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Alchemy: Dire Straits Live

1984 live album by Dire Straits

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 31, 2026
Entity authorityQ155370
Source-derived summary

Alchemy: Dire Straits Live is the first live album by the British rock band Dire Straits, released on 16 March 1984 by Vertigo Records internationally, and by Warner Bros. Records in the United States. Recorded at the Hammersmith Odeon in London on 22–23 July 1983, the double album features songs from the band's first four albums (Dire Straits, Communiqué, Making Movies and Love Over Gold), the ExtendedancEPlay EP and Mark Knopfler's Local Hero soundtrack. Many of the songs have reworked arrangements and extended instrumental segments. The album cover is taken from a painting by Brett Whiteley.

Alchemy: Dire Straits Live was remastered and reissued with the rest of the Dire Straits catalogue in 1996 for most of the world outside the United States and was remastered and re-released in the USA on 8 May 2001.

In November 2023, Alchemy was included in the box set anthology, Live 1978-1992.

Recording

Alchemy: Dire Straits Live was recorded live at the Hammersmith Odeon in London on 22–23 July 1983, the final two concerts of Dire Straits' eight-month Love Over Gold Tour promoting their album Love Over Gold. The concerts were recorded by Mick McKenna using the Rolling Stones Mobile unit. The recording was mixed at AIR Studios in London in November 1983 where Nigel Walker was the engineer.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Alchemy: Dire Straits Live” is 1984 live album by Dire Straits. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Alchemy, Dire and Straits, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA productive route into publication, performance and collection histories when the underlying object or edition remains clearly identified. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1984, 1983, 1996, 2001—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1984-03-12. For this dossier, Alchemy, Dire and Straits is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “1984 live album by Dire Straits” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q155370. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1984, 1983, 1996 and 2001.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

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  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
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The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Alchemy: Dire Straits Live”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Alchemy: Dire Straits Live primary sources, Alchemy: Dire Straits Live archive and Alchemy research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Alchemy: Dire Straits Live”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Alchemy: Dire Straits Live” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.