Whilst cruising The Chameleons’ online store looking for things to buy yesterday, I happened upon this listing for a new release – Elevated Living: Live in Manchester, London, and Barcelona – a new CD/DVD set compiling three of their early live shows which have been kicking around as bootleg and unofficial releases for many years. Full details on the contents are available at Cherry Red, who are releasing it.

I already posted a wonderfully remastered video of their November 1984 show from the Camden Palace in London, the other two shows in the set – hometown shows at Manchester’s Gallery Club in December 1982 and the legendary Haçienda in January 1983 – haven’t surfaced in their entirety yet, though they’ve been out there.

Cherry Red Records released Live At The Gallery Club, Manchester, 1982 way back in 1986, and it has been re-released in a number of forms in the decades since. Similarly, The Hacienda show was released in 1986 as Live Shreds on Cleopatra. So while the press release’s claim that “Featuring two live shows at The Hacienda and Camden Palace that have never been previously released on CD” is technically true if you append “by Cherry Red”, it’s a minor quibble. Having all three shows in audio and video form in one collection is not something to be upset about.

The video from both the Gallery Club and Hacienda shows were compiled on a single DVD – Live At The Gallery Club & The Hacienda, Manchester – back in 2002, and that’s from whence these clips are taken. There’s a half-dozen from the former and just two from the latter, but it’s more than enough to give a taste of what the new compilation has to offer and are an exciting look at a legendary band in their early days.

And if anyone was wondering, that Why Call It Anything?/John Peel Sessions vinyl combo package has my attention, if not my dollars. Just yet, anyways.