STING: ‘MY SONGS’ LIVE AT CARDIFF CASTLE – 2nd JULY 2023
It has taken me a while to get around to seeing Sting live in person again. The last time was at the O2 Arena in London back in April 2015 during the On Stage Together tour with Paul Simon. That show remains one of the best I have ever seen. To witness such a combination of talents, not only of Sting and Paul Simon themselves but also of their respective bands, was really quite something. So from my perspective, this show had quite a bit to live up to. No pressure then, Sting.
Let’s start with the negatives and get those done and dusted before we get into this review properly. Please do feel free to skip the following two paragraphs if you want to fast forward to my experience of the show itself!
Shows at Cardiff Castle are obviously of the outdoor variety and are relatively large events. As a performance venue, it has something in the region of a 10,000 capacity. It was also a general admission show, all standing. Which means that no matter how soon you buy your tickets after they go on sale, if you want to be close to the stage and don’t fancy being stuck behind 9,999 other concert-goers, you have to arrive stupidly early to get in the queue. To make matters worse, being a bit of a Billy no-mates, I was attending the gig on my own. I managed to get to the venue at around 15:00, with the gates eventually opening at 17:00. Thankfully I was among the first to go through, albeit not before I had my belongings inspected and my nearly full bottle of water tossed in a skip by a stone-faced security lady who seemed to have suffered a massive sense of humour failure. Still, I was detained briefly enough that I was able to enter the Castle grounds and position myself stage centre, roughly in the second row. Perfect. Only one slight problem here. I was on my own and therefore didn’t have anyone with me to hold my place if, for instance, I developed a requirement to relieve myself. I was hemmed in amongst the crowd. Any attempt to move would result in me losing my place and fighting my way back to this ideal position would most likely be impossible. Perhaps the miserable security lady did me a favour in that department after all. And can I just say that I evidently remain the proud owner of a remarkably strong bladder.
There’s a lot of waiting around at a show like this. Especially if you are standing up. The gates opened at 17:00. The first act was not due on until 19:00. So all you can do in those two intervening hours is enjoy the DJ’s musical selections being pumped out of the PA system. And all credit to him, the guy had compiled quite a decent bunch of songs. It was OK for a while, but after two hours it becomes rather tiresome. I already felt like a proper lemon amongst that crowd and I almost wanted somebody to beam me up at this point, as much as I was looking forward to seeing Sting.
For all the waiting around, Cardiff Castle proved a beautiful setting for an outdoor summer concert
But then Joe Sumner came on. For the less initiated amongst us, Joe is Sting’s eldest son. He’s actually been in the music business for quite some years now, first with his band Fiction Plane and more recently on his own. And just to get things into perspective here, Joe is now approximately the same age as Sting was when he was touring behind the Mercury Falling album back in 1997 – by which time The Police were already a distant memory and he was a well-established solo artist. Where the bloody hell has all that time gone? Anyway, you may well have seen Joe with Fiction Plane opening for The Police on their 2007/08 reunion tour, or as part of Sting’s band during 2017’s 57th & 9th tour. He has been touring with his Dad once again in 2023, ably warming audiences up with his half-hour one-man show. He is quite the entertainer, interacting with the crowd and cracking jokes between songs, quite apart from displaying some impressive guitar skills and a terrific vocal range. He has a style all of his own, though you can certainly hear the family resemblance in that clear, penetrating tone of his voice. I definitely felt my spirits lifted by Joe’s performance. He is a formidable songwriter and performer in his own right. A live EP entitled Feelin’ the Love, Tastin’ the Fear featuring a similar set to the one he has been playing on this tour is available from your preferred music download or streaming merchant.
Then there was more waiting while the stage was reorganised for the second opening act. Dagny hails from Norway and established herself with her brand of Indie and Synth-pop with breakthrough single ‘Backbeat’ in 2016. There are precious few young, contemporary artists that I have felt able to get into and I wasn’t expecting to be impressed here. But I was. I genuinely enjoyed her 45 minute set immensely. She has great stage presence, a pleasant, likeable manner with the crowd and a good, tight band. Her songs are catchy and uplifting. You can clearly tell that she and her band are very much invested in the music they are making. She was the perfect warm-up act for what was to come and I shall follow her activities from now on with much interest.
I was hugely impressed by Dagny’s set
Another break followed Dagny’s set, while Sting’s road crew once again redressed the stage for the ‘main course’, so to speak. This crew includes one Danny Quatrochi, who has been Sting’s personal technician since at least the Triassic period. Possibly even longer. He’s the one responsible for handling all of Sting’s guitars and amps and, most crucially, that famous 1957 Fender Precision Bass that has been so synonymous with Sting over the last thirty years. When Danny brought it out during setup, I think I was as starstruck by the sight of that bass as I was by Sting himself. We all know it’s pretty beaten up, but when you see it in the flesh you realise just what a knackered old thing it is. Most of the paint has rubbed off over decades of use, there are long scratches and dents all over it…but unlike the frankly daft ‘relic’ instruments produced by Fender which have been deliberately scraped, chiselled and generally bashed about to make them appear worn, Sting’s old bass has real history and real character. Like Paul McCartney’s Höfner violin bass, it’s truly a star in its own right.
So the stage was set and, some four hours after I had assumed my position in the crowd, Sting came striding on, launched into ‘Message in a Bottle’ and all of those preceding hours evaporated instantaneously. That song, the first Police number one from 1979’s Reggatta de Blanc album, has always been as reliable a set opener as any. It immediately gets the crowd singing along and gets the show off to a flying start. A succession of hits from across Sting’s illustrious career followed with the likes of ‘Englishman in New York’ and ’Every Little Thing She Does is Magic’ all pleasing the 10,000-strong concert goers. He was clearly in a relaxed mood from the outset, enjoying a bit of banter with the crowd and even making an attempt at speaking a bit of Welsh. Happily, he managed to avoid dislocating his tongue in the process.
‘Message in a Bottle’ remains as effective a set opener as ever
Yet more classics were rolled out, with a healthy selection of songs from Sting’s quintessential 1993 solo album Ten Summoner’s Tales, which celebrated its 30th anniversary earlier this year. ‘If I Ever Lose My Faith in You’ is as fresh and uplifting now as it ever was. A funky ’Heavy Cloud No Rain’ was a showcase for the talents of backing vocalist Melissa Musique who duets and duels with Sting at the back end of the song. Harmonica player Shane Sager ably stepped into the shoes of the late, great Larry Adler for the solo on ‘Shape of My Heart’ while backing vocalist Gene Noble sang lines from Juiced WRLD’s 2018 chart hit ‘Lucid Dreams’ which sampled the song. ‘Fields of Gold’ has been a staple of Sting’s shows ever since it was new. As far as I am aware, it has never been out of the set in thirty years and, frankly, long may it remain. Hearing that song is never not emotional for me. I have a lot of memories associated with it, so to hear it being played live by Sting in person really is something a bit special. His long-time guitarist Dominic Miller excels on this song with his arpeggiated acoustic guitar picking and that simple but beautifully effective middle guitar solo.
It was also good to hear another classic solo album, 1991’s The Soul Cages, well represented by performances of ‘Why Should I Cry for You?’ and ‘All This Time’. The former, a song written from Sting’s perspective had he followed his father’s advice of never getting married and going to sea, still sends shivers down the spine to this day. The outro then immediately gave way to ‘All This Time’. Both of these were stellar performances and among of the many highlights of the evening.
With solo material dominating the middle section of the set, the latter stages saw the return of some more Police hits including the likes of ‘Walking On the Moon’, ‘So Lonely’ and ‘King of Pain’, which became a father and son duet with Joe Sumner. And of course no Sting concert would be quite complete without ‘Every Breath You Take’ and ‘Roxanne’, before the show was brought to a thoughtful close with ‘Fragile’ – a song that has been a reliable set-closer at Sting shows for decades now.
Sting performs ‘Fragile’
My only slight disappointment in setlist terms was the lack of songs from Sting’s most recent album The Bridge, which was released in November 2021. Since it began in 2019, the My Songs tour has focussed primarily on his most widely recognised material from across his career, but The Bridge is such a strong album and in my opinion some of the best work he has done in the last decade or more. It seems a shame to me not to showcase its material a little more. But this is only a minor complaint. The whole show was superbly and virtually flawlessly performed and the crowd was absolutely captivated by it right from the off. The sound was also excellent from where I was. I once went to an outdoor Elton John concert where the bass drum was so Earth shatteringly loud that it was enough to shake my innards to a pulp, but here the sound was clear, crisp and perfectly balanced.
Sting is very much front and centre of this show, now utilising a head mic which allows him the freedom to have more mobility around the stage than he would otherwise have with a conventional mic stand. If it were me, I’d feel a little self-conscious performing like this, since a stationary mic stand gives you something to sing into and somewhere to point your head, but Sting has been using the head mic since the tour resumed around the back end of 2021 and he seems very comfortable with it at this point.
And talk about stage presence. At 71, with possibly millions of road miles behind him, Sting still has it in spades. This man has been my musical hero since I was eight years old and there he was, standing only yards away from me singing his songs. Songs that have been etched on my psyche for what feels like forever. I had to pinch myself a few times. I felt so lucky to be as close as I was. And what’s more, Sting does have a way of making eye contact when you are near the front. I don’t think I was imagining this and to be honest, it can be a little unnerving. Especially as during the set opener, he just happened to be looking in my general direction as I looked up from my iPhone screen. Sorry about that Sting. I was paying attention. I was only trying to open the camera. Honest!
For all the waiting around, Cardiff Castle is a beautiful setting for an outdoor summer concert. The weather largely behaved itself too, except for the few spots of rain that fell – ironically enough given its lyrics – during ‘Desert Rose’. I have family in Wales and am always happy to be there, but I cannot possibly have been more pleased to be an Englishman in Cardiff on Sunday 2nd July 2023. I had tickets for the show at the London Palladium in 2022 but missed it for a mixture of financial and family reasons. This show more than made up for it. Sting thanked the crowd and told us “we’ll see you again”. And I hope it won’t be too long before we do. He is in great form and very obviously retains a great love of what he does. Thank you Sting and band for a magical evening.
A look back over 12 months of music and a look ahead to 2024
Crikey. Where did that year go? It feels like only weeks ago that I was writing my review of 2022 and predicting what might happen in 2023. I’m convinced there are unseen forces somewhere out there cranking up the rate of time. There again, they do say time flies when you’re having fun, and 2023 certainly proved to be good fun from this writer’s perspective. But even if 2023 was great, 2024 has the potential to blow it clean out of the water. There are all kinds of things that might be happening over the next twelve months. So, let’s take a look back at some of my musical highlights from 2023, as well as looking ahead to all the potential that 2024 has to offer. You might want to keep that wallet handy!
MARK KNOPFLER & DIRE STRAITS
At the start of 2023, I don’t think anybody (save from those who were actually involved) could possibly have predicted that we might get a big box of live material by Dire Straits, including not just their original pre-existing live albums but expanded versions of those albums with previously unreleased songs added, as well as an album recorded at London’s Rainbow Theatre in 1979 that had never been released at all until now. Dire Straits Live: 1978-1992 really was a complete surprise and is without question the most exciting and interesting release by the band since their split in 1992. The project actually dated back some four years until its eventual release, so those in the know certainly did a great job of keeping it under wraps! With Dire Straits keyboardist and long-time Mark Knopfler wingman Guy Fletcher at the helm mixing the unreleased music at British Grove Studios and supervising the remastering process at Abbey Road, the quality of the set is – as one might expect – absolutely second to none. I will not go into intimate details of the set in this piece as I have already written an extensive review which you can find here, but it was an absolute pleasure making my way through all the discs in this set. It is a real treat to hear complete versions of live albums including recordings of songs that many of us would have assumed we’d never get to hear. The set was very possibly my top musical highlight of 2023, though the Sting concert I went to in Cardiff runs it close.
