... YOU FEEL ALRIGHT WHEN YOU HEAR THAT MUSIC RING ...

Same train up to Birmingham as a fortnight ago for the Verdi Requiem, same place for a meal, same Concert Hall, but tonight it was music of a very different kind from one of the three best bands I know – Dire Straits.

THE BAND IN FULL FLOW

Click on any of the images to enlarge them

Well, nearly Dire Straits. Dire Straits was one of those bands which was really built around one person – Mark Knopfler. He is a rather introverted Geordie who, as well as writing some of my very favourite songs, is one of the best pop guitarist in the world. The band started in the late 70s with Sultans of Swing and gradually the songs, many of them reflecting Knopfler’s inward looking character (is that why I like them?) became more complex and longer pieces of work.

The band was in almost continuous change mode for most of its life, with members coming and going, especially going, with unusual rapidity. But Yer Man was always there, and a string of amazing albums came out in the 1980s. Love Over Gold, Communiqué, Making Movies and Brothers in Arms were iconic pieces of work which, for me at least, defined the music of that era. Long, laid back, somewhat melancholic, often autobiographical songs dressed up in the third person to hide, or at least act as a cover for Knopfler’s privacy. And here was pop music where the power of loud and soft, quiet and loud, sometimes even silence made you realise that it’s often the difference in sound levels and not the number of decibels which makes for the dramatic effect.

ALAN CLARK and CHRIS WHITE

The band became one of the biggest in the world, and toured relentlessly everywhere. I went to see them a couple of times, once at Wembley in 1985 and again in around 1993. I think he finally got fed up with it all a couple of years later, and it all dissolved around 1995. He moved onto other things with the Notting Hillbillies, writing Film music (Local Hero and The Princess Bride are both written by him) and playing with and writing for other musicians like Emmy-Lou Harris, Tina Turner, Bob Dylan and Chet Atkins.

His songs were often about very unusual subjects – the decline of American Industry (Telegraph Road), the sleazy, almost Mickey Spillane-like Private Investigations, the simple beauty of Romeo and Juliet, the bitter wistfulness of wars fought and friends lost (Brothers in Arms) and the glitzy pointlessness of consumer goods (Money for Nothing). These are great pop songs and the 10 minute long, slow, languid, looking back over your shoulder versions of Romeo and Juliet (far, far better than the bouncy 3 minute original) and the heartfelt Brothers In Arms are permanent members of my All-time Top 10. If they didn’t appear on the playlist tonight, then multiple murder was a real possibility.

The problem for bands like Dire Straits is one faced by all the bands I really liked in my life. They all wrote their own songs, and they are the only people who performed them. No other bands were daft enough to try a cover version or offer a different way of performing them. So, if you wanted to hear them live, you had to catch them when they were performing it on stage, or basically you were stuffed. It’s the same with the two other great bands in my life. With Pink Floyd, two of the original four members of the band are now dead. With Genesis, Phil Collins is not performing anymore, and Peter Gabriel is doing his own thing. With Dire Straits, Mark Knopfler today seems to have zero interest in the songs he wrote in that era. So, until tonight, I thought the opportunity to hear these bands live had effectively gone.

I went to the last Genesis tour in 2007, and I do not expect to hear them live again ever. Pink Floyd, given that they always performed in a very anonymous way, seem to have allowed a couple of very good Tribute bands to take over, one British and the other Australian replicating their music and to a significant degree their light show. Having seen both of them more than once, it’s fair to say that they fly the flag as well as it could possibly be done.

Last night was the first concert I’ve heard live of Dire Straits’ music for nearly 20 years. The problem was that Mark Knopfler, the centrepiece and focus of the band would not be there. In a similar way to Pink Floyd, the essence of Knopfler’s music is in the writing, and he was always a bit anonymous and somewhat reticent on stage. He collected some extremely good musicians around him, particularly towards the end and these are the guys who have reformed to take his music back on the road. Alan Clark and Chris White were the guys who were with the band in their heyday, and they were there last night to carry on the thread of continuity.

