Happy to pencil off seeing another great of modern music at the O2 tonight and a real treat to see one of my guitar heros and one of the best living guitarists, Mark Knopfler, lead singer and guitarist with Dire Straits.
I mention his old band as not a lot of people I talked to beforehand seemed to know who he is/was! Dire Straits are responsible for all time greats such as “Money for Nothing”, “Sultans of Swing”, “Walk of Life”, “Romeo & Juliet”, “Brother’s in Arms” and a lot more, only some of which he played tonight, preferring instead to focus on his own solo stuff, not a lot of which I knew but it didn’t really matter to me what he played! I knew it would all be great and so it was..
I was here mainly to see Mark play guitar up close in his own unique, fingerstyle, brilliant way and to hear that unmistakable lead guitar, volume controlled, strat tone he’s become famous for. Him and his band didn’t dissapoint.
We were treated to an evening of musical and instrumental mastery with a seated (he blamed a trapped nerve!) Mark doing his trademark guitar swapping for nearly every song. He played Strats, Gibsons, Dobro and Acoustic all equally brilliantly and his excellent band all swapped between instruments ranging from Guitar, Upright Bass, Keyboard and Piano to Flute, Accordion, Pipes and a few I’d never even seen before. A very talented and melodic bunch who eased out multiple dynamic musical styles from Folksy to Ballad to Rock to Blues.
It was my kinda live music, very easy on the ears, not too loud, melodic, tap along and upbeat. The O2 acoustics were crystal clear and obviously suit this kind of music way more than some of the louder rock gigs I’ve seen there recently since the rebuild.
It was a shame the point wasn’t full but at least it gave me some extra leg room for once! It was still a decent crowd but for some reason they couldn’t sit still, with everyone constantly up and down for drinks etc..
Rock on Knopfler.
Reverb Studios Design 
Totally agree with your comments, he played a great show and I did notice about the crowd not sitting still. Was hoping he would have finished with money for nothing- it was all set up for him to finish the show off with a blast of that. Still a good show and enjoyed, somewhat surprised at ticket prices- paid nearly double for Fleetwood Mac back in Sept/Oct
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Looked like he might have came back for an encore but too many people left!
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