Released as both an eight CD set and a twelve disc vinyl set, Dire Straits Live is a positively sumptuous collection of live material including many previously unreleased gems
As for my musical highlight of 2022, which was the wonderful Local Hero musical staged at the Minerva Theatre in Chichester, I had half-expected that it might find its way to London or be taken on a UK tour. Unfortunately, this so far hasn’t happened and the project seems to be on hold for the time being. It would be a great shame if nothing more is to come of the musical because it is a beautiful tribute to a much-loved classic film. We had also been expecting a cast recording to emerge at some point. Whether or not this will still happen remains to be seen. As will become obvious from the next couple of paragraphs, 2024 is looking like a busy year where Mark Knopfler is concerned so if the production is to go ahead in some form or other in the future, my guess would be that it probably won’t happen in the next twelve months…though I would gladly be proven wrong in that prediction. Whatever happens, there is no doubt in my mind that this production deserves to be seen and heard by a wider audience. Hopefully it will.
As I wrote this time a year ago, many of us were expecting the release of Mark Knopfler’s new studio album at some point during 2023. This didn’t happen, primarily because of Mark’s relentless creative drive to write new songs. A new album was first hinted at by Mark in a message to fans via his social media outlets at the start of the first Covid lockdown way back in 2020. Obviously the delay incurred as a result of the disruption resulted in work on the album commencing much later than he had originally planned. And with Mark being the incredibly prolific artist that he is, he inevitably came up with many more new songs in the intervening time between March 2020 and finally getting into British Grove Studios in early 2021. And then between that time and the band arriving for four weeks of sessions a year later, he wrote even more songs. And then the band convened once again in late 2022 for more sessions, by which time he had written yet more songs. I shudder to think how many songs Mark has amassed in all that time, but one thing is for damn sure. He hasn’t exactly been short of material to record. Work on the album continued into 2023 with various overdubs, and finally he now has a complete album mixed, mastered and ready to unleash to the world. At last, I believe I am safe in assuming that this album will be released at some point during 2023. Given the amount of time that has passed since the story of this album began, it would be fascinating to know how much it has evolved from the album that Mark had originally envisaged.
But that’s not all! With the album seemingly wrapped up, it emerged in October 2023 that Mark and the band had once again gathered at British Grove for some more recording work. What could they possibly have been up to this time? Had Mark decided to add more songs to the album? Surely not. Could they already be working on the next album? Given that Mark no longer plans to tour, plus his insatiable appetite for creativity, it would not have been beyond the realms of possibility. As it turned out, they were indeed recording new songs, this time for an EP – a separate project from the new album which Mark revealed during a BBC interview focussing the auction of a large quantity of his guitars and amps, due to take place at Christie’s, London on 31st January 2024. In Mark’s hands, some of those guitars have been responsible for some iconic moments down the years – the red Schecter Telecaster that he always played on ‘Walk of Life’, the re-issue 1983 Les Paul that featured heavily on the Brothers in Arms album, and of course the Pensa-Suhr MK1 which was his primary instrument in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. He got some incredible sounds out of that guitar. It’s going to be a poignant moment to see some of those instruments go, but to quote Guy Fletcher in an answer to a recent comment of mine on his website: “He has been mulling the idea of thinning out the collection for a long time. The sale in no way reflects on his enthusiasm for music creation. He’s as excited to come into the studio and record as ever.” So, there is plenty of new music to look forward to. Though he does appear now to have retired from touring, there is very obviously still no end of creative drive left in him to write and record. And with the sheer quality of the music he produces in that studio, I am just as excited to hear what he and his brilliant band have been cooking up. With luck, I would like to think the new album will surface in the first quarter of 2024 with the EP possibly following later in the year. In addition, Mark and Guy have been producing a project in aid of the Teenage Cancer Trust involving numerous legends that include the likes of David Gilmour, Ronnie Wood and Sting. Quite what the nature of this project is I do not know, but no doubt it will attract a good deal of public attention for a very good cause. Hopefully this is another item we can look forward to during 2024.
2024 is looking to be a busy year for Mark Knopfler fans. Photo credit: Mike Child (Royal Albert Hall, 25/05/2015)
And as if all that new music wasn’t enough, we still have a TV series with Brian Johnson to look forward to. Entitled ‘Brian Johnson and Mark Knopfler’s Good Times’ and featuring guests including the likes of Emmylou Harris and Sam Fender, it was originally due for broadcast on Sky Arts in Autumn 2023, but presumably it will now reach our screens at some time in 2024. As clearly evidenced in a 2018 episode of Brian’s A Life On the Road, Mark and Brian have fantastic chemistry so it’ll be a joy to see them together for a whole series. All in all, 2024 is shaping up to be a hugely exciting year for all of us Knopfler enthusiasts!
Mark Knopfler and Brian Johnson make an excellent double act! Their new Sky TV series ‘Good Times’ will most likely be broadcast during 2024.
STING & THE POLICE
One thing we can be certain of where Sting is concerned is that he does love to go touring. His current My Songs tour has been running in one form or another since 2019, albeit with an enforced break in 2020 and much of 2021 due to the Covid lockdowns. It was during that downtime that he cooked up his superb and much overlooked album The Bridge, which saw a release in November 2021. I was a little disappointed that the tour wasn’t appropriately rebranded to bring it in line with the album. It seemed odd to me that Sting continued to tour behind My Songs, an album of re-recorded and remixed hits from 2019, rather than focussing on a more recent album of entirely original songs – and a very strong album at that. Although a precious few songs from the album were added to the set, The Bridge has never really been toured properly unlike most of his studio albums, and the setlist has focussed almost entirely on well-trodden hits from across Sting’s back catalogue. Not that I have a massive problem with that. It’s just a shame that The Bridge never got the attention it deserved. But Sting’s hits are hits for a very good reasons – chiefly because they are bloody good songs. The crowds unquestionably love to hear them, so when Sting plays the kind of tours that visit venues of the larger variety, he will tend to focus primarily on songs that are more widely recognised by general audiences than his deeper cuts. And that was very much the case when I saw him live at Cardiff Castle in July 2023. I had missed out on the opportunity to see him live at the London Palladium in 2022 due to a combination of personal circumstances, but the show in Cardiff more than made up for it. Yes, the show featured almost wall-to-wall hits that us dedicated fans are more than familiar with, but there is far more to a concert than its setlist. Sting always finds something in his songs to keep them fresh and interesting for both him and his audience. Being an outdoor and unseated show with two opening acts, there was a good deal of waiting around to ensure I got near the front, but boy was it worth it. I had a fantastic time in a wonderful atmosphere with my lifelong musical hero literally only a few yards away from the perfect stage centre position I had managed to acquire on arrival. It was not an evening I will forget in a hurry. You can read my full review of the show here.
Sting performing at Cardiff Castle, 02/07/2023. Photo credit: Mike Child
2023 also saw the 30th anniversary of one of my all-time favourite albums – Sting’s classic Ten Summoner’s Tales. Arguably the quintessential Sting album that showcased him at the absolute peak of his songwriting powers, it is an utterly timeless collection of songs that sound as fresh now as they ever did. It produced a number of hit singles, not least the likes of ‘Fields of Gold’, ‘If I Ever Lose My Faith in You’ and ‘Shape of My Heart’ and is widely regarded as is finest solo work to date. I had hoped and prayed that we might get a proper anniversary box set reissue including the remastered album, bonus tracks, live recordings from from the extensive world tour that followed, a newly remastered DVD / Blu-ray of the Ten Summoner’s Tales film shot at Lake House…but no. Sadly (and predictably), all we got was an expanded digital-only edition of the album with various B-sides, remixes and edits. An album of Ten Summoner’s Tales’ calibre really deserves better than this. Perhaps we will get the expanded physical box sets that all his solo studio albums so richly deserve at some time in the future…alas, I fear it won’t happen any time soon. You can read my special appreciation piece written for Ten Summoner’s Tales’ 30th anniversary here.
Sting’s classic Ten Summoner’s Tales celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2023. Sadly, no expanded physical edition has so far been forthcoming
Another album that celebrated a big birthday in 2023 was Synchronicity – the album that took The Police to world domination in 1983. I’d have thought that a historically significant album like this would have seen some sort of special reissue for its 40th anniversary…but no. Certainly, it got a mention on The Police’s official social media outlets but there was no sign whatsoever of any kind of special commemorative release. I had thought, as mentioned in my 2022 review, that we might at least get something – perhaps a vinyl picture disc similar to the Ghost in the Machine ‘alternative sequence’ edition that came somewhat out of the blue that year. But there was nothing – not even a digital reissue. However, in an interview during his late summer break from the My Songs tour, Sting let slip that a big Synchronicity box set IS in fact being planned for 2024. OK, it’ll be a year or so late for the album’s big birthday but either way, it’ll certainly be a release to look forward to. Especially since, according to Sting, it will include his original demos for the album. They will surely make for fascinating listening. Quite what form the box will take remains to be seen, though no doubt there will be multiple CD and vinyl editions to choose from. And a live recording from the Synchronicity tour wouldn’t go amiss. I shall wait to see how the reissue is handled with much anticipation…assuming it does indeed go ahead.
Synchronicity is looking like it will get an expanded box set reissue for its 40th anniversary…albeit a year late!
Sting’s manic touring schedule will be continuing into 2024. A small number of US shows with the legend that is Billy Joel have been lined up which will no doubt make for rather special occasions, while his regular solo tour will once again cover Europe throughout Spring and Summer. Happily, a number of UK dates are once again included in that schedule although without any shows within a practical distance of me here on the south coast, I have opted not to attend a show on this occasion. It is heartening to see that Sting and his management’s faith in the UK seems to have been restored with last year’s shows having gone down very well indeed with critics and audiences alike, though it would be nice to see a refreshed, all-new show in comparatively smaller (preferably seated) venues – i.e. halls and theatres around the UK. And perhaps an all-new show might in fact be on the cards in the not too distant future. Sting does appear to have been doing some sort of recording work with the assistance of manager Martin Kierzsenbaum while out on the road and he does talk in terms of having a three year cycle between albums, so if he is indeed working on new songs, it is not at all beyond the realms of possibility that a new studio album could be in the works and might even see a release in the next twelve months. That would definitely be a catalyst for a shake-up of his live gigs. It is fantastic that we can even consider that as a possibility now – because until the release of 2013’s The Last Ship which arrived a full ten years after his previous album of original songs, one could easily have been forgiven for assuming we may never hear anything new from Sting again. After all, he is one of our finest songwriters so to have him back in the game coming up with new material really is a blessing.
PAUL McCARTNEY
Even at the tender age of 81, Sir Paul McCartney is rarely one to stay idle for long. His 2023 began with the publication of a book of his own photography from the period of December 1963 to February 1964, when The Beatles underwent a transformation from four Liverpool lads to global superstars. The photographs were also showcased in a special exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. The imagery is a fascinating look at what in retrospect were world-altering events from the inside looking out. While promoting the project, Paul just happened to mention in an interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that he had completed the ‘final’ Beatles song, entitled ‘Now and Then’. Seeing the short documentary video when the song was released in November was quite a tug at the heart strings – especially when hearing the late John Lennon’s isolated vocal from his original demo tape of the song, given to Paul by John’s wife Yoko Ono after John had passed away. That isolation has been made possible by Machine Assisted Learning technology, or MAL for short, which has allowed such projects to be undertaken. Songs recorded using rudimentary technology in the early days of music production can now be remixed by separating the multiple instruments originally recorded onto a single track into individual tracks with all other extraneous sonic elements removed, enabling a new stereo mix to be created. The possibilities of this could be endless, especially where early recordings by The Beatles are concerned. It will be interesting to see how this technology rolls out to recordings of the more rudimentary variety by other bands over the years to come. ‘Now and Then’ naturally generated huge excitement among listeners and became the 18th Beatles number one, followed by the reissue of newly expanded ‘Red’ and ‘Blue’ albums which were essentially a vehicle for the single.