It’s not the real thing, and as long as the main man is not there, it never will be. But this is the real world, and you have to realise that if you want to hear this music again, there is only one option and this incarnation is it. So take it or leave it.

So there I was in Symphony Hall, waiting with a good deal of expectation and looking back to hear this music which is a real part of me and hoping to recapture a little bit of my long lost youth.

JON ALLEN -
a very good support act

The audience did not include that many young kids, but I suppose this was music which faded from the front line in the mid 80s. The ticket, in very small print, alluded to the “special guest”, who turned out to be a singer/songwriter with a slightly twenty years on Gerry Rafferty feel in some of his work - and that’s praise indeed in my book. His name was Jon Allen, and I have to say I didn’t envy him, wandering out on his own with just a guitar into the cavernous interior of Symphony Hall to warm up the audience for the main act. Like the people around me to whom I spoke, I liked his music a lot, and am heading off to Amazon.

The Straits, for that was the band’s name, came onto the stage and I counted 8 of them. The keyboard player Alan Clark and Saxophonist Chris White were the old stagers of the original band, and the poor guy who was going to play the part of Mark Knopfler was Terence Reis. I bet he felt a bit nervous, as this was still at the very early part of their tour.

They played all the songs which Dire Straits made famous, and the sound was very faithful to the original. Terence Reis’s voice, to me, sounded more like Knopfler’s the longer the concert went on, and his guitar playing was very good. If I’m being ultra-picky, he couldn’t quite match Knopfler’s fabulously liquid quality of playing, which I have always thought the best I’ve ever heard. But that’s almost unfair, and in the end I thought he did an amazing job. The encore at the end, a very gentle, “close-in” version of Portobello Belle, to these ears at least, was better than the original.

 TERENCE REIS SINGS "PORTOBELLO BELLE"

All the signature sounds were there with Alan Clark’s almost classical piano playing and Chris White’s excellent sax playing bringing back some of the best musical memories of my life. In my mind, the water flowed back under all the bridges it had been passing under for nearly three decades. I was transported back to days when I was a lot younger, and for that I am very grateful to all the guys on stage for playing it. I know I will sound a bit like my grandfather when I say it, but they don’t write music like that anymore.

Was it perfect?

No, it wasn’t. The show had a slightly unfinished air about it. No-one in the band seemed to be “in charge”, so, at the beginning at least, it took on a slightly anonymous, unowned feel. It was almost as if Reis felt he ought to be stepping up and taking Mark Knopfler’s place, but only built up the confidence to start projecting himself forward a bit towards the end of the evening. They’re big shoes to fill, but he did a good job.

Chris White played excellently when he was involved, but, when he wasn’t, he looked quite unconnected and uninvolved, picking up and putting down his various instruments and almost wondering what to do. At one point he looked for all the world to me as if he was almost going to get his phone out and start checking on his e-mails and his Twitter stream. Alan Clark, who was directing operations musically, had the back of his head to the audience as often as his face, which was a shame, as he is a wonderful pianist and has a very expressive and watchable style of playing.

ALAN CLARK IN ACTION

The lighting also had a slightly unpolished feel to it in places. A couple of times, when, at least to me, it was really important that the pulsing of the lights exactly matched the beat of the music, they were either not on the beat or not pulsing at the right frequency. The individual spotlighting on the main soloists, particularly Chris White, could often have been more crisply focussed, as on a few occasions he was playing his solo beautifully - but in the dark.

Symphony Hall, as I keep banging on when I write about concerts there, has fabulous acoustics, and this was of great help to the band, although Reis’s guitar was occasionally a bit submerged in the background when, to me, it should have been a little more prominent and more clearly defined.

I also haven’t had my rant about people who think it’s OK to get up in the middle of a song, disturb everyone else in their row so they can go off to relieve themselves of some of the excess beer they’ve consumed. They’ve paid a tidy sum for their ticket, to hear some music that quite likely they won’t ever hear again, but nipping off to the loo is more important. Can’t they wait until the song finishes? Rude, inconsiderate bastards. And why, in heaven’s name, do the stewards allow them to come back without waiting for a lull in the proceedings? At least that would halve the irritation. I have to confess I wish I hadn’t left my Kalashnikov in the car again. Aaaaaah!

