“I remember it like it was yesterday. I didn’t know if we would ever play together again. It was frightening,” says Cold Chisel frontman, Jimmy Barnes, referring to the final Last Stand shows. “We walked out on stage and played like there was no tomorrow.”
After a blitzkrieg run through Australia and New Zealand, Cold Chisel‘s Last Stand tour all came down to four huge shows at the Sydney Entertainment Centre in December 1983. These shows were recorded and filmed to create some of the most loved and enduring live recordings in Australian music history. And for the first time ever, they are all gathered together on the Last Stand – 40th Anniversary Box Set – with additional tracks, never-before released on vinyl, and with photos, posters, DVD and an authentic tour laminate bundled in as well. And it’s all instore today.
The box set contains the following:
VINYL: The legendary Last Stand album in its extended 19-song glory is released as a beautiful, remastered double album on thick 180g vinyl for the first time ever. This album was released in October 1992 – but only on CD. It was the height of the CD boom and vinyl was all but dead. Here the album is now remastered especially for vinyl and also with enhanced gatefold artwork.
The Barking Spiders Live 1983: This rough diamond of a record was first released in 1984 and was made to appear as though it was a bootleg by a band called The Barking Spiders. It featured no mention of Cold Chisel, but the songs were a giveaway – captured at the Last Stand shows delivering a blistering single vinyl album of what was originally 11 songs, now remastered for vinyl as 12 songs, including Conway Twitty’s gem It’s Only Make Believe (which featured on the subsequent CD release). Seven of these songs do not appear on the Last Stand album and are all different versions to those five that are repeated on both albums. The Barking Spiders Live 1983 has not been available on vinyl for many years and is presented here exactly as it was in 1984, including the poster of the first-ever photo of Cold Chisel from 1973. The only change to the original vinyl release is the inclusion of It’s Only Make Believe and it’s all newly remastered by Don Bartley.
Last Stand Outtakes: 10″ mini-album. These four great outtakes have never before been released on vinyl. Mastered for vinyl by Don Bartley, it captures Cold Chisel raw and wild and features the Circus Animals’ favourites Wild Colonial Boy and Letter To Alan as well as the then-brand new, Build This Love, and a long version of the Isley Brothers/The Beatles classic, Twist & Shout. Running at 20+ minutes, it’s almost a full album in itself. The artwork came from a hardcore fan, Ian Morrison, from a call-out we did for fan submissions of photos, memorabilia, merchandise etc from back in 1983. Ian snuck a camera into a Last Stand show in Newcastle in 1983 and captured the photos we included here.
CDs/DVD: All of the above vinyl items are also included in the Box Set on CD – all housed in slimline sleeves. We know that many of you are still CD lovers – and so all of the CDs are here. In addition, we have also included the best-selling DVD of the film Last Stand (with new artwork). All of the CDs/DVD are housed in a specially-designed gatefold package.
ADDITIONAL ITEMS: In addition to all of music detailed above, we have included the iconic photo of Jimmy Barnes from the Last Stand album cover as a stand-alone poster (free of any type); there’s also one-of-three great individually numbered photos from the Last Stand shows (from photographer Greg Noakes) and a special and authentic backstage laminate from the Last Stand tour.
This is the ultimate Last Stand experience – The 40th Anniversary Box Set.
It’s released by Universal Music Australia and is out now.
