The royalty of rock, the crème de la crème. A star studded line up featuring Clapton, Floyd, Elton, Macca, Quo, Genesis/Phil Collins, Robert Plant, Sir Cliff, Dire Straits and Tears For Fears..

A 20th anniversary re-issue of a 2 CD set culled from the 30 June 1990 fund raising event in the grounds of Knebworth House in support of the Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy and the Brit School for Performing Arts.

Since heralded as the 'best British rock concert of all time', I can only conclude that was only if you were there. Revisiting the event 2 decades on it has, a hardly unsurprising, late eighties sort of a feel to it. And that, to my mind, wasn't a golden era in the history of rock.

Not that there's anything wrong with the performances, but the sound quality is surprisingly thin and lacks the beef that must have surely been present at the live event.

Some of the tracks chosen for inclusion are also a little surprising, the Genesis/Collins 60's medley sounding distinctly cheesy, and surely there was a better McCartney track that could have been included instead of Coming Up?

The pick of the bunch are Dire Straights and Floyd, although I've heard far better recorded live performances.

To my mind an opportunity missed for revisiting the content of this CD and tweaking the production. One only for those who were there. In which case, you may want to wait for the 20th anniversary special edition boxset which included the DVD.

**½

Review by Pete Whalley