These are however, minor and trivial comments which do not begin to detract from the music. It was a really good evening, and the spirit of Dire Strait’s music shone through as I had hoped it would. I hope the band is a success and that they become the “tribute” band for this marvellous music. The music is so good that it needs to be kept in the public’s mind for a long time, and until this tour all happened, it was starting to disappear off the new music fan’s radar.

The guy next to me had his two young children there, both of whom were clearly under 10 years old, with the band folding up several years before either of them were born. “They’re a bit young for this sort of gig”, I said to him jokingly. “No”, he replied, “They’re here to listen to some of the best pop music ever.”

How right he was.

Tabs:

dire straits,
the straits,
jon allen

ONE HUMANITY .... ONE JUSTICE.

I sat on the sofa late last night just before heading off to bed, idly flicking through the TV programmes we had recorded on the Sky Box. A Mark Knopfler concert caught my attention from the list. Now Mr Knopfler, and his band, Dire Straits have been one of my three favourite bands through most of my adult life. I’ve got all of their CDs, and have seen them in concert several times. He is one of the greatest guitar players ever, as well as writing some of the most distinctive and evocative pop songs I know.

Private Investigations, Tobacco Road, Tunnel of Love, Romeo and Juliet, Walk of Life, Money for Nothing – what a collection, two of which are in my all time favourite Top ten Songs.

The concert was recorded recently in Basel in Switzerland, and, I have to say, was a bit of a disappointment to me. Too laid back, no passion, and too many new songs, which didn’t seem to mean that much.

Now it must be a real pain if you are a singer/songwriter, when you play your latest set of songs, and get polite applause, only to see the difference when you bring back one of the Oldies, which the audience has really come to hear. You must feel a sense of utter frustration, standing up there thinking “Listen to this one, you miserable lot. I’ve just written it and This is Me. Here and Now. Those old songs have gone. They’re the past, and I’m sick of singing them.”

Of course the audience doesn’t think like this, and so goes mad when the Old Songs make their appearance. And so it was here. “Brothers in Arms” with its deceptively gentle introduction floated into existence, and the audience changed from polite applause to Full Attention.

I have to say that, to these ears, Knopfler’s rendition of the song was not that great. It was so laid back, it was untrue. This is a serious song, with an important message, and a gentle feeling to it does it no favours at all. Knopfler had his 60th Birthday 3 days ago (Happy Birthday, Mark!), and you have to wonder whether, like all performers, whether he will ever recapture the power and passion he had when he was younger. Maybe it’s me, because I’m not getting any younger, or maybe it’s him, because he’s got less to say today than he had 20 years ago. Probably a bit of both. I just don’t know.

But just listening to him, my mind flashed back over 20 years. Nelson Mandela was still in jail, and the pop world had got together in London to pay their own tribute to this remarkable man. It took place in front of 75,000 people on 11th June 1988 at Wembley in London, and was the most political pop concert ever staged up to that time. The aim was to raise the world’s awareness of Mandela’s plight, and to put pressure on South Africa to release him, which they did 18 months later.

The concert included many of the more politically aware pop singers, with Peter Gabriel, Sting, Simple Minds, Stevie Wonder, Whitney Houston, and – Dire Straits.

Dire Straits were last to perform, and their 45 minute set was the work of genius. I’ve never seen or heard them play better than that night.

It was filmed very atmospherically and movingly and I still watch it with great affection and admiration. Two of the songs on it, Romeo and Juliet and Brothers in Arms will live in my mind for ever. It is this performance of Brothers in Arms which lasted some 9 minutes, and had Knopfler at the peak of his powers which jumped into my mind last night, in comparison to the one which he gave on the TV recording. I’ve dug it out on YouTube, so you can watch it. The atmosphere that night was electric, and you can get that feeling coming across even though the video is not of the best quality. You can feel the power, feeling and conviction pulsing through Knopfler’s body and pouring out through his hands as his fingers played the guitar. He’s literally in another world, and it brings me up in goose bumps every time I hear it.

