Elton John Knebworth 1990
The next time I saw Elton John was on a multi-act bill at Knebworth in 1990. This was the Silver Clef Award Winners Concert and had an amazing line-up including Pink Floyd, Cliff Richard & Genesis; The Shadows, Tears for Fears, Eric Clapton, Dire Straits, Paul McCartney, Robert Plant (with guest Jimmy Page), and Status Quo. Pretty strong bill! I won a pair of free tickets in a competition; I think is was with KitKat, and Marie and I went down for the weekend. This was a great concert, which deserves a blog post of its own. I’ll save that for another day, and limit my reflections today to Elton’s part of the day. Some of the acts such as Paul McCartney and Pink Floyd got to play pretty full sets, but most of the other bands were limited to a few songs. Elton played three of his own songs: Sacrifice; Sad Songs; and Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting, and also jammed with Eric Clapton and Mark Knopfler, playing Sunshine of Your Love and possibly a couple of more songs. Pretty sure Ray Cooper was also in the band.
Archive for the ‘Mark Knopfler’ Category
30 Jun
Elton John Knebworth 1990
9 Oct
Bob Dylan (& Mark Knopfler) Braehead Arena Glasgow 8 Oct 2011
Bob Dylan (and Mark Knopfler) Braehead Arena Glasgow 8 Oct 2011
This was a great great show. Dylan was much better, in manner and voice, than I’ve seen him for years. For the early songs he stood centre stage with a hand mike, grinning and doing little leg moves. He looked great with a big black hand a moustache. He was really enjoying it, in a way I don’t think I’ve ever seen; certainly not for a long long time. And his voice was very strong. Gone are the days where I thought he was just going through the motions and everyone around me was asking what song it was, and saying how bad he was singing. Last night everyone I saw thought he was great. At last I saw Dylan being true to his legend and getting the best out of his songs. I’d given up hope that he could ever be this good on stage again. Highlights for me were It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue; Tangled Up In Blue; The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll; and A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.
Special guest Mark Knopfler is clearly a great guitarist, but has never been my cup of tea. This was the first time that I’ve seen Mark since Dire Straits. I used to love Sultans of Swing, but tired of them in their later years. I’d set off late and had a cup of coffee in a service station, purposely trying to miss Mark’s set, as I knew I wouldn’t enjoy it. I arrived at around 8pm and Mark was on stage. It was red hot in the arena, difficult to breathe, so I went outside for some fresh air. I came back in around 8.40pm only to find that Mark was still onstage and that the crowd gave him an encore. What I saw seemed OK, but to be honest pretty dull for me. As a result of Mark’s long(ish) set Dylan was late on stage at around 9.20pm or later, and finished close to 11pm. The drive home was foggy through pouring rain; I got back around 2am.
Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat; It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue; Things Have Changed; Tangled Up In Blue; Honest With Me; The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll; Summer Days; A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall; Highway 61 Revisited; Tryin’ To Get To Heaven; Thunder On The Mountain; Ballad Of A Thin Man
Encore; Like A Rolling Stone; All Along The Watchtower
I hate printed tickets
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