As for Paul’s solo work, the first half of the year had been relatively quiet but, just when speculation amongst fans was circulating that he may have quietly retired from touring, he announced the continuation of his Got Back tour with shows taking place in Australia, Mexico and Brazil between October and December. It really is quite astonishing that, after all these years, he still has the desire and energy to go out and play shows consisting of some forty or more songs to such huge audiences. He clearly has a great love of what he does. No European or UK dates were announced but with the Got Back tour not yet having covered our part of the world, it stands to reason that shows for 2024 will be announced before too long.
Paul McCartney at Adelaide Entertainment Centre during his Got Back tour, 18/10/2023. Photo credit: Sue McKay
In the midst of the tour, Paul mentioned in an interview with a Brazilian news outlet that he had been working on some new songs that he was looking to release at some time in the new year. That sounds suspiciously like a new studio album to me. He has apparently been recording material with producer Andrew Watt, who was also responsible for producing the Rolling Stones’ newest studio album Hackney Diamonds, on which Paul guested on a track entitled ‘Bite My Head Off’. Who would have imagined that Paul McCartney would still be creating new music into the 2020s? It’s quite amazing. And it’s not as if he just throws the music together – the quality is still very high. 2018’s Egypt Station is very possibly one of the strongest albums he has recorded, and 2020’s McCartney III, the unexpected third instalment of his self-titled and self-produced albums made during ‘rockdown’ is just as artistic and quirky as the first two, released way back in 1970 and 1980 respectively. The creative juices are obviously flowing as strongly in Paul as they ever were.
The pandemic-delayed It’s a Wonderful Life musical, for which Paul wrote the songs, could also see the light of day in 2024. It’s a tough life for musicals out there with so many productions competing for space and it seemed that this project had fallen by the wayside, but if it does come to fruition I would imagine it will find its way to a theatre at sometime around Christmas, given the nature of the original movie. With both Sting and Mark Knopfler having written for musicals in the last few years, it’ll be exciting to hear the music Paul has come up with for this production.
It was another big anniversary for Wings’ seminal 1973 album Band On the Run in 2023. As has been the case for the 50th anniversaries of all of Paul’s post-Beatles albums so far, Band On the Run will be getting a half-speed mastered vinyl reissue in February 2024, though with this particular album being so historically significant, this time it will also be made available with a bonus disc of what are being described as ‘underdubbed’ mixes. These mixes were hastily prepared by producer Geoff Emerick shortly after Wings’ return to the UK from the eventful recording sessions in Lagos, before strings and various other overdubs were recorded. So in many ways, this is an early ‘rough mix’ of the album when it was still a work in progress. It will be fascinating to hear how the songs on this legendary album sounded while still in their infancy. The new edition will be released on February 2nd 2024 on both vinyl and CD.
The new cover design for the ‘underdubbed’ version of Wings’ iconic 1973 album Band On the Run
One last thing I would like to mention where Paul is concerned is his Archive Collection. This is the series of expanded reissues of Paul’s post-Beatles albums that has been running since 2010. The deluxe editions of these releases are always beautifully presented with period photography, artwork and of course the music itself which will include the newly remastered original albums themselves, as well as plenty of bonus material from B-sides of the era to previously unreleased outtakes and demos. Clearly a great deal of attention to detail goes into making these sets, but unfortunately the series seems to have stalled. The last release was Flaming Pie back in Summer 2020, but we are now in 2024 and there has been no word on when the next set might be released. Fans are crying out for Archive editions of Wings’ last two albums London Town and Back to the Egg, but the only reissue we got in 2023 was a somewhat needless third anniversary edition of McCartney III on coloured vinyl. London Town and Back to the Egg remain the only albums of the 1970s not to have been covered by the Archive series. Ideally I’d also love to see Archive sets of 1986’s Press to Play and 1993’s Off the Ground, which would cover all of Paul’s studio albums up to and including 1997’s Flaming Pie. To end the series with just four albums left to go really would be a crying shame. So come on Team Paul, let’s finish the job! I would hope we will at least have some news of the status regarding the Archive series in 2024. If nothing happens within the next twelve months, I fear we will have to assume the project has been quietly shelved.
Will London Town and Back to the Egg finally receive the Archive treatment in 2024?
PET SHOP BOYS
Yes, it may come as somewhat of a shock to anyone reading this who knows me, but I DO like the Pet Shop Boys. I’ve written in a previous article about how I believe they are among the most innovative songwriters in the business. They are unique in many respects. Like many of the greats, they have a style that is all their own. Neil Tennant has an instantly recognisable vocal style, and they have a knack of writing intelligent, well-crafted pop songs that have a clear structure, but then setting them to a predominantly electronic medium. That is something that sets them apart. Their most recent album was 2020’s Hotspot, which was supposed to be followed by the Dreamworld tour – their first greatest hits tour. Once again, that tour was delayed by the Covid pandemic and didn’t get underway until 2022. The well-received tour continued into 2023 with a show at the Royal Arena in Copenhagen being recorded for a concert film which will be shown in selected cinemas on 31st January and 4th February 2024. Whether this show will get a wider release remains to be seen, but one would hope it will see a physical Blu-ray / CD release or suchlike at some point after the cinema showings, rather than being made available to stream exclusively behind the paywall of some subscription service as has unfortunately been the case with concert films by some other artists in recent times. In 2023 we also had the release of the Lost EP, featuring tracks originally recorded but unused for the Super album and a track aimed quite squarely at a certain leader whose name rhymes with the words ‘poo’ and ‘tin’. One thing is for sure – PSB do satire brilliantly. The Dreamworld tour will continue into 2024. A new studio album has meanwhile been in production and this is currently planned for a release at some time during Spring 2024. After the trilogy of albums produced by Stuart Price – 2013’s Electric, 2016’s Super and 2020’s Hotspot – it will be interesting to hear how different an artistic direction they might take with this new record which is being produced by James Ford, known for his work with artists as diverse as Blur, Depeche Mode, Arctic Monkeys and Kylie Minogue.
Pet Shop Boys in their usual casual attire at the Brighton Centre during their Dreamworld tour, 26/06/2023. Photo credit: Mike Burnell
IN OTHER NEWS…
Elton John’s 2023 was nothing if not momentous. The closing stages of Farewell Yellow Brick Road, his final world tour, were marked in spectacular fashion by a headline slot at Glastonbury which proved to be one of the most memorable and well-received sets the festival has ever seen. He hasn’t ruled out the prospect of occasional shows in the future but what a way to bow out from his touring life. Paul McCartney’s set had gone down extremely well the previous year, but Elton’s set seemed to outstrip even that. For all his faults (of which he does have a few), he has remained an outstanding performer throughout his career. His big character and immense stardom tends to overshadow what an incredible musician he is. His skills as a pianist are second to none, and although his voice has undeniably changed somewhat over the years, he is as strong a vocalist as he ever was. And that’s before I even mention his band, most of whom have been with him for decades and are all top class musicians. The end of the tour, however, does not bring an end to Elton’s career by any means. For some while now he has occasionally let slip that a new album may be on the way. He does appear to have been in the studio fairly recently, so with any luck 2024 will see the release of his first regular studio album since 2016’s Wonderful Crazy Night, which I happen to think was his best work in many a year. Hopefully it will be a considerable improvement over 2021’s atrocious Lockdown Sessions album which featured collaborations which such contemporary ‘talents’ as Lil Nas X, Young Thug and Nicki Minge. Or is that Minaj?
Elton John during his memorable headline set at Glastonbury 2023. Photo credit: Jason Cairnduff
Lindsey Buckingham, formerly the guitarist, vocalist and producer of Fleetwood Mac, has had a fairly quiet year since his somewhat stuttering European tour of 2022 during which he had been battling some undisclosed health issues. Happily, he revealed that his health had returned towards the latter stages of that year and that he had set to work on his next solo album. News on the status of the album has not yet been forthcoming but with Fleetwood Mac work no longer impeding progress on his solo endeavours, perhaps we’ll see this album emerging during 2024. His self-titled album released in 2021, a set of relatively straight-ahead pop-rock songs, seemed to go down very well and was a relative commercial success by the standards of his solo output. If there is to be a follow-up this year, it’ll be interesting to hear whether he sticks with the comparatively more conventional pop-rock songs of his newest album or goes back to the slightly more experimental, ‘left of the palette’ approach of previous albums.
Lindsey Buckingham has been working on new music which we may get to hear in 2024. Photo credit: Lindsey Buckingham official Twitter profile
The great Ron Sexsmith released another album of well-crafted songs entitled The Vivian Line in the early stages of 2023, followed by a one man tour covering Europe and the US. The album, produced by multi-instrumentalist collaborator Brad Jones, was yet another demonstration of his prolific, top-class songwriting skills. It doesn’t quite seem possible, but Ron will turn 60 in January, a feat he will be celebrating with a special show called Sexsmith at Sixty at his favourite venue, Massey Hall in Toronto, on February 29th. So Happy Birthday Ron, and let’s hope for many more years of great music. There is no doubt in my mind that he is one of the finest songwriters in the game. You can read my review of The Vivian Linehere.
Ron Sexsmith’s album The Vivian Line was an early highlight of 2023
Finally, I’d like to pay tribute to some of these we’ve lost during 2023. Tina Turner was a force of nature – a big character with big hair, and with one of the most instantly recognisable voices in the history of popular music. The fact that she is gone seems impossible. Personally, I will remember her for the superb theme she recorded for Pierce Brosnan’s first Bond movie GoldenEye, as well as her collaborations with my two biggest musical heroes Sting and Mark Knopfler. Sting made a cameo appearance on a song called ‘On Silent Wings’ – a UK top 20 hit in 1996 and possibly my favourite Tina Turner recording. And of course it was Mark Knopfler who wrote the iconic ‘Private Dancer’, one of her biggest hits which also lent its name to her 1984 studio album. Very sadly, we’ve also lost three great musicians associated with Mark in the last year. Jack Sonni played guitar and sang backing vocals with Dire Straits for the Brothers in Arms tour in 1985-86. He was only with the band for a relatively short period, but he made his mark when Dire Straits was right at the peak of success. He always looked to be having an absolute ball on stage and I’m sure he will be fondly remembered by all of us fans. Mike Henderson was a hugely talented and uncompromising bluesman who played brilliant slide guitar, harmonica and fiddle on Mark’s 2001 Sailing to Philadelphia tour. Later he would form the bluegrass group The Steel Drivers. He is another who will be much missed by MK fans. We bade farewell to Brendan Croker who, along with Mark, Steve Phillips and Guy Fletcher, formed The Notting Hillbillies in the late 1980s. He was a wonderful vocalist and sang the lead brilliantly on many of the Hillbillies studio recordings and live performances, perhaps the most memorable being ‘Feel Like Going Home’ – the closing track on the band’s one-off album Missing…Presumed Having a Good Time. Lastly, we lost the great Denny Laine towards the end of the year. Having previously been with the Moody Blues with whom he recorded the mega hit ‘Go Now’, Denny became a founding member of Wings along with Paul and Linda McCartney and was a mainstay with the band throughout its various line-up changes from 1971-79. When I think of Wings, one of my first thoughts is of the front cover image of the London Town album featuring Paul, Linda and Denny standing in front of Tower Bridge. Now only Paul remains. They will all be sorely missed, but all of the above mentioned were involved in making music that will forever remain a part of all our lives. And that, in many ways, makes them immortal.
If, like me, you are a long-term follower of the career of songwriter / guitarist / vocalist / extraordinaire Mark Knopfler, Christmas seems to have arrived a little early in 2023. Sometime in September, news began filtering through that a rather large box set was on the way. This set would contain all of Dire Straits’ live albums, not only remastered but also expanded with previously unavailable material. Furthermore, it would even contain one entire live album recorded in 1979 that has never before seen any kind of release. I must admit I was a little sceptical. Mark Knopfler himself, such is his relentless focus on writing and recording original material (and long may that continue), has never really been that enthusiastic about digging up the past. Unreleased archive material from Dire Straits has not been terribly forthcoming over the years since the band made their final bows in Zaragoza at the end of the On Every Street tour in October 1992. And to put such a set together would undoubtedly take a good deal of time and effort. It seemed inconceivable to me that something like this could come out of the blue. But happily, my initial scepticism was misplaced. The news wasn’t just an over-ambitious fan dreaming of the ultimate Dire Straits live release. It was actually happening. And so on November 3rd 2023, we received Dire Straits Live: 1978-1992.