Such a simple song. Simple words, hardly any clever chord sequences, just a pure, straightforward message put over so poetically and powerfully. Perhaps that’s the key to such great pieces of music.

Off goes my mind again. Devotees of this blog (please tell me there is one out there!!) will know of my love of “The West Wing”. One of the best series television has ever produced. Each series ends with a cliff-hanger, and the one in Series 2 is an absolute blinder. I won’t give the game away if you’ve not seen it, but the last few minutes are simply TV drama at its very best.

And guess what music they choose to use for the closing action. Mark Knopfler singing “Brothers in Arms”. It is as good a mix of drama and music as you will ever find, in film or anywhere else.

The shots of Bartlet striding through the West Wing to the critical Press Conference, the Storm, Charlie taking his coat off to match the President, the shot of the perfectly and very theatrically lit Negro janitor cleaning the Cathedral up after the President to the line in the song “… There’s so many different worlds …” (Don’t even try to tell me that wasn’t deliberate), the way Martin Sheen puts his hands in his pockets (flashback to the younger Mrs Landingham), Leo’s whispered “Watch this …”, and CJ’s deliberately ignored “Front Row on Your right” aside as Bartlet strides past her. And just look at the last shot, with Bartlet framed against the Union Flag. Wow.

It’s pure Wagner with leitmotivs galore and allusions threaded through it all.

And to end it all, the bastards who produced the show cutting you off 1 second before you hear Bartlet’s reply to the question that’s set all this up over the last dozen or so episodes, so you’ve got to wait 6 months to find out how he replied. Thank God for the Box Set DVDs.

To my simple mind, 5 minutes of the most utterly perfect drama I’ve ever seen. Every time I watch it, I get a lump in my throat. And playing in the background – Brothers in Arms. Whoever chose that song for that moment will go to heaven.

Perfect.

Tags:

west wing,
dire straits,
mark knopfler

BACH - WITH BITE! - AND LOVE IN THE AIR

Many pieces of music only exist in one form – the First recording is the Last recording as well. Just think of the Rolling Stones “Satisfaction”. I’m not a pop-geek, but I’ve never heard another version (other than live Stones’ Concert versions) of that song.

The first five notes “De De, De De Deeh” are simply “IT”. In my humble opinion, Keith Richards would have gained immortality if those were the only five notes he ever wrote. To realise the power of that simple intro, have you ever measured the time it takes for a dance floor to fill completely when the DJ plays them? It’s measured in milliseconds.

But other pieces of music don’t work like that. I have been thinking about this after scribbling down some thoughts earlier today about Jacqueline Du Pre, and her playing of the Elgar Concerto.

Classical Music, far more than most Pop Music, almost lives on the interpretation. The music exists as the written score but it is only relatively recently that we know how the composer thought the music should be played. We had to wait until the likes of people like Rachmaninov and Elgar actually recorded their own works, to hear what they wanted the music to sound like. And even then, we may not have been hearing it at its best.

There is a simple view that, once the music exists, the maximisation of its performance impact usually lies in the hands of someone else. And, as is the way of things, people have for the length of recording history, taken several shots at recording a piece of music. This is all bound up with the issue that was bugging me about the Du Pre Elgar Concerto. Her version, brilliant though it is, is not the only way it can be played, and we must all keep an open mind on this.

Other pieces of music, where there is not so dominant a recording, often have twenty or thirty recordings available, and it is simply up to the listener to decide which is the best. There are many occasions where you have to choose between several versions, made at differing times in one interpreter’s life. At least this means that there is no one “Best” version of a piece.

Take an example. Bach’s Goldberg Variations. I have four versions of this, one by Angela Hewitt (Brilliant!), another by Jacques Loussier (Curate’s Eggish), and two by Glenn Gould.

