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Cold Chisel’s fifth studio, the bedazzled, bedraggled and the intended kiss-off album, Twentieth Century, celebrates its 40th birthday on April 12, 2024 and Cold Chisel marks its anniversary with a special vinyl reissue of the album. Pressed on Ultra-Clear 180g vinyl and accompanied by two unique postcards, designed by the album’s artwork designer Eduardo Guelfenbien, this reissue of Twentieth Century is strictly limited to one-thousand copies. First in, best dressed for the party so brilliantly depicted on the album’s inside poster…

Twentieth Century was recorded as the band was in the process of breaking up and farewelling the world on their incredible Last Stand tour. All of the emotions are laid out bare on this incredible album – by turns its angry, heartbreaking, snarly, jumpy, sentimental (without that bullshit), poetic, speed-driven – and full of love, lust and beauty.  A fitting farewell (at the time) for Australia’s best known and best loved band. After Twentieth Century, there would be no new Cold Chisel album for some 14 years.

Featuring the Jimmy/Ian vocals on the woozy gem “Saturday Night”, the speed-reggae single “No Sense” and the heartbreaking farewell song “Flame Trees”, Twentieth Century is one of the deepest, darkest albums in the Cold Chisel canon.

Tim Rogers put it brilliantly back in 2011: “for all their massive success and acknowledgement, there’s so much not understood (about Twentieth Century). Poetry, pugilism, brotherhood and braggadocio. Lust, loss, insight and insidiousness. Twentieth Century is honest in its aspirations: the full tilt boogie, the solicitous torch songs, the kiss-offs, the less successful double-upped workouts. Cold Chisel are like no other band. And this record isn’t like their other records. The gang, the family, the boardroom, the game, the gutter. It’s the band at their most sentimental, and their most cynical.” Rogers, 21st Century

Happy Birthday Twentieth Century.
The album will also be available on CD and streaming as it has been for some time.

You can pre-order the album via JB Hi Fi, via the band’s official Universal store, and with a T-shirt via the Love Police ATM store.

LISTEN IN

To celebrate the release of the Last Stand Box Set, tonight at 7pm AEDT we are holding a Cold Chisel ‘Listening Party’… we’ll all be listening to a selection of songs from the Last Stand… And everyone’s invited!

The Listening session will run for an hour and be playing songs from all of the Last Stand related titles as featured in the Last Stand 40th Anniversary Box Set. 

Ian Moss will be joining the listening party, so get your (computer) keyboard fingers ready to type in any questions you have for Mossy. The whole process is being moderated by superfan Chad Sellings.

7pm AEDT (ie. Sydney time) Tuesday November 21 – TONIGHT!

“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.

Click above to view Flame Trees from Last Stand

This is the ultimate Last Stand experience – The 40th Anniversary Box Set.
It’s released by Universal Music Australia and is out now.

Cold Chisel

Last Stand – 40th Anniversary Box Set

Released: 17 November on Universal Music Australia

CLICK HERE TO PRE-ORDER

Cold Chisel‘s Last Stand is part of Australian music folklore.
It was late 1983 and the swansong for the biggest band in the country.
At the time, the tickets sold faster and in bigger numbers than any tour by an Australian artist, ever.
The first show of the tour was at the Logan Campbell Centre, Auckland on September 20, 1983 – exactly 40 years ago today.
After a blitzkrieg run through Australia and New Zealand, it all came down to four huge shows in December 1983 at the Sydney Entertainment Centre.

‘Goodbye Now Babe, I Won’t Be Coming Back For Long’

And sure enough, it would be 15 years before Cold Chisel would be seen on stage again. These four shows in Sydney were recorded and filmed to create some of the most loved and enduring live recordings in Australian music history.

For the first time ever, they are all gathered together in Last Stand – 40th Anniversary Box Set – with some additional tracks never before released on vinyl or CD and with photos, posters and an authentic tour laminate bundled in as well.

VINYLThe 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. Originally, this album was released in October 1992 and 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 he 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.

10 “vinyl mini-album, Last Stand Outtakes. This has never before been released on either CD or vinyl and includes four great outtakes. 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/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. Thank you, Ian.

The band’s official Universal store gives those who pre-order the Box a chance to win the Ultimate Collector’s Prize Pack – a special one-only prize.
Pre-order here: https://www.coldchiselstore.com.au/products/last-stand-40th-anniversary-edition-box-set

Love Police have a pre-order for the Box Set and also unique Last Stand Merchandise items/bundles – including a T-shirt, a Cap and a Stubby Holder.
Click here to check them out:  https://coldchisel.bandtshirts.com.au/

And if you pre-order via JB HiFi the first 200 pre-orders will win a special, signed Last Stand Art Card: https://jbhi.fi/658582

This is the ultimate Last Stand experience – The 40th Anniversary – Cold Chisel style! – will be released through Universal Music Australia on 17 November 2023.

Pre-order all the versions now from here.

Just on 10 years ago, Cold Chisel released announced the first release on their own, new label:  “The Live Tapes Vol. 1: Hordern Pavilion. April 18, 2012”. The special concert set featured 21 live recordings and was released as a Deluxe 2CD/1 DVD pack; a double CD; a Blu-Ray and Standard DVD; and via digital download and on streaming services.  The only thing they didn’t do was release it on vinyl!

Due to the constant requests from fans, the band has remedied that – mastering the album for vinyl and is setting a release date of Friday, February 10. This now means that all five volumes of The Lives Tapes, drawing from all stages of the legendary band’s career, are available on vinyl.

The Live Tapes Vol. 1: Hordern Pavilion captures the band in great form as they were launching their platinum studio album, No Plans. The gig came just a few months after Cold Chisel had wrapped their unforgettable “Light The Nitro” tour. The 36 dates on that run set all sorts of ticket sales records, drawing over 325,000 people across Australasia – the biggest tour ever by an Australian-based band. “We were really road hardened by the time of that Hordern gig,” remembers the band’s frontman, Jimmy Barnes. “Adding a few new songs in the set for those launch gigs kept things fresh for us. Listening and watching it back, it’s raw and primal, warts and all – like the best rock & roll should be.”

The triple album is available through the Cold Chisel online store for $79.99 – and for a limited time only we can add the 2CD/DVD version of the release for an additional $10 – for a bundled price of $89.99

Order now directly thru:   https://www.coldchiselstore.com.au/