And let’s not beat about the bush here. This set is an absolute gem. By some way the most interesting and exciting release by the band since their split in 1992, the CD set contains eight discs, while the vinyl set contains twelve discs. Included are five separate live releases – Live at the BBC (recorded 1978, released 1995), Live at the Rainbow (recorded 1979, previously unreleased), Alchemy (recorded 1983, released 1984) and On the Night along with the Encores EP (recorded 1992, released 1993). Each album has been remastered at Abbey Road under the watchful supervision of longtime Mark Knopfler cohort Guy Fletcher, with Alchemy and On the Night receiving three and seven additional songs respectively, all newly mixed by Guy at Mark’s British Grove Studios in Chiswick, London. And I think I can quite confidently say that we can trust Guy to do the best by this wonderful material. There can’t be many engineers out there with such a good ear for a great mix. As those who have read my previous missives may recall, I still hold Real Live Roadrunning – the live DVD/CD recorded on Mark and Emmylou Harris’ 2006 tour – in extremely high regard. Others have run it close but all these years later, to my ears at least, it remains the best mixed live recording I know of.
The packaging and artwork of Dire Straits Live is very much in line with the Studio Albums sets which have been in print for several years now, so both will complement one another on your music collection shelf. The CD edition is presented as a gatefold arrangement, though the cases in which the CDs are contained are somewhat sturdier than the basic slipcases we got in the Studio Albums set. The vinyl edition is once again a slipcase design. Both contain a set of album artwork litho prints and a booklet containing photos of the band from down the years along with a newly written essay by veteran music journalist Paul Sexton, who has followed the exploits of Dire Straits and Mark Knopfler since 1978. The discs themselves are all of top quality and have been pressed at Optimal in Germany, as opposed to the last few Dire Straits / Mark Knopfler vinyl releases which were pressed at the GZ Media plant in the Czech Republic and were of a slightly more variable standard. The only issue with my particular set is a slightly off-set label on side B of Alchemy, though the hole has been punched correctly. My only criticism of the vinyl box would be that it is ever so slightly too narrow. On inspecting the contents for the first time, I found that it was quite a challenge to squeeze everything back into the box. It is quite a tight fit, and I have ended up storing the litho prints in a separate plastic wallet. The case just needs to be an eighth of an inch wider. For a twelve disc set, a different arrangement might have been a more practical solution – either a top-loading design with a lid, or possibly a slipcase with an internal binder, similar to the Sting set pictured.
A slipcase with internal binder similar to Sting’s Studio Collection may have been a better solution for a twelve disc set.
But these are very minor quibbles. Any slight reservations I may have about the packaging are easily overridden by the wonderful music contained within. Let’s take a look at all the albums included in this brilliant set one by one.
LIVE AT THE BBC
Now here’s a thing. Live at the BBC has existed since 1995 and until now, as big a Dire Straits fan as I may be, I have never actually owned a copy of this album. I don’t know why exactly, but I just never got around to buying it. How could I possibly have allowed my Mark Knopfler / Dire Straits collection to go incomplete for so long?! Well, I must have managed somehow. Predominantly recorded at the BBC’s now defunct Paris Theatre, London (now a fitness club) in July 1978, Live at the BBC was essentially released for contractual reasons. It completed Dire Straits’ recording contract, thereby enabling Mark Knopfler to initiate his solo career which began with the release of Golden Heart in March 1996. It always seemed somewhat of an afterthought to me, which possibly explains why I have overlooked it until the release of the live set. Nonetheless, it is an interesting representative of Dire Straits’ live sound at a very early stage. The band had barely been together for a year. Their self-titled debut album had only been released the previous month. So here we have a seven-song snapshot of Dire Straits when they were still relatively unknown. As you can tell from the recording, there is little fanfare around them at this point. And musically, they were still raw. But, through a slightly poor mix in which Mark’s voice is a tad buried at times, his guitar work stands out powerfully on this recording. You can clearly hear how Mark’s guitar, voice and songs would go on to capture the public’s imagination. What has always puzzled me about this release, however, is the inclusion at the end of ‘Tunnel of Love’. While the first seven tracks were all recorded for the aforementioned BBC radio session in July ’78, ‘Tunnel of Love’ is a somewhat later composition and this particular performance was recorded in 1980. For a start, it is not from the BBC’s Old Grey Whistle Test as suggested in the credits, but was in fact recorded in Dortmund in December 1980. By this time, the line-up had changed and the band had a different sound entirely. Quite apart from the fact that this particular recording is in mono and of a fairly poor quality which I would tend to argue is not really of a good enough standard for an official release, it is totally out of step with the other seven tracks. Guy has done his best to improve it using an effect to open out the sound, but with the original recording being of a low quality there is only so much he could have done. Personally I’d have removed it from the album completely, but that’s just me! That aside, I am nevertheless glad to finally have Live at the BBC in my collection. It fills a gap that should have been filled many moons ago. It is also quite poignant reading the liner notes on the inside cover, written by the late Charlie Gillett who gave the band their first break when he played their demo of ‘Sultans of Swing’ on BBC Radio London in 1977. Rest in peace Charlie.
LIVE AT THE RAINBOW
Perhaps the biggest surprise of this set is Live at the Rainbow. Recorded on December 21st 1979, it’s an interesting show for a multitude of reasons. It was the final show of the Communiqué tour, and it was also the final show played by the original Dire Straits line-up. David Knopfler would leave the band during the recording sessions for Making Movies in August 1980. The setlist in fact includes two songs that would later be recorded for that album, namely ‘Solid Rock’ and ‘Les Boys’, and it’s fascinating to hear these songs being performed by the original line-up. The concert also features guest appearances by the late, great Phil Lynott of Thin Lizzy fame and Tony De Meur of New Wave band The Fabulous Poodles for an encore of old-time rock n’ roll tunes. Other than a few clips featured in the BBC’s Arena documentary which focussed on the band and was broadcast in 1980, nobody seemed aware that a complete recording of the show existed. I don’t believe any of us fans could have predicted that we might one day see the issuing an entirely unreleased Dire Straits live album, but lo and behold, here it is. Reading his diary of the production of this box set on his website, it would seem it also took Guy Fletcher somewhat by surprise. Unlike Alchemy and On the Night where the additional songs had to be mixed in such a way that they remained in-keeping with the nature of their existing tracklists, there were no such limitations here. Guy had a clean slate to work from. And what a truly magnificent job he has done. The quality of this album is quite incredible. It might have been recorded almost 44 years ago as I write this article, but it might just as well have been recorded yesterday. It sounds so fresh, and the energy of the band at this point in time comes through in spades. Listening to it almost makes me feel that I am actually in the Rainbow Theatre. I just have to close my eyes and I’m there. Sadly that wouldn’t be possible in reality now, since in 1988 the venue was converted into a Brazilian church which, considering its history and the array of artists that played there, is a huge shame. But the sound really is as clear as a bell, not least because the band at this point was still the original four-piece. There are two guitars, the bass and the drums, plus the backing vocals. It is wonderfully uncluttered and simple. As was typically the case in that relatively early period, Mark’s lead guitar playing is very much at the forefront of the music. Songs such as ‘Lady Writer’ and ‘Sultans of Swing’ feature some frenetic soloing. As the years progressed, Mark’s playing would become more measured – perhaps, quite rightly, more in favour of tone over speed. There is no way he would be so exuberant in later years but in the late 1970s, his speedy fingerpicking on a red 1961 Fender Stratocaster was a defining signature of the music. To be able to hear an immaculate representation of this period of Dire Straits’ live career is really quite something, and I for one am extremely glad we have it.
ALCHEMY
There is little I can say about Alchemy that has not already been said. It is a legendary live album, much loved by many fans. Recorded at the end of the Love Over Gold tour at London’s Hammersmith Odeon in July 1983 and originally released in March the following year, it captures Dire Straits on the cusp of becoming one of the biggest bands on the planet – not long before they would record Brothers in Arms, which would propel them to positively stratospheric heights in 1985. The band had undergone somewhat of a transformation since Live at the Rainbow was recorded. The line-up had expanded, with keyboardist Alan Clark joining, and guitarist Hal Lindes and drummer Terry Williams replacing David Knopfler and Pick Withers respectively. Musically, they were now experimenting much more with synthesisers, effects and the arrangements of the songs themselves. Dire Straits was now a far more dynamic unit than it had been in the early years. Songs such as set opener ‘Once Upon a Time in the West’ and ‘Sultans of Swing’ were now significantly longer than their respective studio versions, gaining new passages and extended solos. The latter of those two songs would remain a set staple in its extended form for the next fifteen years, subtly evolving from tour to tour. Previous CD issues of Alchemy featured eleven tracks, but three more songs recorded at the Hammersmith shows were omitted, those being ‘Industrial Disease’, ‘Twisting By the Pool’ and ’Portobello Belle’. I was always puzzled particularly by the omission of ‘Industrial Disease’, since you can hear the intro of the song at the end of ‘Once Upon a Time in the West’ and the tail end of it at the beginning of ‘Expresso Love’. It seemed an almost cruel tease. Happily however, after all these years, we finally have a version of Alchemy with all three songs slotted into the tracklist. Guy Fletcher has once again worked his magic here. Listening to the album now, which in its vinyl form is now a triple album such is its length, it’s as if these songs had always been a part of it. The transition from the original tracks to those newly added and back again is totally seamless. It’s fantastic to have this historic live album now in a more complete form, albeit with some edits to accommodate it on vinyl. As well as the album, there was of course a concert film of Alchemy, which last saw a reissue on DVD and Blu-ray in 2010. Perhaps we will get another reissue at some time in the future with the previously unreleased songs added. It remains to be seen.
ON THE NIGHT / ENCORES EP
Speaking personally, On the Night is the album I was most looking forward to in this set. On Every Street is probably my favourite period of Dire Straits. The album itself, released in September 1991, has stood the test of time remarkably well and still sounds amazing to this day, over thirty years later. With the band now having established itself among the all-time legendary artists with the runaway success of previous album Brothers in Arms, the associated tour was naturally a large production, visiting huge arenas and stadiums around the world. It began in August 1991 and lasted until October 1992, with a large road crew and two stages that would leapfrog one another to each subsequent venue. Much water had passed under the bridge since the Brothers in Arms tour of 1985-86. Mark had recorded and toured as part of The Notting Hillbillies and had also recorded a collaboration album with Chet Atkins entitled Neck and Neck. And in those five or so years, music and sound production technology had moved on considerably. Effects and synthesisers, for instance, had advanced significantly. The touring line-up had also expanded once again. Dire Straits was now a nine-piece. The result was a significantly different sound to that of the mid-1980s. The On Every Street shows were perhaps the most polished and water-tight that the band had played. Some might argue that the show was too polished. Indeed, the rehearsal time ran into months as opposed to weeks. With everything now being on such a massive scale, Mark had made the decision that this should be the last Dire Straits tour. It wasn’t a farewell tour as such, but I think it’s fair to say that it had the feel of one. And that’s something that I’ve always felt came across quite strongly on the On the Night live album and concert film. Along with the three additional tracks included on the concert film and the Encores EP, the combined original releases gave us thirteen songs recorded across multiple shows in May 1992. There were, however, some glaring omissions including the likes of ‘Sultans of Swing’, ‘Two Young Lovers’ and ‘Telegraph Road’. Until now, we had to rely on TV broadcast bootlegs of shows in Basel and Nîmes in order to hear those songs but with the release of Dire Straits Live, we finally have properly mixed official recordings of them in an expanded edition of On the Night. The album now features seventeen tracks and, in its vinyl form, is now a quadruple album. Added to the Encores EP (of which the edition remastered for Record Store Day Black Friday 2021 is included here), we now have a total of twenty recordings from these shows. We have superb, previously unheard recordings of ‘Fade to Black’ and ‘When it Comes to You’, as well as an excellent performance of ‘I Think I Love You Too Much’, an unreleased song from the On Every Street period. Perhaps of most interest is the addition of a recording of ‘Tunnel of Love’ which, upon first listen, immediately became my new favourite performance of the song. It is simply outstanding and quite an exhilarating listen. I especially love the delay effect on Mark’s Pensa-Suhr MK1, his primary guitar of the time used for both overdriven and clean Strat-like tones. It is an iconic instrument from which Mark achieved some amazing sounds. The performance of ‘You and Your Friend’ is a prime example here. It is among a large number of his instruments being auctioned in January 2024, which makes this extended edition of On the Night all the more poignant. It is an absolute joy to behold from start to finish.
