Their manager, Douglas Smith, wanted to release the Birthday Party as a live album as well. Motorhead did not want that to happen and tried to stop him. In the 2002 book White Line Fever Lemmy says they did not want to damage sales for the video and besides they did not think the recording was good enought for a live album. They did not succeed but the release was very delayed and first in 1990 Douglas succeeded to release it. However, the UK release on CD on the GWR label was never released but it is listed in different discographies as "unreleased" so maybe some copies surfaced in the end. Apparently it was also released on vinyl but I have never seen any UK pressings. In the rest of Europe it was released on Roadrunner as a Dutch release, both on CD and on vinyl. In the USA it was released by Enigma and packaged in a long box. In Argentina it was released on vinyl.

Three of the songs are listed as bonus tracks, Killed By Death, Bomber and Motorhead. On some sleeves, for example the Dutch vinyl version, does not list them.