Dire Straits Legacy: Foot on the Brake, but the Classics Still Set a Packed L56 Ablaze (2023)
Dire Straits Legacy
Wednesday, 30 August 2023
Ljubljana / L56 / Slovenia
Dire Straits Legacy is a band that performs — as the name already hints — strictly Dire Straits material at their shows. Dire Straits? They’ve been off the scene for a long time. Let’s flip it around. It’s been a long, long time — far too long — since Mark Knopfler decided to go solo. A Dire Straits reunion is nowhere in sight and, by all appearances, never will be. If it did happen, it would be the biggest reunion of any rock band that shook the earth through the eighties (and the seventies too). Of course. In that case, a reunion with the classic lineup would even be on the table — and since there’s no longer any realistic shot at a classic Pink Floyd, Queen, or Led Zeppelin reunion, we can safely say that a potential Dire Straits reunion would be a tectonic event on today’s rock and roll scene.
So fans of this enduring band — which has sold over 120 million albums worldwide to date — are left scraping up the occasional crumbs. Now, as a rule, this publication isn’t hugely enthusiastic about tribute acts — a well-trained ear rarely accepts a copy compared to the original, no matter how cleverly it resembles the source material. This time, we made an exception. Especially once we ran our eyes over the Dire Straits Legacy lineup. Former Dire Straits keyboardist Alan Clark, plus bassist Trevor Horn — the voice of The Buggles, briefly a member of the legendary Yes, and one of the most respected music producers in the business (just put on Yes’s album “90125” and everything will become crystal clear in that regard) — and then members with ties to the Dire Straits story one way or another: former King Crimson saxophonist Mel Collins, percussionist Danny Cummings, and guitarists Phil Palmer and Alex Sonni. And that’s not even the full roster. Dire Straits Legacy were expected on stage in Ljubljana as an octet (with additional keyboardist Primiano Di Biase, even a nonet). So far, we’d counted six.
Attendance at the Ljubljana show was excellent. Huge numbers of registrations from the Styrian corner of the country too. Rain won’t stop us! L56 is a new venue — much like the new Media Park hall at Pop TV. Spacious. Capacity of at least 3,000. And the concert was, in fact, sold out. That says it all about how in-demand Dire Straits music still is in 2023, even when performed live.
The band hit the stage around nine in the evening. Surprisingly, as a septet. Guitarist Jack Sonni was absent. On bass (with sheet music in hand) was Steve Walters — a seasoned bassist who spent no fewer than 16 years with George Michael — while behind the drums sat a drummer named Alex (I didn’t manage to catch his surname), both making their DSL debuts in Ljubljana. Steve was stepping in for Trevor Horn, Alex for DSL’s regular drummer Christian Micalizza. For both musicians, Ljubljana was their first show with DSL. But of course, all eyes were on Marco Caviglia. This is the man who has taken on Mark Knopfler’s role. Vocals and guitar. In one person. That uniquely droning, murmuring voice that borders at times on speech, occasionally with a touch of nasal quality — yet in every way an essential cornerstone of what makes Dire Straits Dire Straits. And that’s before we even get to the guitar. Standing alongside him (on his left) was the superb, battle-hardened guitar maestro Phil Palmer, and between him and Caviglia, Knopfler’s solos — as well as the ornaments and fills between passages — were often shared out evenly. All done, naturally, in the spirit of fingerpicking.
On top of all this — the sudden lineup reshuffle and Sonni’s absence — one more ordeal of the evening needs to be added. The equipment got left behind in Zurich. At the airport. So Dire Straits Legacy were forced to play the Ljubljana concert on borrowed gear. And more — even their personal luggage. They arrived in Ljubljana practically with nothing but the clothes on their backs, as evidenced by the borrowed black short-sleeved Rock Radio promo T-shirts that Alex and Steve were wearing. So — by this point in the review you’ve probably worked out yourself that the guys had to deal with quite a few hurdles and headaches that appeared completely out of nowhere. And more. Before arriving in Ljubljana, the band had only been told that guitarist Jack Sonni was in hospital — which they also announced on their official Facebook profile before the show (saying he was forced to miss the upcoming concerts). But the worst news came only after the concert. The painful news that Jack Sonni had passed away on the very day of their Ljubljana show — August 30, 2023. At least that shock was spared until the end. Perhaps it was precisely because of the accumulation of all these setbacks, and the fact that Dire Straits Legacy were consequently forced to partially adapt the Ljubljana concert, that the band decided to cut Solid Rock from the Making Movies section of the setlist.
