Cold Chisel releases The Last Stand boxed set
Limited edition boxed sets released by Australian artists are a rarity, even more so when it is forty years since the band broke up.
But when that band is Cold Chisel, it makes sense, as their fan base is still as strong today as it was when they called it a day back in 1983 on the stage of the Sydney Entertainment Centre.
With the release of Last Stand – 40th Anniversary Box Set, Chisel will commemorate that occasion with additional tracks never released on vinyl or CD, with bonus posters, images and a tour laminate thrown in.
Recounting the last run of the four Entertainment Centre shows, Chisel pianist and songwriter Don Walker said:
“I was pretty much concentrating on what I was doing, which is thumping along on the piano and trying not to screw up and just drive the band as much as the other guys.
“I can’t remember the four shows individually, but after the final show there was a big party somewhere and there were a lot of people there and a lot of people pretty smashed up.”
Starting in September in Auckland, the Last Stand rolled across Australia before landing in the Sydney Entertainment Centre where it would be captured on video and audio.
On the way to its final destination, the show touched down in Newcastle, which attracted the attention of Ian Morrison, a 21 year-old local who became a fan after hearing the Chisels on 2JJ.
“I first saw them at my local surf club in 1979 and I was so impressed that every time they came back to Newcastle I made sure that I saw them,” Ian Morrison said.
“At that time, pretty much every night of the week you could see the great bands of Aussie rock such as Midnight Oil, The Angels, Aussie Crawl and INXS, and I took pictures of most of them.”
Eventually Morrison would purchase an Olympus 35mm stills camera, and, using high speed Kodak film, planned his approach for the Newcastle Workers Club gigs.
“I thought that with the Chisel breakup I had to make sure I got some sort of record,” Morrison said.
“They played three nights in Newcastle and on the first night I stayed sober and got some good shots.”
When it was first released in 1992, the 19 track Last Stand was only released on CD; vinyl having been relegated to history as an outdated format.
Now, for the first time, the concert will be available in a double remastered version pressed on 180g vinyl.
Also included in the set will be The Barking Spiders Live 1983, recently remastered for CD after it was first released in 1984 only on vinyl.
“Barking Spiders is an old Glaswegian term used for a fight, but it was also a term used by the band from fifty years ago, as in, if you farted, it was, ‘oops, barking spider,’” Walker said.
At the time of the album’s release, many of the import shops included stocks of bootleg albums, often comprising of recordings made from C90 cassettes or desk mixes.
Walker, Chisel’s then manager, Rod Willis, and Warners Music Australia’s managing director, Philip Mortlock set out to subvert the usual LP presentation for elaborate covers.
“I used a Dylan bootleg as the primary influence,” Philip Mortlock said.
“To satisfy the sales team we stickered the album to identify it as a Cold Chisel live album.”
“By this stage the band were long gone, so we didn’t have a touring artist to promote nor were any members of the band willing or available to do PR.”
Included in the set is a 10 inch vinyl mini LP of the Last Stand outtakes with photos by Ian Morrison taken at the Newcastle shows.
“To be recognised by the band and John O’Donnell (manager) is a biggy, a real honour and a huge surprise,” Morrison said.
The Last Stand box set will be available as a limited edition of 3,300 copies from mid-November and will include the DVD of the four Entertainment Centre shows.
Release: November 17
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