Making my way through this wonderful box set, then, has been a huge pleasure. There are so many gems to unpack, from additional songs added to Alchemy and On the Night that many of us would have assumed we’d never get to hear, to an entirely unreleased live album. It really is a box of sonic treasure. If I’m being honest, to say it is the last word in Dire Straits live recordings would possibly be taking things a little too far. Not every tour is covered – nothing is included from the 1980-81 On Location tour and there is a gaping nine year gap between Alchemy and On the Night, since there are no recordings included from the Brothers in Arms tour. Other than clips from one of the shows during the mammoth Wembley Arena residency of July 1985 uploaded to the official Dire Straits YouTube channel, nothing has ever been properly released from this tour which, considering how significant a period it was for Dire Straits, is really quite perplexing. Perhaps one day we will be surprised once again with a Brothers in Arms live album or concert film, but it depends very much on the availability of multi-tracks of shows from the tour which, it would seem, are in short supply going by Guy Fletcher’s comments on his website. But in the meantime, I cannot possibly have any complaints about what is contained within Dire Straits Live. It is a positively sumptuous collection. And perhaps it is an indication of things to come. Maybe there are more unreleased treasures in the vaults just waiting to be unleashed. Perhaps there will be a similar set (or sets) covering Mark’s solo tours. Well, if Dire Straits Live is anything to go by, that would be something rather special.
Sting’s 1991 album The Soul Cages had resulted from a great deal of soul-searching. Having lost both of his parents within a short space of time, Sting found himself in a period of writer’s block. The answer, as it turned out, was to look back to his roots in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The resulting album was a dark, brooding and often thought-provoking affair which, conversely, is considered by many fans to be amongst his best work.
Subsequently, in 1992, Sting moved out to the English countryside. Lake House, an Elizabethan property dating back to 1578 near Amesbury in Wiltshire, would become his main home base for much of the remainder of that decade. Now married to long-term partner Trudie Styler and with a young family, Sting was in a good place.
And quite apart from his newly found domestic bliss, he also had a good, steady band to work with. A streamlined four-piece formed during 1990 for the tour behind The Soul Cages, it consisted of Sting himself of bass and vocals, Dominic Miller on guitars, David Sancious on keyboards and Vinnie Colaiuta on drums. A formidable combination of talents to say the least, they became as tight a unit as Sting has ever assembled. The ground was laid, then, for Sting to set about writing and recording his next album with renewed fervour.
With many a ghost exorcised by The Soul Cages and a killer band to write for, Sting now felt the freedom to simply write songs for enjoyment, in any kind of style and in any kind of mood. The result was Ten Summoner’s Tales, an instant classic regarded by many to be his finest work – perhaps even his definitive album as a solo artist.
It was in many respects the antithesis of The Soul Cages. Where its predecessor had been dark and deep, Ten Summoner’s Tales was light-hearted and jubilant. As Sting himself said in a Q Magazine interview at the time: “Do I have to f****** slash my wrists every time I want to write a song? Having done it on Soul Cages…I didn’t want to excavate another trauma, I just wanted to write songs for fun.” Even the album title is somewhat tongue-in-cheek. The album is named Ten Summoner’s Tales, but in fact contains twelve songs, not ten. It is also, of course, a reference to Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales as well as Sting’s own surname of Sumner.
The album artwork design was laid back too. The front cover shows Sting sat in what was once the main hall of Old Wardour Castle, a ruin in Wiltshire owned by English Heritage. An Icelandic horse owned by Sting at the time stands in the background. I have visited the site myself and if you want somewhere peaceful to visit, away from life’s general hustle and bustle, I can highly recommend it. I have, naturally, attempted to emulate the front cover of the album, though I had a bit of trouble sourcing an Icelandic horse for my own take on the photo.
Old Wardour Castle, Tisbury, Wiltshire, UK. The location where Sting had his promo photos taken for the cover art of Ten Summoner’s Tales
Another significant aspect that brought such a relaxed feel to Ten Summoner’s Tales was the location of its recording. The bulk of the album was laid down at Lake House. This was the first album Sting recorded at home. He has often spoken of how the atmosphere of the house and its location somehow feeds into the mood of the finished recording. There can be no doubt that making this album in the English countryside had an impact on the music and is very possibly a part of what made the album so likeable. As keyboardist David Sancious has commented many years since, Ten Summoner’s Tales has remained among his favourite recording session memories: “Ten Summoner’s Tales was an amazing project. The atmosphere at Lake House was great. We worked really hard, but we also had a great time making the record.”
Such was the impact of Lake House on Ten Summoner’s Tales, that the album was also shot in video form. The VHS video (yes, it really WAS that long ago), which to this day has sadly never seen a reissue, was filmed in the room where the album had been recorded and features live performances by Sting and the band of all but one song from the album, some of which have the live sound of the on-screen performances whilst others are overdubbed with the original album versions. And, in case anyone from Stingland happens to be reading this, can I just put my request in here for a fully restored and expanded Blu-ray reissue of this film? Thank you kindly in advance.
A modest selection of releases associated with Ten Summoner’s Tales
‘If I Ever Lose My Faith in You’ served as both the lead single and opener on the album. Deliberately placed to start the album abruptly without any fanfare or build-up, the record hits the ground running with a song that has become one of Sting’s most widely recognised compositions. Placed over an elastic drum pattern provided by Vinnie Colaiuta, it breaks into an instantly memorable chorus with an ascending melody that is perhaps among the most uplifting Sting has ever written. It also proved an effective set opener throughout the subsequent world tour. ‘Love is Stronger Than Justice’ follows, effortlessly switching between a 7/4 meter in the verses and a 4/4, country-flavoured chorus. The song features pedal steel maestro Paul Franklin who had recently recorded and toured with Dire Straits, plus an outstanding piano solo from David Sancious over one of Sting’s many simple but extremely effective bass riffs, taking us into the fade-out. The outro of the song proved to be an excellent, semi-improvised work-out for the band on the tour, demonstrating the remarkable musical synergy that existed between the four musicians on stage.
The remarkable Ten Summoner’s Tales band. L-R: Vinnie Colaiuta, Dominic Miller, Sting, David Sancious
What follows is, arguably, the most recognised and widely beloved song of Sting’s solo career. ‘Fields of Gold’ has become somewhat of a standard. Every aspect of the writing and recording of this song comes together to create something rather special. An achingly gorgeous ballad, it was inspired by the sight of the barley fields surrounding Sting’s home which, at that particular time of the year, had a distinct golden hew as the wind gently arched them back and forth. It is not an over-complicated song. It has a relatively simple melody and chord structure, the drum pattern remains largely unvaried throughout, as does the instrumentation. But there is just something about the way in which it was recorded – the performances by the band (including a not insignificant contribution by legendary Northumbrian piper Kathryn Tickell) and the way Sting delivers his vocal – it is simply perfect. And that is perhaps the art of writing a great song. It doesn’t have to be massively complicated. The simplest creative ideas and approaches to arrangement can often be the most effective and that is most certainly the case with ‘Fields of Gold’.
But we are only on the third track! Yet more classics follow. The funky ’Heavy Cloud No Rain’, a song essentially about sexual frustration disguised as a one about a farmer lamenting a lack of rain, features another of Sting’s trademark bass riffs and a superb slide guitar solo break by Dominic Miller. Sting’s take on a kind of rockabilly shuffle, ’She’s Too Good for Me’ follows with two bass lines walking back and forth over one another.
‘Seven Days’ is a prime example of Sting’s ability to write songs in unusual time signatures and make them sound completely seamless. Often, a song in 5/4 will sound angular and unusual to the ear, but ‘Seven Days’ sounds completely natural, and of course Sting is helped in no small way by a band who can play in odd meters as if it is second nature to them. Indeed, this song works so well that it was released as the second single from the album, such is its instantly memorable chorus. The live version became somewhat of a tour-de-force for Vinnie Colaiuta who would go all-out on the drum fill before the last chorus. More fun with odd time signatures follows with ‘Saint Augustine in Hell’, featuring sinister narration by David Foxxe and a chorus with two competing lead vocal melodies. We then have an alternative version of ‘It’s Probably Me’, originally written for the Lethal Weapon 3 soundtrack and released the previous year. The Ten Summoner’s Tales version has a completely different arrangement which, in Sting’s own words, gave the song a more ‘nocturnal’ edge.
Moving into the final third of the album, we find ‘Everybody Laughed But You’. This song was not originally included on the vinyl edition or US releases, where it was issued as a B-side. Interestingly, Sting wrote two different songs over this same backing track. The other is called ‘January Stars’ and was released as a B-side on the ‘Seven Days’ single.
We then have another widely recognised song in ‘Shape of My Heart’, a co-written effort between Sting and guitarist Dominic Miller. Dominic had arrived at the studio one day with a guitar riff that he had made up, mostly as a finger picking exercise. Sting heard this, liked it and recognised the potential for it to be expanded into a song. So Sting and Dominic experimented with it, structured it and Sting then took a walk in his garden, returning with some lyrics which subtly touch on the subject of songwriting itself, using the analogy of a gambler dealing a pack of cards. Dominic jokingly claims he must have found those lyrics under a stone somewhere. Whatever the case, ‘Shape of My Heart’, though it originally failed to make the UK top 40, gradually became one of Sting’s biggest hits, partly through its use by numerous acts (intriguingly many of whom from the contemporary R&B genre) as a sample for creations of their own. The original is also notable for a beautiful harmonica solo played by the late, great Larry Adler. Numerous instruments had been experimented with, but the choice of Larry Adler to play that solo was an inspired one. It could not have been a better fit.
‘Something the Boy Said’ is the penultimate track and being such a strong song, is well placed here. It has another of Sting’s classic trademark bass hooks, and with sublime guitar and keyboard parts played by Dominic Miller and David Sancious, it is brilliantly atmospheric. Its lyrics paint some strikingly macabre imagery: “When I awoke this morning // The Sun’s eye was as red as blood // The stench of burning corpses // And faces in the mud”. It is superbly written, arranged and engineered. Finally, we finish with the fifth and final single, ‘Nothing ‘Bout Me’. Clearly designed to close out the album, the outro develops into an ascending chord sequence which repeats over and over with a crescendo of strings continuing through a slow fade-out. In Sting’s words, it was a way of saying “Well, these are the songs…but you still know nothing ‘bout me!”. It is a triumphant end to an outstanding album.
Ten Summoner’s Tales is widely considered to represent Sting at his absolute best. It is packed with classics from end to end, never dropping the ball at any moment. It shows Sting at a creative peak, enjoying the process of writing his songs, presenting them to the band and recording them, before finally taking them out on the road. He had an absolutely top-drawer band to help bring the songs to life, and he also had a legendary co-producer in Hugh Padgham during this period of his career. Together, they clearly knew how to get the best out of the songs. The production was tight and polished, but neither was it over-egged at one extreme or undercooked at the other. It had the distinct feeling of a band playing together, and partly thanks to the nature of the recording location, the sound had space and room to breathe. It has an organic sound that is so lacking in chart music today. But the crucial element is that the music has a timeless quality. Ten Summoner’s Tales is an album that could be written and recorded now in exactly the same way, with precisely the same artistic choices made. It would not sound dated or out of place. As I write this appreciation of one of my personal all-time favourite albums, Ten Summoner’s Tales is celebrating the 30th anniversary of its original release. It is as great and vital an album in 2023 as it ever was.
