Act at The End

When Ian Siegal received the accolade of MOJO Blues Album of The Year (’09) for his Broadside album, it was the first time for a non-American artist; and when his 2011 album The Skinny was nominated for a Blues Music Award in the contemporary album category, it was the first time ever for a British artist in this category. The Blues Music Awards – made annually in Memphis TN – are the blues grammys. It has been said that had Siegal been around in the sixties he would today be accorded the same reverence as artists such as Van Morrison and Joe Cocker. Instead, he is a child of the seventies who dropped out of art college in the late eighties to go busking in Germany.

Thirty years after their first recordings and almost twenty after they disbanded, british prime new romantics came back with a new CD (containing re-recording of some of their most popular tunes plus a couple of new songs) and a tour in 2009. Recorded live at the famous O2 Arena in London, this DVD caught the band in an inspired night: it's hard to believe they were away for so long, since their perfomance was so hot, tight and, at the same time, so relaxed it seemed they were never apart. They surely didn't lose any of their musicanship. And none of their elegance either, for the matter.

Always a quiet act, Dire Straits dissolved quietly in 1995 as Mark Knopfler prepared his first full-fledged solo album. Meanwhile, this documentary effort, the group's third live recording, appeared to chronicle their early days…