•
Rating: The anticipation, the announcement of the dates, and the race to buy tickets for the beloved groups or artists. For a fan, even a not particularly devoted one, let's say that the preliminary phase of a concert revolves around these three essential points. From the purchase of the ticket to the concert event, it's often a slipping away of seasons, spent even imagining the awaited evening that you might have been longing for months or even a lifetime. What I've just written is the result of my direct experience of summer 2015, patiently waiting once again for the ex Dire Straits to promote the album TRACKER, released a few months earlier, on tour.
The auditorium Parco della Musica is once again chosen, as it was for the GET LUCKY tour in 2010. The Cavea (an amphitheater set to host 3,000 people) is a place that enjoys extraordinary acoustics, and for more open-minded audiences, it inevitably brings to mind images of the famous LIVE AT POMPEI by Pink Floyd. The solo Knopfler, today proposes a musical genre different from that played with his famous ex band (which debuted in 1978 with an intoxicating mix of country and blues firmly rooted in the pub rock of the time), always navigating both as an author and a musician a more distinctive path, as close to American musical tradition as it is to the Scottish one, primarily revealed without compromises through that outlet beyond the big biz, which even today is represented for the same artist by the refined soundtracks he regularly publishes.
The sun has now set, and a cheerful presenter in a Union Jack shirt announces the start of the show, and onto the stage without much self-celebration come Knopfler and his faithful musicians who have been accompanying him for years. The rhythmic pairing of the new Broken Bones, in full J.J. Cale style, and the now-established Corned Beef City (dedicated to the notorious London borough of Dagenham), create that gentle feeling of familiarity that for years has distinguished solo Knopfler shows. An atmosphere of acquaintance is established with the guitarist's words of appreciation for the city that hosts him, serving as an introduction to the cordial intimacy of Privateering, a song that takes us by the hand straight into listening to Father and Son (from Cal of 1984) and Hill Farmer's Blues, united in an original mini-suite that closes the opening part of the evening. No matter how prepared one might be for an encounter with history, the impact with the next three tracks (which retrace almost ten years of that band so much under squeeze, which began to gain its first worldwide recognition with that sublime manifesto of elegance and style called MAKING MOVIES) is by no means easy. It is precisely from the masterpiece of 1980 that the unmistakable pizzicato of Romeo and Juliet starts, accompanied by a long round of applause, while Sultans of Swing will gather the ovation during the historic final solo, and the suave Your Latest Trick (preceded by the brief She's Gone from the OST METROLAND of 1998) will reconfirm, years later (if there was still any need...), the relevance even today of an album like BROTHERS IN ARMS.
A show that, at the undisputed choice of its protagonist, moves in a balanced way between the timeless tracks of his Dire Straits and those of a solo career that, while not slavishly following the footsteps of history, has certainly helped to expand and confirm the extraordinary artistic trajectory of a musician who, in many respects, is out of the ordinary. And it must have appeared quite unpredictable to the eagerly waiting audience, the Caribbean rhythm of Postcards from Paraguay able to absorb a charming band introduction. The country of Marbletown and a compelling Speedway at Nazareth drive the show towards a grateful finale, in which the intimate Wherever I Go with the audience now under the stage acts as a watershed in the midst of an irresistible triad composed of: Telegraph Road, So Far Away, and Going Home [Theme from "Local Hero"], ready to remind us of what was probably the most brilliant decade of a great band that even today many carry in their hearts. The last notes, the music ends, and the greetings of Mark and Band are, after two hours of music, the gratitude the audience fully embraces.
The group leaves the stage, the lights come on, and the crowd gently exits the amphitheater, leaving me free to look for a second and sensational t-shirt to purchase and to entrust with the delicate task of remembering for the future a truly special evening, which gave me the illusion of being at the center of the world.... just me and (my) music.
Loading comments slowly
