Thunder

Live at Donington 1990 & 1992

Parlophone

2013

Thunder are a British institution. One of the best live bands that I had the pleasure of ever watching performing live, that managed to pretty much cover all bases. Awesome musicianship, electrifying performances, great songs and they actually had that overall feel-good factor... that unspeakable something that you cannot set in words but you just feel it, when you GET ROCKED!



On this “beefy” compilation culled up from the Donignton archives we’re treated to 2 full sets from both their 1990 and 1992 performances there. Both are quite spirited and really “broadcast” quality (but uncompressed, with warts and all (ie microphones momentarily overloading from feedback etc.) nothing has been fixed, what you hear is exactly what happened... on those dates. The first set from the 18th of August 1990 is slightly shorter with 7 songs, namely: “She’s So Fine”, “Backstreet Symphony”, “Until My Dying Day”, “Higher Ground”, “Don’t Wait for Me”, “Fired Up” and “Dirty Love”.



It’s pretty good actually and even though there’s a little overlapping it covers some songs that are not present on the second disk, lifted from the “22nd of August 1992” performance of the band at the festival, with some 9 songs there. Strong on the heels of the release of their “Laughing on Judgment Day” the band goes down a storm, even if the weather is not ideal. The staples aired on that show include: “Backstreet Symphony”, “Everybody Wants Her”, “Higher Ground”, “Low Life in High Places”, “Does It Feel Like Love?”, “Flawed to Perfection”, the huge ballad “Love Walked In”, “She’s so Fine” and once again “Dirty Love” that seems to have been the showstopper in that occasion.



Anyone that has seen the band will attest that they are almost flawless and they hardly miss a beat on either show, with even singer Danny Bowes effortlessly nailing every note with the greatest conviction... pretty amazing.



Just rounding off this fine collection there’s a ~ 40 minute DVD with some up to this point unreleased cuts from the 1990 show, that were recently excavated, from the vaults, offering almost the entire show in its entirety (just missing some of “Dirty Love” which is presumed to be lost?/not taped in its entirety? Who knows) While the image quality appears to be some 4/3 video, that could have been used for TV broadcast, it’s pretty good quality, with lots of clear close ups and good directing and it seems to have been upscaled/remastered with great care, offerings some really worthwhile quality, the sound is the same as the DVD, stereo, but is a nice, clean good mix, so... it’s good stuff. A 5.1 would have been really a fake and not offering really much more, just taking up disk space w/o really making any real difference since it would only be pretty much copying the front channels to the back with some delay etc. Oh and it’s R0, NTSC so it plays everywhere really.



There’s not really much to say here, if you’re a fan of the band, you really want to grab this. If you’re not it’s not exactly a starting point for you to start collecting, but we all have to start somewhere and you might as well start from here too! It’s good value for money, which every way you cut it or slice it. It’s mighty fine package, by a mighty fine band and if you did order it early enough from the bands website, you were getting a signed art-card of it! Future copies will still include the artcard, however unsigned.