Alan Clark's keyboards help to fill out the sound and give Knopfler's spare melodies a certain majesty, but Dire Straits remains an overgrown bar band with a Bob Dylan fixation, and that's exactly how the crowd likes it. That Dire Straits' introspective music loses much of its detail in a live setting matters less than that it gains presence and a sense of anticipation. When they do have a song of even medium speed, such as 'Sultans of Swing' or 'Solid Rock,' they are in ecstasy. The arena-size crowd cheers wildly, and claps and sings along when given half a chance, as though each song were an up-tempo rocker. There is an interesting contrast on this 94-minute double-disc live album (recorded at London's Hammersmith Odeon in July 1983) between the music, much of which is slow and moody, with Mark Knopfler's muttered vocals and large helpings of his fingerpicking on what sounds like an amplified Spanish guitar, and the audience response. See More Your browser does not support the audio element. It was released as a single on 29 November 1985, but had first been available as the B-side of 'So Far Away' released in advance of Brothers in Arms. It subsequently appeared on their live album On the Night (1993). That Dire Straits' introspective music loses much of its detail in a live setting matters less than that it gains presence and a sense of anticipation. 'Walk of Life' is a song by the British rock band Dire Straits, the third track on their fifth studio album Brothers in Arms (1985).

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First dire straits album