MARK KNOPFLER : PRAGUE 2019

 

Disc One (68:47)

  1. Why Aye Man
  2. Corned Beef City
  3. Sailing To Philadelphia
  4. Once Upon A Time In The West
  5. Romeo And Juliet
  6. My Bacon Roll
  7. Matchstick Man
  8. Done With Bonaparte

Disc Two (59:37)

  1. Heart Full Of Holes
  2. She's Gone/Your Latest Trick
  3. Postcards From Paraguay
  4. On Every Street
  5. Speedway At Nazareth
  6. Money For Nothing
  7. Piper To the end
  8. So Far away

Label : MarkKnopfler.com

Venue : 02 Arena, Prague, Czech Republic

Recording Date : June 26, 2019

Quality : Soundboard recording (A+)

Concert Review (Denik) : It was the hottest day in years. However, no one wanted to miss the concert of the British singer and guitarist Mark Knopfler in the packed O2 arena. The former frontman of the band Dire Straits has already performed in Prague many times, but he has probably never performed so well here. Great sound and flawless band. These were the main themes of the more than two-hour show of the rocker, who will celebrate his 70th birthday this August. After all, some Friday has passed since his last visit to the Czech Republic - and during that time the musician has visibly aged. But he sang like life, precise and accurate as always. And as soon as the first guitar solo was played, it was clear that this concert would surpass all previous ones. Mark Knopfler is known to be one of the few rock musicians who does not use a pick. Despite this, he manages to get a pretty sharp sound out of his instrument. Stylistically, he benefits from American blues and country music, but his music is, as a result, very loud big beat. Perhaps Mark's punk approach to playing and singing is to blame. It was thanks to him that the group Dire Straits established itself in the pop "eighties", even though it was based on such unfashionable genres as swing or wooden rock'n'roll. After the breakup of the legendary group he had despotically ruled, Knopfler took a more subdued note and released a series of remarkably balanced solo albums. These records can be listened to as one long novel with many chapters. And at concerts, like the one in Prague, Mark flips through individual chapters here and there. He has a plethora of songs at his disposal that seem similar to each other, but in reality are full of little ideas and tricks. "It's nice to be back," Knopfler addressed the audience right at the beginning. And then he told them that he had already been in Prague as a young boy. It's very strange that he talked like that. In past years, he used to be as infantile on stage as his role model Bob Dylan. Especially among the songs that he sang while sitting with an acoustic or resophonic guitar, there were stories that the Scottish native used to spare. For example, Mark shared with the audience the half-haunting, half-liberating feeling that came over him a long time ago when he found himself in the middle of the vast snowy plains on Christmas Day with only a guitar on his back. He was hitchhiking, the driver dropped him off at the intersection, nobody was anywhere and the others were celebrating Christmas at home in the warmth. "Is this how you spend your life?" the budding musician thought to himself at that moment. However, he immediately replied (and this is typical for an indomitable star): "Yes! This is exactly what I want.” During the evening, songs from Knopfler's last, last year's album Down The Road Wherever were played. However, there were also a lot of more or less well-known pieces from previous albums. Who would have expected Mark to include his 19-year-old duet with James Taylor Sailing To Philadelphia or the scorcher Why Aye Man from the 18-year-old CD The Ragpicker's Dream on the playlist? A real treat was the snappy song Postcards From Paraguay, in which the author wonderfully combined music in the style of South American bands with Latin American mambo dance. From the era of Direstrait melodies, the unspectacular hitmaker fished out time-proven compositions Once Upon A Time In The West, Your Latest Trick, On Every Street or Romeo And Juliet. The notorious "year-old" Money For Nothing could not be missed. The enthusiastically applauding audience saw a total of three encores and even then did not want to let their favorite off the stage.There was something daunting and soul-wrenching about it. As if the people in the audience and the musicians on stage (controlling a total of 48 instruments) knew that Mark Knopfler might be in the Czech Republic for the last time. After all, he is already of his age and doesn't want to go around the world all the time. During Piper's moving ballad To The End, the hall full of fans became noticeably sadder. Fortunately, the slight whiff of nostalgia faded right after with the swinging song So Far Away, in which Knopfler changed the words a bit. "So you are in old Prague town," he hummed to the visitors in farewell. Maybe he'll get a kick out of the Old Town of Prague, who knows...