AVAILABLE AT
ARTIST
Live & Ready: 1980-1984
- Edition
- Import box set
- Release date
- 3 April 2026
- Label
- Chrysalis Records
- Catalog no.
- CRC2305
- JAN
- 0840401722152
- Format
- Five CDs plus one DVD (six discs)
- Bonus
- The DVD carries film of the Hammersmith Odeon shows of 22-23 October 1983 (seventeen songs) and Seibu Stadium, Tokyo, on 12 August 1984 (twelve songs). The audio was remastered at AIR Mastering, and the booklet holds liner notes by Martin Popoff, a new interview with Michael Schenker and previously unpublished photographs.
LINER NOTES
LANGUAGE
Live & Ready: 1980-1984 is a six-disc live box issued by Chrysalis on 3 April 2026 as CRC2305 — five CDs and a DVD. What it holds is four complete concerts, all from the years when the Michael Schenker Group was moving fastest.
CD1 is the Manchester Apollo on 30 September 1980, the year of the debut album. Songs from that record — 'Armed and Ready', 'Cry for the Nations', 'Into the Arena' — sit alongside 'Rock Bottom', 'Doctor Doctor' and 'Lights Out' from Schenker's UFO years and 'Lost Horizons' from the Scorpions, the band he had also played in. CD2 and CD3 divide the Nippon Budokan show of 12 August 1981 between them and keep it whole, Cozy Powell's drum solo included.
CD4 is Hammersmith Odeon across 22 and 23 October 1983, which the label says appears in its entirety here for the first time; those are the nights Rudolf Schenker and Klaus Meine of the Scorpions joined as guests. CD5 is Seibu Stadium, Tokyo, on 12 August 1984, built largely on material from the stretch when the singer's chair passed from Gary Barden to Graham Bonnet and back again.
The audio was remastered at AIR Mastering. The DVD films the Hammersmith and Seibu Stadium nights, and the booklet carries liner notes by Martin Popoff and a new interview with Schenker. Four shows across five years, two of them in Japan, make the set a document of the period in sound and picture at once.
TRACK LIST
- 1.[CD1 Manchester Apollo, 30 September 1980] Armed and Ready
- 2.[CD1] Cry for the Nations
- 3.[CD1] Victim of Illusion
- 4.[CD1] Natural Thing
- 5.[CD1] Feels Like a Good Thing
- 6.[CD1] Into the Arena
- 7.[CD1] Looking Out From Nowhere
- 8.[CD1] Rock Bottom
- 9.[CD1] Tales of Mystery
- 10.[CD1] Lost Horizons
- 11.[CD1] Shoot Shoot
- 12.[CD1] Doctor Doctor
- 13.[CD1] Lights Out
- 14.[CD2 Nippon Budokan, 12 August 1981] Introduction
- 15.[CD2] Armed and Ready
- 16.[CD2] Cry for the Nations
- 17.[CD2] Attack of the Mad Axeman
- 18.[CD2] But I Want More
- 19.[CD2] Victim of Illusion
- 20.[CD2] Into the Arena
- 21.[CD3 Nippon Budokan, 12 August 1981] On and On
- 22.[CD3] Never Trust a Stranger
- 23.[CD3] Let Sleeping Dogs Lie
- 24.[CD3] Tales of Mystery
- 25.[CD3] Cozy Powell Drum Solo
- 26.[CD3] Courvoisier Concert
- 27.[CD3] Lost Horizons
- 28.[CD3] Doctor Doctor
- 29.[CD3] Are You Ready to Rock
- 30.[CD4 Hammersmith Odeon, 22-23 October 1983] Captain Nemo
- 31.[CD4] Rock My Nights Away
- 32.[CD4] Ready to Rock
- 33.[CD4] Cry for the Nations
- 34.[CD4] Rock You to the Ground
- 35.[CD4] Attack of the Mad Axeman
- 36.[CD4] Into the Arena
- 37.[CD4] Courvoisier Concert
- 38.[CD4] Rock Will Never Die
- 39.[CD4] Desert Song
- 40.[CD4] I'm Gonna Make You Mine
- 41.[CD4] Red Sky
- 42.[CD4] Looking for Love
- 43.[CD4] Armed and Ready
- 44.[CD4] Still Love That Little Devil
- 45.[CD4] Doctor, Doctor
- 46.[CD4] Thank You
- 47.[CD5 Seibu Stadium, 12 August 1984] Captain Nemo
- 48.[CD5] Rock My Nights Away
- 49.[CD5] Cry for the Nations
- 50.[CD5] On and On
- 51.[CD5] Lipstick Traces
- 52.[CD5] Bijou Pleasurette
- 53.[CD5] Into the Arena
- 54.[CD5] Courvoisier Concert
- 55.[CD5] Lost Horizons
- 56.[CD5] I'm Gonna Make You Mine
- 57.[CD5] Armed and Ready
- 58.[CD5] Doctor Doctor