There are few things I love more than buying myself a new album on CD or vinyl at a record store, getting it home and unwrapping it, poring over the artwork and credits before finally removing the disc and playing it for the first time. To many members of younger generations, this very concept might seem rather alien now, what with downloading and streaming becoming the norm for music playback. Even the idea of listening to an album as a whole seems to be dying out to some extent. As technology has taken over our lives in so many aspects, the ways in which we long-time music fans enjoy our listening experiences seem to be getting increasingly ‘outdated and antiquated’…could be a song, that.
And I’ll tell you another thing that’s seemingly becoming a lost art – that of well thought out, well crafted songwriting. This is another thing being lost to the world of technology. What happened to coming up with a good song, then recording it and making it sound good using one’s talent? It doesn’t even matter if you’re not a very good singer anymore. Just stick some autotune on it, and you can sound exactly like all the other anonymous chart fodder being pumped out by mainstream acts.
Happily, there are still artists out there who can craft a good composition with a good melody and put a whole bunch of them together to create a cohesive collection of songs. One such artist is Ron Sexsmith. I first discovered Ron for myself when tracks from his album Long Player Late Bloomer managed to find their way onto BBC Radio 2’s playlist during 2011. I remember hearing its lead single ‘Believe it When I See It’ a few times, and thinking I should give this album a go. So I did. And at the first listen, I was quite taken aback at the quality of the songs. It was immediately apparent to me that Ron is a top-class songwriter, and so he has proven time and again over the numerous albums he has recorded since that time. Though I am loath to use the term, the best writers out there do have a certain ‘X-factor’ that sets them apart – and Ron has it in spades. His songs are consistently thoughtful, insightful and have great depth both musically and lyrically.
He has certainly been prolific in the last decade or so. Since the aforementioned Long Player Late Bloomer, we’ve had four further albums – Forever Endeavour (2013), Carousel One (2015), The Last Rider (2017), Hermitage (2020) and now his new album, The Vivian Line. Each of these albums has a slightly different production approach, from the rock-orientated Long Player, through the live-in-the-studio feel of Carousel One, to the largely self-recorded, homemade feel of Hermitage. My personal favourite, however, is his 2017 effort The Last Rider. It is an album full of beautiful songs, superbly written, produced and engineered. Quite apart from the quality and emotional depth of its songs, it is perhaps one of the finest sounding albums I have heard in the last seven or eight years. So it’s fair to say his subsequent work has had a lot to live up to from my perspective!
The Vivian Line was recorded in Nashville during the Autumn of 2021 and was produced by Brad Jones, who runs the Alex the Great recording studios there. And he and Ron have certainly proved to be a winning combination. When I first listened to The Last Rider, I somehow knew instinctively from the very first song that the album might be a bit special. And upon placing the needle down on The Vivian Line, I’m glad to report that I had a similar feeling. The opener, ‘Place Called Love’, is a perfectly paced and thoughtful note on which to open the album. First lead single ‘What I Had in Mind’ follows, with Ron reflecting on school days and contrasting those formative years with how far he has come since then. It also serves as a semi-title track, with the final verse referring to the Vivian Line, a rural route near to where Ron lives which he considers “a sort of portal between my old life in Toronto and my new life here [in Stratford]”.
The album has upbeat moments, such as second lead single ‘Diamond Wave’ about those good times in life when everything seems to be coming together. It has light-hearted moments like ‘A Barn Conversion’ or ‘This That and the Other Thing’, with its irresistibly funky groove. But it also has its more emotive moments. With its touching lyric and stripped back arrangement, ’When Our Love Was New’ is one such example. But the stand-out track on this album, for me, is ‘Powder Blue’. Like all great songwriters, Ron has a knack for writing simple but extremely effective melodies, and ‘Power Blue’ features a beautiful clarinet line that is this song’s defining aspect. It only consists of a few notes, but it is played beautifully sensitively and perfectly fits the reflective nature of the song, which once again finds Ron looking back on childhood days.
The album closes with ‘Ever Wonder’, a song perhaps subtly commenting on the precarious nature of the world in which we now seem to have found ourselves, be it in terms of society, politics or otherwise. “Ever wonder // Why our sky’s full of thunder? // Or why the world’s so out of whack? // How is it kindness // Can be seen o’er the blindness? // Ever wonder about that?” It is a thoughtful and appropriate note on which to end this superb album.
At the top of this article, I wrote about how the concept of well-crafted songwriting and putting a cohesive set of songs together seems to be a dying art. There is indeed a song on The Vivian Line entitled ‘Outdated and Antiquated’, about how changing times and trends can leave us behind. Well, if appreciating a disc of great music written by an artist who has such a great sense of song craft is outdated and antiquated, then I am proud to be so! It is artists like Ron Sexsmith who are keeping the flame of artistic integrity lit. He is undoubtedly one of the finest writers in the game, and he really deserves more recognition.
When I began considering my annual round-up of activity by my favourite artists during 2022, I was initially a little concerned that I might not have much to write about. But then I got my notepad and pen out, and at the time of writing this introduction I have filled two and a half pages worth of bullet points on Sting and The Police alone. There have been musicals, tours and a number of interesting reissues. So here, then, for your delectation, is an omnibus – if you will – of my musical highlights from 2022, as well as a look forward to what we might expect during 2023 from the likes of Sting and The Police, Mark Knopfler, Paul McCartney, Ron Sexsmith and Lindsey Buckingham.
STING & THE POLICE
Way back in early 1980, The Police had been formed for something in the region of three years. By this point they had released two studio albums (1978’s Outlandos d’Amour followed by 1979’s Reggatta de Blanc) and had achieved two UK number one singles in the form of ‘Message in a Bottle’ and ‘Walking On the Moon’. They were gathering momentum all the time, but in order to further consolidate their success and expand their listener base, manager Miles Copeland III hit upon the idea of touring Asia and the Far East. Taking in such places as India, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mexico and Egypt, the Around the World tour was unprecedented for a British rock band. The tour was documented in the Around the World film, originally released in the early days of home video in 1982. Starting with footage from the beginning of the tour in February 1980 and stretching past the release of third album Zenyatta Mondatta in October 1980, this rather jovial, jaunty film follows the band as they visit Kyoto, Bombay, Cairo and later the US. It has taken many, many years and some painstaking remedial work, but the film finally saw a reissue in May 2022 across multiple formats as Around the World: Restored and Expanded. The footage has been uprated to high definition and is of an excellent quality. It is fantastic to finally have an official record of this mid-point in the band’s career on disc, along with full bonus performances of various songs featured in the film. As well as the visual content, the package also comes with a previously unreleased live album featuring a number of performances from Kyoto, as well as Hammersmith and Hong Kong. And I have to say, whoever mixed these recordings deserves a medal. They were recorded over forty years ago, but here they really do sound as fresh as if they were recorded just yesterday. I was quite taken aback as I pressed play for the first time and Sting’s first few bass notes rang out on ‘Walking On the Moon’. The energy of the band comes across amazingly well. The Blu-ray set comes with the live album on CD, whilst there is also a limited edition DVD set with the album presented on blue vinyl, which looks and sounds fabulous (though does miss off a couple of tracks due to space constraints). If you are a Police fan and you don’t already have this set, I cannot recommend it enough.
Various covers of the newly restored and expanded Around the World film, and the beautiful blue vinyl edition of the live album
In November 2022, we had an intriguing reissue of the fourth (and my personal favourite) Police album, 1981’s Ghost in the Machine. The physical edition was released in the form of a vinyl picture disc with the three digital figures of the original front cover on side A and the inner sleeve artwork on side B. Most interestingly however, this reissue features an alternative tracklist which was apparently the planned running order of the songs before the tracklist that was ultimately released was decided upon. It also features three bonus tracks including non-album B sides ‘Once Upon a Daydream’ and ‘Shambelle’, plus a previously unreleased (and excellent) mix of ‘I Burn for You’, recorded originally for the Brimstone and Treacle soundtrack in 1982. Having been so used to the original tracklist for so many years, listening to the songs in this alternative running order did feel a little strange. Especially with ‘Omegaman’, ‘Secret Journey’ and ‘Darkness’ all placed on side A. Being arguably three of the finest songs each of the band members wrote for The Police, I always felt they were the perfect way to close the album. Another unusual feature is the inclusion of count-ins on a number of the songs. As is often the case with picture discs, there is some surface rumble as the stylus glides over the grooves but once each track starts, it is barely noticeable and the sound quality is absolutely fine. One problem I do have with this release, however, is the presentation. Given that this is a special release which, at around £35.00, is not exactly cheap, I would have expected a better sleeve design than the one we got. The disc simply comes in a clear plastic bag with a sticker showing the album name, credits and tracklisting. That is it. There is no outer sleeve. This is especially odd, since an alternate front cover was in fact designed for this release and has been used for the artwork with the digital editions. How hard would it have been to produce a normal cardboard sleeve with that design for the vinyl edition? It is very awkward to retrieve your disc from the plastic bag without rubbing the grooves against the inside of the plastic or, worse, scratching it against the edge of the plastic when you do eventually manage to pull it free. For a more practical and safer storage option, I have now placed the disc in a proper poly-lined sleeve (packs of these are available online or in record stores) and have slotted it in with the regular edition of the album in my Every Move You Make boxset. Although the standard album sleeve is only designed for a single disc, the extra disc thankfully slots in very comfortably and doesn’t cause any space issues in the box. I have kept the plastic bag it came in separately. But, it must be said, for a special, limited edition release like this, to simply present the disc in nothing more than a plastic bag does seem somewhat lazy.
The new ‘alternate tracklist’ picture disc edition of Ghost in the Machine, and the redesigned front cover unfortunately not utilised for the physical release.
I cannot be sure of what upcoming projects may be planned for The Police during 2023, however Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland have both mentioned that a special expanded edition of Reggatta de Blanc may be on the cards. This was first suggested perhaps two or three years ago but no official news on this project has surfaced as of yet. It seems that, after many years of reluctance, the three members of the band are now more open to the idea of expanded reissues and releases of previously unavailable archive material. 2023 will mark the 40th anniversary of the release of Synchronicity, which of course represented the zenith of the band’s success so I would not be surprised to see some sort of reissue of that album in the next six months or so, perhaps similar to the picture disc edition of Ghost in the Machine. It should be noted, however, that because The Police were quite efficient in the studio and kept their recording time down to a relative minimum, there is not necessarily going to be a great deal of unreleased studio outtake material lurking in the archives. The aforementioned expanded version of Reggatta de Blanc may therefore turn out to be very much a one-of-a-kind project. Nonetheless, Andy has talked about a programme of upcoming Police releases, so it will be interesting to see what might surface over the course of the next few years.
Onto Sting solo matters, November 2021 saw the release of his newest studio album The Bridge, which I said at the time was in my opinion perhaps his best work for something in the region of 25 years. Just over a year later, my view has not changed and I honestly believe the album is up there with the quality of such classic Sting albums as The Soul Cages (1991), Ten Summoner’s Tales (1993) and Mercury Falling (1996). With veteran artists finding it increasingly difficult to get their new material heard, it is unfortunate that this wonderful album passed by without many people really noticing it, because with such strong compositions as ‘Captain Bateman’, ‘Rushing Water’, ‘The Hills On the Border’ and the title track, it is absolutely as worthy of any music fan’s attention as any of Sting’s previous work. Nonetheless, a repackaged edition of The Bridge was issued in June 2022. Somewhat flatteringly described as the ‘super deluxe’ edition, it includes the original 13 track deluxe edition of the album along with a bonus disc featuring live recordings from Sting’s performance at the Panthéon, Paris, around the time of the album’s original release. All of the songs on this disc are both performed and recorded beautifully and are an absolute pleasure to listen to. The package was made available both on CD and vinyl. Personally I only bought the CD package since I already own the record store exclusive double vinyl edition released back in November 2021, and as good as the new bonus disc is, I don’t feel that I need it on vinyl as well – which would of course mean accumulating yet another copy of the original album!