The repertoire was, of course, hugely satisfying — the only real knock on the band being that they completely ignored the material from the second Dire Straits studio album, “Communique” (1979). The third album, “Making Movies” (1980), did receive more attention in the setlist, with Expresso Love, Skateaway, Tunnel Of Love, and Romeo And Juliet — and Marco Caviglia’s use of a National Steel-style guitar was duly present. The band also played all five released singles from the monumental “Brothers In Arms” album (the title track and So Far Away both in the encore, the main set closing with Money For Nothing, plus the gorgeous Your Latest Trick and the obligatory boogie/rock ‘n’ roll crowd-pleaser Walk Of Life). There’s the playful You Setting Me Up from the debut “Dire Straits”! From the debut came the excellently placed Down To The Waterline early in the show, and of course the absolutely mandatory classic that can never be absent anywhere or anytime — Sultans Of Swing, delivered in the closing stretch. The band didn’t skip “On Every Street” either, taking on the witty and sharp The Bug. Several tracks got extended treatment, with Romeo & Juliet in particular clocking in at over eleven minutes — in the closing section, veteran Mel Collins stepped in with a sax solo.
The performance wasn’t at its best. For a casual observer or listener — or even a diehard Dire Straits fan not privy to some of the additional facts — it was even, and justifiably so, below expectations. Especially given the names in the current Dire Straits Legacy lineup that had been plastered all over the Ljubljana concert announcements. This occasional sonic roughness was certainly down to the fact that the band had been thrown into adapting the show on the fly. Borrowed gear, Sonni’s absence, and the sudden lineup changes at bass and drums all took their toll. The further the concert went toward the end, the more gaps opened up in the performance. Fluctuations in the sound mix at times swallowed Marco Caviglia’s vocals down to barely audible levels, despite the man’s best efforts. A number of guitar ornaments, transitions, and passages within solos were also played with less precision, while the overall sound balance in the hall contributed to an occasional muddiness. Add to that the drums and bass, which didn’t dare venture beyond the role of background players — playing it safe, in other words — which meant any extra lift that should have been driving the atmosphere and the theatrics just wasn’t there. In short, the performance as a whole never quite landed that final kick. The kind of kick that would have swept you completely off your feet. There was plenty left in the tank. Then there are the acoustic pitfalls that come with a new venue like L56.
The two solid performers throughout were Alan Clark on keyboards (despite not being immune to a few slips) and percussionist Danny Cummings, who was on several occasions the only one who truly came alive on stage. Cummings also took on Sting’s vocal lines in Money For Nothing.
Despite the gaps — unforeseen and completely beyond the band’s control given the chain of circumstances that evening — the audience was overjoyed and satisfied through two hours of concert. The crowd kept rewarding the band with hearty ovations. One way or another, the concert worked. A band that seemed to be gradually going under as the show progressed — especially toward the end with Money For Nothing, where the whole thing teetered on the edge of martyrdom — somehow managed to keep its head above water. This time, largely thanks to the wave of nostalgia and the outpouring of intense emotion from an audience thirsting for the timeless sounds of Dire Straits.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik & Edita Klemen
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Setlist:
1. Private Investigations
2. Expresso Love
3. Skateaway
4. Down To The Waterline
5. Tunnel Of Love
6. Romeo & Juliet
7. Telegraph Road
8. Your Latest Trick
9. Walk Of Life
10. The Bug
11. Setting Me Up
12. Sultans Of Swing
13. Money For Nothing
—encore—
14. Brothers In Arms
15. So Far Away