The Glenn Gould versions are the ones I want to refer to here. He made Version 1 in 1955, as a 23 year old. As a virtuoso piece, he brings Bach into the Twentieth Century with an amazing display of pianistic fireworks, which, being only nine the time of its release I was not aware, set the music world alight at the outstanding virtuosity of the performance.

As a person, Gould was an utterly outstanding pianist and a real eccentric, to boot. A Canadian, he recorded about 80 different pieces, but soon in his career, he gave up live performance, and only met his public via the recording studio. He had an absolutely individual take on whatever he played, and he was one of those rare artists whom, I suspect, you either revered or hated. His Beethoven Sonatas, I have to say, are a taste I have not yet acquired, but you simply cannot ignore the man. He thought the music through from his own ruthlessly logical point of view – if you liked it, then Great, if you didn’t well, you didn’t. His Bach however is out of the top of the Top Drawer.

GLENN GOULD PLAYING BACH - LOOK FOR THE DOG!

Note - The You Tube snippet above can be activated by clicking on the centre button, waiting for "Loading" to complete then pressing on the "Play" symbol in the bottom left hand corner.

If you want to hear and see Glenn Gould playing the 1981 Goldberg Variations, go to Google Video, search for Glenn Gould, and click on the 47 minute version of the Goldberg Variations - it's about the third one down. Quite amazing!

Although he hardly ever re-recorded anything, he made an exception with the Goldberg Variations, and in 1981, he went back into the recording studios, and did them again. Sadly, elliptically, and rather spookily, just after he recorded them again, he died.

To say the two versions were “Chalk and Cheese” hardly does the chalk or the cheese justice. The differences are immense. The first Aria takes almost twice as long in the 1981 version as the 1955 recording. The second one treats Bach as a human being, in places almost as a Romantic, whereas the first is almost fiendishly mechanical in its approach. Strangely, the later version seems to take far longer than the original, but, when you take out the beginning and ending Arias, and the 13 or so repeats which Gould observes in the 1981 version and not in the 1955 version, it actually takes a broadly similar overall time. What does come across in the 1981 recording is the Homogeneity of the work. The earlier one sounds like 30 almost unrelated variations – the latter version Seems all of a One.

There is a 3 disc set issued by Sony which contains both versions remastered, as well as a very revealing interview with Gould explaining why he felt the need to change his interpretation so radically. Quite enthralling, and if you ever want to understand why people change their views about a piece of music over time, just listen to that interview.

As I am sure you will realise, I think the 1981 version is streets ahead of the original 1955 version, but the point I’m trying to make here is that nothing is fixed in musical interpretation. Its very ephemeral nature is one of its most endearing features.

Even in Pop Music, you can see similarities. I happen to think Mark Knopfler is a truly gifted song writer and guitarist. He wrote a simple 3-minute song called “Romeo and Juliet”, released on an LP (Yes, it’s that old!) called “Making Movies”. Later on, particularly in his live performances, he built that song into the set, but, by the time he played these concerts, it had been totally changed from a 3 minute, bounce-along pop song, to a 12 minute long, slowly, wistfully and hauntingly performed work, which was so, so much more appropriate to the sentiments he was singing about. It had mood, presence, atmosphere, and to me became a great song when performed like that. Same lyrics, Same melody, but Lordy, Lordy, what a difference in impact.

DIRE STRAITS - ROMEO AND JULIET - THE LONG VERSION

By the way, the brilliant Saxophone solo is by Chris White - it lasts almost as long as the original song on "Making Movies"!

In the end, it doesn’t matter what I think. My opinion only matters to me, and it’s up to you to decide if you agree with what I’m saying. All I would suggest is you listen to both sets of “Before and After” recordings, and come to your own conclusions.

Then, the simple message behind the whole of this piece is to keep an open mind about how a piece of music sounds, however many times you hear it – you may even get to like the way The Sex Pistols sing “My Way”!

Tags:

bach,
glenn gould,
gould,dire straits,
mark knopfler,
romeo and juliet,
best pianist,
best pop music,
best pop song