Mark Knopfler Live
Thanks to the generous gift of a set of tickets for my entire family (thank you! thank you!), we attended the Mark Knopfler concert at the Britt Music Festival this weekend.
Brothers in Arms was probably the first Dire Straits album I heard, but I remember a friend playing “Romeo and Juliet” and “Sultans of Swing” and soon after encountering Brothers in Arms I went back and picked up some earlier Dire Straits albums as well as a couple of Knopfler’s soundtrack recordings (Cal and The Princess Bride). I think it was Jamie Soles who pointed me to Knopfler’s first solo album, Golden Heart, and since then I’ve picked up several of his subsequent albums.
So it was a great joy for me to take my family to Jacksonville, ride the trolley to the top of the hill, sit on a blanket with a perfect view of the stage (thanks to my mother-in-law who stood in line for hours to get a good spot for all of us!), eat cheese and bread and salami and chutney and drink wine (thanks to my glorious wife who prepared a picnic lunch for us), and then see Mark Knopfler in concert.
This was his Kill to Get Crimson tour, but instead of playing mainly new songs, he roamed through his repertoire. Here are the set list and some YouTube videos, none of which are from the concert I saw, though they are from this current tour (the ones at the end are from the night before the concert I saw):