This weekend, being a long weekend, we drove up to Mansfield for the opening of the ski season. Not that I have ever done any skiiing, it’s just that I thought it would be good to have one of the stone-cooked steaks at the Mansfield Hotel and look at people who had been out to ski.
Sorry to say that the pub was all out of all out of stones but we still enjoyed a hearty porterhouse steak each. This has to be my favourite pub in Victoria. In the morning we drove up towards Mt Buller but the rain prevented us from seeing anything (though we had seen snow on the mountain the previous day).
The drive up afforded me the chance to listen to the Traveling Wilburys re-release, the famous combination of George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty and Roy Orbison. Oh, yes and Jeff Lynne. The first album – cunningly titled Volume 1 – would have originally been released not long after I started presenting Off The Record. I cannot recall playing it very often, quite possibly because it was heavily featured on commercial FM. The album sold five milion copies and a couple of years later it was followed up by Volume 3 (thanks to Harrison’s sense of humour). For some reason neither album has been available for a decade.
So to have the chance to listen to it again – or actually listen to it more carefully – was a revelation.
The re-release features both albums with bonus tracks, a DVD and 16-page booklet with liner notes. You can also get a Deluxe Edition which is linen-bound with a 40-page booklet and cerrtificate of authenticity. Collectors could be interested in the vinyl edition while, as a sign of the times, there is a digital edition with an interactive booklet.
