Last Tuesday one of the living legends of the guitar stopped into Red Rocks Amphitheatre in the midst of his Down The Road Wherever tour. Backed by a stunningly excellent band including longtime collaborators Guy Fletcher (keyboards), Richard Bennett (guitar), Jim Cox (piano), Mike McGoldrick (whistle and flute), John McCusker (fiddle and cittern), Glenn Worf (bass), Danny Cummings (percussion) and Ian Thomas (drums) as well as new additions Graeme Blevins (saxophone) and Tom Walsh (trumpet) Mark Knopfler was sounding as good as ever.
The other thing that really helped my overall enjoyment of the evening was something that might have gone unnoticed by many in the capacity crowd. The PA system. Some may be aware that many artists touring on the scale of Knopfler travel with their own sound system, and this one was out of this world. My words won’t do it justice so I’ll paste a bit of text the mastering genius David Glasser of Airshow Mastering posted on Facebook the day after the show. “And I have heard the future of sound reinforcement. The PA was a L-Acoustics L-ISA immersive sound system. An unusual sight for Red Rocks, or any venue – there are 7 hangs of speakers across the stage – 3 large central arrays, and 2 smaller arrays on each side plus a hanging subwoofer array. The sound was the best I’ve heard at Red Rocks – a huge 3 dimensional presentation that gave a real sense of space, even where we were seated off to one side. Solos and background vocals leapt from the stage. L-ISA, and products like it will transform concert sound. One of the coolest things I’ve heard in a while.” I have to agree with Glasser.
The show itself opened with the trio of “Why Aye Man,” “Corned Beef City” and “Sailing to Philadelphia” the latter being one of my favorite songs in Knopfler’s catalog. While James Taylor’s smooth vocals trading verses with the former Dire Straits frontman are a hallmark of the recorded version of the song, this band did it justice on their own.
Other highlights of the show included the classic Straits tunes “Once Upon A Time In The West” and “Romeo and Juliet” early in the set and the latter era gem “On Every Street” close to the end of the main set. Surprisingly the show only featured a pair of songs off Knopfler’s latest record Down The Road Wherever – “My Bacon Roll” and “Matchstick Man” – sandwiched together mid-set and I have to admit I was a little disappointed he didn’t share the standout track of the album “Back On The Dance Floor,” but what can you do.
While Knopfler does seem to have slowed things down a bit with age, the show was well worth the drive up to Red Rocks on a beautiful September evening. He’s been at it for more than 40 years and there’s no doubt he’s still got what it takes to deliver a pretty memorable evening of music.
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