Front and inside covers of the super deluxe CD edition of The Bridge
Throughout 2022, Sting has been continuing his My Songs world tour. The beginning of this year’s programme of shows faltered somewhat due to members of the band coming down with Covid, but the tour got up and running properly again with a series of shows at the London Palladium. I had a ticket for one of these shows, and an excellent seat it was too. I was very much looking forward to seeing Sting live at such a special venue…unfortunately though, I ended up having to sell my precious ticket due to a combination of family and financial reasons. Happily however, Sting recently announced a series of outdoor UK concerts for summer 2023 and I will now be seeing the show at Cardiff Castle in July. It will of course be of a very different nature to that of an intimate venue like the Palladium, but I am glad of a second opportunity to see the tour in person and you can expect both a written and video review on my YouTube channel upon my return from the show. With over 100 shows played during 2022 and the My Songs tour now extending into 2023, the must be the most extensive solo tour Sting has undertaken since the Brand New Day tour in 1999-2001. It is wonderful that, now into his 70s, he is evidently still so keen to be out on the road performing for people. My only slight complaint here is that there was never a tour directly associated with The Bridge. With the exception of 2013’s The Last Ship, Sting has always toured behind his newest studio album. With such a brilliant album of entirely new songs now out in the world, you would think that he would want to rebrand the tour to align it with that album rather than continuing to tour behind My Songs – an album of re-recorded and remixed hits that is now approaching four years old. It will be interesting to see whether any of the few songs from The Bridge that he has been playing live are still in the setlist by the time the tour swings around to the UK next summer. There is no doubt in my mind that the album deserves a tour of its own, even if it hasn’t necessarily set the charts alight.
Sting live on the My Songs tour (Photo credit: Torsten Reitz)
Meanwhile, March 2023 will mark the 30th anniversary of the release of Sting’s classic album Ten Summoner’s Tales. I am hoping and praying that this wonderful album will receive the full-on expanded reissue that it so richly deserves. With songs such as ‘If I Ever Lose My Faith in You’, ‘Fields of Gold’ and ‘Seven Days’, it is an utterly timeless set of recordings that represents Sting at the absolute top of his game. It is still held in high regard to this day and is considered by many to be the definitive Sting album. Recent Sting album anniversaries have unfortunately been marked by digital-only reissues with assorted bonus tracks and disappointing remixes. Sting’s albums deserve so much more – but if there is one Sting album that warrants a properly expanded reissue with plenty of bonus content, then it is Ten Summoner’s Tales. I will try to temper my expectations, but to simply throw another digital edition of the album out there with no fanfare as happened recently with The Soul Cages and …Nothing Like the Sun would be quite a disappointment for such a classic album. Whatever the case, I will definitely be celebrating the anniversary myself with a written appreciation and YouTube videos amongst other activities, so do stay tuned Sting fans!
PAUL McCARTNEY
With the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic and consequent lockdowns hopefully behind us, 2022 heralded somewhat of a return to relative normality with artists returning to the road in earnest for the first time in two or three years. Paul McCartney had last played live shows during 2019 as part of his Freshen Up tour, with the last show of that year taking place at the legendary 56,000 capacity Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. The tour was due to continue into 2020 with shows planned across Europe, but with all these dates being cancelled due to the lockdowns, one could have been forgiven for wondering whether Paul would ever tour again. Indeed, he turned 80 during 2022 and surely nobody would begrudge him taking a step back from live performances to perhaps focus more on recording work. Nevertheless, the all-new (and appropriately named) Got Back tour was announced early in the year with shows taking place across the US from April to June. A headliner performance at Glastonbury, held over from the cancelled event of 2020, was announced subsequently. Now, with Paul’s voice not quite, in all reality, being the force that it once was, some fans may have been a little concerned as to how a performance at such a huge event being broadcast around the world might come across. But we needn’t have worried. Paul and the band absolutely nailed it. Whilst the voice may not be a strong as it used to be in years gone by, at 80 years of age he is clearly as dynamic a performer now as he ever was. The British public are often dismissive of older rock stars, but to see a live show of Paul’s being so well received across the board was really quite refreshing.
Paul McCartney performs at Glastonbury, 27th June 2022 (Photo credit: Matt Cardy)
In other activity, many fans were anticipating another addition or two to the Paul McCartney Archive Collection during 2022, especially since 2021 drew a blank where this series is concerned. Launched in 2010, these reissues are always something for Paul’s immediate fanbase to look forward to. Thirteen of these significantly expanded albums have surfaced thus far, each one remastered perfectly, bringing the best out of the sound while preserving the spirit of the original recordings. There is invariably bonus audio ranging from stand-alone singles of the given era to non-album B sides and previously unreleased recordings. Visual content included on DVDs will often feature previously unseen footage or documentary films amongst various other material. And as if all that wasn’t enough, the deluxe editions of these archive sets have all, without exception, been presented beautifully with new write-ups and interviews with Paul, high quality period photography and facsimiles of hand-written lyrics and magazine articles amongst many other artefacts. They are expensive for sure, but clearly a great deal of effort is put into designing and producing each of these sets and they really are worth every penny. The latest of the sets was the Flaming Pie reissue of 2020. As all but two albums from the 1970s have now been covered by the series, the general expectation among fans seems to be that the next sets will be the final two Wings albums – 1978’s London Town and 1979’s Back to the Egg. These two have been hotly anticipated for some time and it would make very little sense for the series not to at least cover the remainder of the 1970s, so here’s hoping that this will happen at some point during 2023. This just leaves 1986’s Press to Play and 1993’s Off the Ground, though I feel this depends very much on commercial viability since these are both relatively obscure albums. At the very least, I would like to think we will eventually at least see remastered and expanded archive editions of these two, even if not in the form of big lavish boxsets, though this is unlikely to happen during 2023.
Will we finally see Archive Collection editions of London Town and Back to the Egg in 2023?
What was slightly frustrating in 2022 was the fact that potential opportunities for further Archive releases were missed. First, we had the McCartney box set. This set includes Paul’s three self-titled, self-produced albums McCartney (1970), McCartney II (1980) and McCartney III (2020). And to be honest, I struggle to see exactly what the point in these release was. It was clearly aimed at the immediate fanbase, yet it contained nothing new or previously unreleased to entice us. It was just the three albums in one boxset with no extra content, and since most fans are highly likely to already own these albums in multiple formats, one has to wonder where the market was for this release. Surely this window could quite easily have been used to get the next Archive set(s) onto the market…but alas, it was not to be the case. Later in the year we had a reissue of the Beatles’ Revolver album, which for obvious reasons being a fairly major event, took more breathing space away for any potential Archive releases. And then, right at the back end of the year, something rather unexpected and slightly bonkers happened.
In November, rumours began circulating of an imminent announcement. What could it have been? Could it finally be the next Archive sets? No. A new album? No. A live release? No. As it turned out, it was a huge boxset of 7” vinyl singles spanning Paul’s entire post-Beatles career from 1970 to the present day. Eighty discs containing a total of 163 songs, all presented in a large wooden crate limited to a total of 3000 copes for the small matter of £614.99. Bearing in mind that the release date was in the run-up to Christmas, and in the middle of an ongoing cost of living crisis, you could easily argue that releasing a set like this at this juncture was absolute madness, and possibly even a little callous towards long-term fans who would love to own the set but simply could not afford it. Nonetheless, the set sold out within twelve hours of it going on pre-sale, no doubt resulting in the cancellation of many McCartney fans’ Christmases and quite possibly a good few divorces. Personally, I’d have loved to own such a special item but the cost was unfortunately well outside of my budget constraints. Looking at the official Paul McCartney fan group of Facebook, you would think that the whole world and his dog had bought it what with all the images of the set appearing there. It certainly looks like a beautiful set, but not being able to get my own hands on it will grate for a while and, for me at least, the release of a new Archive set would have been much preferable! Super fan Andrew Dixon was lucky enough to get his hands on the 7” Singles set and you can check out his ‘deep dive’ unboxing video of it here: https://youtu.be/ODjou8VfOVQ
The slightly bonkers 7” Singles box set
As for 2023, we don’t really know what plans Paul and his team might have for sure, though hopefully the Archive series will resume. There will no doubt be other minor rereleases such as the half-speed remasters that have been celebrating the 50th anniversaries of his 1970s albums – Red Rose Speedway and Band On the Run would be the two albums celebrating those anniversaries in 2023. Will there be yet another reissue of Band On the Run? It remains to be seen, but if there is, it would have to include quite a sizeable carrot for fans to buy it all over again, especially as it has already been covered by the Archive series, albeit not in as lavish a presentation as some of the more recent sets. No touring has been announced, though knowing Paul, he may be 80 years of age now but he is not the kind of person who likes to stay idle for too long, so I would not be at all surprised if we see a continuation of the Got Back tour. He has very recently talked about working on new recordings with producer Andrew Watt, so one would assume a new studio album is in the works, though whether or not the result of this work will see the light of day by the end of 2023 is another matter.
MARK KNOPFLER & DIRE STRAITS
As we await Mark Knopfler’s next studio album, there have been numerous treats to keep us going in the meantime. In late 2021, bass player John Illsley’s book My Life in Dire Straits was published. This book was my companion for the first few weeks of 2022 and it is an excellent account of what life was like inside the bubble of what, from rather humble beginnings in the late 1970s, ultimately became the biggest band on the planet by the mid-1980s. I learned many things about the inner workings of the band of which I wasn’t necessarily aware. With stories of their very earliest gigs, their first meeting with manager Ed Bicknell, the departure of Mark’s brother David, concert-goer shenanigans in Italy and dealing with the comedown after the final world tour, it is a fascinating read from start to finish and if you haven’t read it yet, I can thoroughly recommend it. It is available now in paperback from all good book stores, as they say.
2022 marked the 40th anniversary of Dire Straits’ fourth album Love Over Gold. To celebrate this, a special half-speed mastered vinyl edition was made available exclusively for Record Store Day in April. I was keen to get my hands on this as I was never hugely enamoured with the conventionally remastered edition included in the Studio Albums boxset. It always sounded too quiet to me – particularly at high end frequencies. I was hugely impressed by all the half-speed mastered vinyl albums I already owned – the Police albums included in the Every Move You Make set, for instance, all sound superb. Miles Showell, who had also remastered the first volume of Mark Knopfler’s solo albums boxset released in 2021, was once again recruited to handle the mastering of Love Over Gold. So, Record Store Day came along and I duly hauled myself out of bed at sparrows fart to join the queue at my local record store in the hope of grabbing my copy. It’s always a bit of a risk when you only want one album out of this event because there is always a possibility that other music fans are after the same item and you might well return home empty-handed. Thankfully however, I was successful and managed to grab the last copy available. The sleeve of this new edition is presented beautifully. It has a gloss finish and the lightning bolt of that iconic cover shot is reflective so it stands out in the light. It looks fabulous. As well as the album itself, the package also contains a new interview with Mark Knopfler and John Illsley reflecting on the album and that early-eighties period of the band. I have to be honest however. As impressed as I have been with all the other half-speed mastered albums I own, I could not detect a marked improvement in the sound of this particular edition. Indeed, I listened to the conventionally remastered edition not long afterwards and was hard pressed to hear any significant difference. Normally, higher frequency sounds tend to come out better with half-speed mastering as more sonic detail is cut into the acetate due to the slower mastering speed, but unfortunately, to my ears at least, it doesn’t seem to have worked as well as usual in this instance. Which is a tad disappointing, but nonetheless the release remains a very nice collectible, if only for its packaging and the new interviews with Mark and John.
