It's been a few years since I saw Mark Knopfler - I think the last time I had tickets he hurt himself in a motorbike crash and so the gig was cancelled. This time round he had a trapped nerve but the show was on albeit he was restricted to sitting in a special chair.
The support was Kate Walsh who sang and played guitar and had a sidekick who played cello. It was good but detailed memories of it were blown away by the main act.
Mark Knopfler's band reflected his recent bias towards Scottish/Northumbrian folk with an excellent fiddle player and Mike McGoldrick on flute, whistle and uillean pipes as well as the usual suspects such as Guy Fletcher and Richard Bennett.
He kicked off with 'Border Riever' from 'Get Lucky' and then played the firs two tracks on 'Sailing to Philadelphia'; 'What it is' and the title track. All these tracks featured prominent violin and other folk instruments with Mark studiously playing with them.
He then dipped into 'Ragpicker's Dream' for the foot-tappingly addictive 'Coyote' and then back to 'Sailing...' for one of the stand out tracks for me 'Prairie Wedding'.
As the gig progressed he played a number of older Dire Straits favourites such as 'Romeo and Juliet', 'Sultans of Swing' of course, and at the encore 'Brothers in Arms' which while derided by many is simply a spine-tingling piece of guitar.
Of all the guitar players I like live Mark Knopfler has a habit of playing chords that reverbrate in my mind and he did it again at the gig. It was a chord to end a track and it was just perfection.
In fact his guitar playing throughout was stupendous. Not quite as soaring as maybe in the early eighties but accomplished, confident and expressive. The gig flew by - always a sign of a great gig - but after a couple of hours it was all over and we walked back in the drizzle to the tube.
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