pleased that they are at least available and that fans do have the choice of buying something that would otherwise stay unreleased. However, I also believe it is important that the public is aware that they are unofficial releases.
This is also a stadium concert. A full stadium with an enthusiastic and appreciative audience. It adds to the occasion and the band respond to them. Even though it is less than 20 years ago it still seems hard to comprehend just how big this group were. MTV and their emergence just as vinyl and cassette tape changed to the all-new digital format cd certainly helped their cause.
They had particularly large fan bases in this part of central Europe - Switzerland, Austria and Germany. They were huge and would presumably have continued to grow in popularity. Instead Knopfler called time on Dire Straits and went into various solo projects. His many solo albums all contain material of interest, however, many of them also have to be regarded as patchy. It is still many of the Dire Straits numbers that concert goers want to hear most.
So this is definitely a dvd worth obtaining, particularly at the current price of about £6 plus postage. It compares well to their other releases and shows the group in top form. Relaxed and confident which they should well have been having performed so many times together by the time of this recording. Buy it!