Cold Chisel - The Live Tapes: Vol.1, Vol.2 & Vol.3 (2013/2014/2016)

2013 live album from the veteran Australian rockers, their first live release in a decade. This particular show will be long remembered by those who endured the monsoonal thunderstorm which lit up the harbor city as the band electrified the Hordern Pavilion that night. The gig came just a few months after Cold Chisel had wrapped their unforgettable Light the Nitro tour. The 36 dates on that run set all sorts of sales records, drawing over 300,000 people across Australasia. Frontman Jimmy Barnes says: "Listening and watching it back, it's raw and primal, warts and all - like the best rock & roll should be."

The Live Tapes – Vol 3 – Live At The Manly Vale Hotel reveals a fierce, lean band; razor-sharp and confident from 5 years of relentless touring but who were still hungry and risk-taking, previewing ten of East’s twelve songs in the twenty-one song set. In addition to songs like Cheap Wine, Choirgirl, My Baby, Rising Sun and Star Hotel that would all go on to become massive radio songs and a huge part of Cold Chisel’s canon, the set also featured Khe Sanh, Breakfast at Sweethearts, Conversations and a speed fuelled One Long Day from the band’s first two albums that were already well on their way to becoming Australian classics.

The set also features two great covers, an adrenaline-charged rendition of the ’60s nugget Shakin All Over – a brilliant one-hit-wonder for Johnny Kidd & The Pirates in 1960 which was made even more famous in Australia when Normie Rowe took it to #1 in September 1965. Although Cold Chisel occasionally covered this gem in ’79 and ’80, a recording of the song has never surfaced till now. Additionally, the band deliver an emotional take on the Bob Dylan classic Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door, which they offer as a tribute to two close friends and roadies who had recently died in a truck accident.

“In 1980, we were playing 8 days a week. We were fighting fit and hungry, playing every show like it was our last – and often it almost was,” laughs Cold Chisel frontman Jimmy Barnes. “This show at the Manly Vale Hotel was recorded the week EAST came out. We were still playing pubs, with the audience spilling onto the stage and the band spilling into the audience. It was fierce and fiery and lots of fun. Everyone in the band was writing songs and playing at the top of their game. It’s all here in this raw and real recording.”