The album was released in 1992 by independent record label The Road Goes on Forever, before falling out of print and being re-released in 1999 by the duo's own record label Hands on Music. It received very favourable reviews from critics, and broke the band into the festival circuit in 1993. The duo also hired Trim to produce their subsequent studio album "Beat about the Bush" (1994) due to his engineering work on the album. Today, "Show of Hands Live" is often seen as the duo's first albums, with their three cassette albums being dropped from the duo's "canon". A 2007 poll on the duo's internet forum established "The Blind Fliddler" as fans' favourite track from the album, and it was subsequently included on the duo's best of album "" (2007) as a result.