Wednesday, February 16, 2005

Mark Knopfler in town

March 5th 1930 hrs at Bandra-Kurla complex, a dream will come alive. not with dire straits though. some numbers that will be played - calling elvis, walk of life, heavy fuel, what it is, R&J, sultans, money for nothing, so far away, on every street, brothers in arms, pyroman, done with bonaparte, junkie doll, prairie wedding, speedway at nazareth, telegraph road, and hopefully 'once upon in a time in the west'.

Will be well prepared. Good time for you guys to come down.

3 comments:

Rama Rama said...

Holy shit....MK in India...
Pink Floyd and Dire Straits were two bands I always wanted to see. Now that I am in the US of A...Roger Waters shows up and now Mark Knopfler. MK was supposed to play in Philly last year but ended up in a motorcycle accident. Hope he shows up here later this year.
The songs I want to hear are 'Lions', 'Single handed sailor', 'Follow me home', 'Iron hand', 'Sailing to Philadelphia'

wenerd said...

Despite heavy fever over the previous two days, managed to get to the concert grounds well in time to watch the man walk onto the stage, accompanied by old faithful, Guy Fletcher. Thought of you man KK, as MK walked in. On the side of the stage, there were about 36 guitars racked up.

Got the distinct feeling that he was settling down for a bar like jam session. The first half primarily were songs from his new album Shangri-la - a mix of blues and folk (a few of them taking me to J J Cale). True to my expectations, it was a completely honest show - straight forward, no bull shitting and brilliant. Needless to say, effortless with the guitar and vocals.

Anyways, the songs from Shangri-la, Ragpickers dream and Sailing to Philadelphia (briefly interuppted by Walk of Life) which constituted the major portion of the concert made me realise that even though Mark Knopfler is (was) heart and soul of Dire Straits, he has surely moved on. In other words, watching MK solo is definitely not akin to watching Dire Straits i.e. a band is about a team and the music that was the outcome of that group of people. Felt the same about Pink Floyd after I watched Roger Waters couple of years back.

There was a certain delight in the way he played his solo songs (which was lost on a majority of the people at the concert, who were expecting Dire Straits from start to finish). And when he did play the Dire Straits numbers, it almost seemed to be out of rote and years of practice.

Though largely clueless, I must admit that the crowd generally was an appreciative lot.

The accompanying musicians were a sober but an able lot. He ofcourse did play some Dire Straits nos - Walk of Life, Telegraph Road, R&J, Sultans of Swing, Local Hero, Brothers in Arms and Money for Nothing. Nothing from 'On Every Street' - I presume he doesnt have rights to the album when he is playing solo.

Felt very happy, when I saw the subtlety and genius being played in front of me.

Aslan said...

Hey KK, Joe Satriani was here some time ago.. n' next is Megadeth, I hear. I think the time is not far away, when the likes of Metallica and Iron Maiden will grace Palace Grounds with their presence.