The gloss-finished sleeve of the newly half-speed mastered edition of Love Over Gold
June saw a remastered reissue of Dire Straits’ Money for Nothing compilation, originally issued in 1988 to commemorate ten years since the release of their eponymous debut album. This would be the first time the complete album has been released on vinyl, as the original was only presented as a single album with ‘Telegraph Road’ omitted due to space constraints. Although it is a ‘best of’ compilation, Money for Nothing remains of some interest because of a number of alternative versions of songs that are exclusive to the album. ‘Telegraph Road’ is a remix of the live recording from 1984’s Alchemy, ‘Twisting By the Pool’ is also a remix, ‘Where Do You Think You’re Going’ is a rough demo version and there is a live recording of ‘Portobello Belle’ unavailable elsewhere. For this revised reissue, an alternative live performance of ‘Portobello Belle’ from a different show has been newly mixed by Mark’s long-term bandmate and producer Guy Fletcher at British Grove Studios and, as you might expect going by Guy’s standards, it sounds wonderful. Other than that, however, the reissue turned out somewhat botched. Instead of the remix of ‘Twisting By the Pool’, the original has been mistakenly included. And in the most glaring of errors, the remixed live version of ‘Telegraph Road’ has been substituted for an evidently discarded and incomplete studio mix of the song which, presumably, was never intended to see the light of day. How errors like these could possibly be made is a mystery, since one would assume that the acetates have to be checked and approved before copies are manufactured and put on sale to the public. How did nobody in the production chain notice? Very strange indeed. Still, it certainly makes for a unique addition to the collection!
It was perhaps no great surprise but in October, we received the second volume of Mark’s solo Studio Albums boxset, encompassing all of his albums from 2009’s Get Lucky, up to and including 2018’s Down the Road Wherever, his most recent studio effort. Unlike the first set however, this second volume includes two previously unreleased outtakes ‘Back in the Day’ and ‘Precious Voice from Heaven’, both recorded during the Down the Road Wherever sessions. There had been some production quality issues with the first set (Mark and Dire Straits’ vinyl releases are currently manufactured by the GZ Media pressing plant in the Czech Republic where production quality has been known to be inconsistent), however this new set seems to be of a better quality and I have experienced no major issues with it thus far, though I am yet to make my way through all of the records. There was perhaps more excitement surrounding the first volume due to it containing the first vinyl issues of Golden Heart and Sailing to Philadelphia, but the collection would not have felt complete without the second volume so although I initially resisted it, I felt compelled to order myself a copy! You can see my ‘unboxing’ video of the set here: https://youtu.be/jiNzB98eDMg
Mark Knopfler: The Studio Albums – 2009-2018
Perhaps the biggest highlight of my year was finally getting to see the Local Hero musical for myself. Having initially been staged at the Edinburgh Lyceum during 2019, the production was due to move down to London’s Old Vic in 2020. Unfortunately, the pandemic intervened and the run was ultimately cancelled entirely, leaving the future of the musical in some doubt. Happily however, it was announced in March 2022 that the Chichester Festival Theatre would be taking the production on and it was staged at their intimate Minerva Theatre during October and November. I went to see a matinee performance on 21st October and was absolutely bowled over it. The songs are wonderful, brilliantly played by a stellar band, and the performances by the cast were outstanding. It is a great tribute to the original movie and one would hope that the production will continue into 2023 and go on to other venues around the country so that it can be seen by a wider audience. It really does deserve all the success it can get. Guy Fletcher has talked about making a cast recording of the production. I can’t imagine this being released as soon as 2023, but I for one will be extremely keen to hear it. See my full review of Local Hero here: https://guitarman147.wordpress.com/2022/10/23/local-hero-minerva-theatre-chichester-21st-october-2022/
Meanwhile, two members of Mark’s touring band have been busy recording their own solo albums. Long-time colleague and co-producer Guy Fletcher released an excellent album in 2022 entitled Anomaly. This is quite honestly one of the most interesting and imaginative albums I have heard in a long while. A significant departure from his previous three albums, the songs spear off in all kinds of unexpected and unusual directions and the listener will find something different in the songs with each spin. Sadly there is no vinyl edition due to cost and production reasons, but the CD and various digital formats are available from Guy’s website. You can read my review of Anomaly here: https://guitarman147.wordpress.com/2022/11/03/music-review-guy-fletcher-anomaly/ Mark’s guitarist Richard Bennett has also released an instrumental album this year entitled Tall Tale Tunes. I must confess that I am yet to purchase this album but fear not, Richard, I intend to remedy that situation very shortly! Listening to some of the samples, one track entitled ‘The Gallows Dawn’ features Richard employing a Les Paul tone and style that is distinctly Knopfler-esque. I could quite easily have been fooled into thinking it is Mark himself. When you’ve worked with such a master for over 25 years, some of his style is inevitably going to rub off on you. Richard has a real knack for melody, so I look forward to hearing the rest of the album.
When I recorded my 2021 review / 2022 preview videos for my YouTube channel a year ago, I was working on the assumption that we would have heard a new Mark Knopfler album by the end of 2022. As time went on however, it became increasingly evident that the album will now not surface until 2023. It has already accumulated a good deal of milage at this point. Going by his message to fans at the start of the lockdowns, Mark was originally intending to return to British Grove Studios, Chiswick to start work on recording new songs sometime around spring 2020 – only six months or so after the Down the Road Wherever tour had wrapped up at Madison Square Garden. This plan was obviously scuppered by the ensuing crisis, so work eventually started tentatively after the lockdowns were partially eased, and continued on and off over the course of 2021. Eventually, the band was able to come together at British Grove early on in 2022 for four weeks of sessions. After that, the focus doubtless would have shifted to putting the Chichester run of the Local Hero musical together, delaying the album further to what one would assume would have been a release around the first half of 2023. Mark however, being the prolific writer that he is, had naturally come up with another batch of songs since the initial plan to record in 2020 and decided these also needed laying down, so in came the band once again for another week of sessions in the latter stages of 2022. So this means, at a guess, we will likely see a new album released somewhere around the Autumn of 2023 – over three years since the original recording sessions were planned! With all the time that has elapsed, the album will no doubt shape up to be quite different from what Mark might originally have envisaged. We know that there are a lot of songs in the bag – the aforementioned Richard Bennett was interviewed recently and described how they might possibly have recorded enough songs for about three albums. Will we get a double album? I certainly wouldn’t be complaining if so. It remains to be seen. Hopefully not too much material will end up being discarded. But whatever form it takes, a new Mark Knopfler album is always something special. The quality of his solo work has consistently been absolutely second to none in every aspect and I have no doubt that his eleventh post-Dire Straits effort will be no exception.
Will he tour behind the album? Nobody really knows for sure, but I get the impression that Mark is reluctant to go out on any big tours in the future. There was talk of the Down the Road Wherever tour being his last tour, though from what he was saying to audiences he seemed to change his mind over the course of it. Had the pandemic never occurred and the next album had been recorded in 2020 as planned, perhaps he would indeed have gone out on one last tour but to my mind, it seems unlikely now. I have no doubt that he will play live again in some capacity. Perhaps it could be a residency at one particular venue like the Albert Hall, or a short UK tour…once again it remains to be seen. But from my personal perspective, even if I never get to see the great man live again, I’ll always have some wonderful memories of being at his shows. Each occasion being in the presence of Mark and his brilliant band has been a precious and unforgettable experience and I have no doubt that many other fans feel the same way.
Mark Knopfler live at the Royal Albert Hall, 22nd May 2019 (Photo credit: Mike Child)
Though he does operate very much under the radar, Ron Sexsmith is perhaps one of the finest songwriters in the whole game. I first discovered him with the release of his most successful album thus far Long Player Late Bloomer back in 2011. I have continued to follow his activities ever since and he has proved to be prolific to say the least with a new album popping up generally every two years or so. In 2022 he was able to resume touring following the lockdowns which forced the postponement of his shows following the release of his newest album Hermitage in 2020. Meanwhile, a new album recorded in Nashville with Brad Jones producing had been recorded which was eventually announced in September, with the announcement accompanied by first lead single ‘What I Had in Mind’. A further single, ‘Diamond Wave’, followed some weeks later. Both tracks sound terrific and I am very much looking forward to the release of The Vivian Line on 17th February 2023.
The Vivian Line refers to a rural route near Ron’s house, which he views as “a sort of portal between my old life in Toronto and my new life here [in Ontario].”
It has been nothing if not an eventful year for former Fleetwood Mac guitarist and vocalist Lindsey Buckingham. In September 2021 he released his excellent self-titled seventh solo album, and followed it up that same month with a tour of the US. A further run of US shows followed in 2022, and a tour of Europe and the UK was planned for Spring 2022. However, this ended up being postponed due to Lindsey and other members of the band contracting Covid-19 during the preceding run of US dates, rendering them unable to perform. The European tour was therefore postponed until September. Unfortunately, by the time September came around, Lindsey was not in the best of health and one by one, the shows were cancelled. Much to his credit, Lindsey managed to put on a widely well-received show at the London Palladium, though some reports suggested he appeared exhausted by the end of it. The remainder of the tour ended up being cancelled entirely. Whatever the problem was has never been revealed, and it would be unfair of me to speculate here. But clearly it would have been of some frustration to Lindsey himself and his fans, since this was to be his first European solo tour. Especially when you consider that the tour had already been postponed once, and a previously planned European tour in 2011 also had to be shelved due to one of his bandmates suffering from a back injury. It was heartening, however, to read in Lindsey’s New Year message that his health has now returned and that he has begun work on a new album. Whether or not this album will see a release in 2023 we don’t yet know, but it is good to know that he is on the mend and is still looking to continue pushing forward artistically.
Sadly, tragedy has also struck in 2022. Firstly, we lost Brett Tuggle. He had become familiar to fans as an integral member of Lindsey’s band handling keyboards, bass and guitar and it was immensely sad to hear of his passing. Then, later in the year, we heard the devastating news that Christine McVie had passed away at the age of 79, reportedly after a short illness. Having joined Fleetwood Mac in 1970, she became an immeasurably important part of the dynamic of the classic post-1974 line-up with Lindsey, Stevie Nicks, John McVie and Mick Fleetwood. She had a unique, instantly recognisable voice and provided some of the band’s most iconic songs, such as ‘Everywhere’, ‘Little Lies’, ‘Don’t Stop’, ‘You Make Loving Fun’ and, of course, the beautiful ’Songbird’. A new orchestral version was included on an album of the same name released earlier in 2022 which, along with its accompanying animated video, seems all the more poignant now. It is enough to bring a tear to the eye. The wonderful 2017 collaboration album with Lindsey, recorded after Christine had come out of retirement to rejoin Fleetwood Mac, still seems fresh in the memory and it doesn’t seem possible that she is now gone. But the songs she wrote and sang will live on, and she will forever remain immortalised in those songs.
What were your musical highlights of 2022? And what are you looking forward to in 2023? Feel free to let me know by commenting here or on my YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/@mikechildmusic
When Guy Fletcher turned up at Mark Knopfler’s door in 1984 “with a keyboard under his arm, looking for employment” (or so Mark alleges), I wonder if he could possibly have conceived that he would still be working with that same man some 38 years later. I can’t imagine he would. Nonetheless, that first project the two men worked on together – a soundtrack album for the movie Cal – would lead to Guy joining Dire Straits for the recording of 1985’s Brothers in Arms album, and prove to be the beginning of an enduring partnership that has encompassed virtually every project Mark has worked on ever since. Clearly, Mark could see that Guy would be somewhat of an asset to have around beyond simply being an additional keyboard player. He is certainly multi-talented. If you’ve ever been to a Mark Knopfler concert, Mark will often comment on his remarkable ability to play keyboard, guitar, bass, drums, Hawaiian lap steel, and perhaps even fix your watch or your bicycle. In his book My Life in Dire Straits, bass player John Illsley commented how “you could sit him down in the cockpit of a jumbo jet for half an hour and he’d probably work it out and take it for a spin.”
So, all in all, a pretty useful chap.
What Guy brings to the table is clearly evident in the music he has co-produced with Mark – particularly in comparatively recent years. Albums such as Get Lucky (2009), Privateering (2012) and the remarkable Tracker (2015) are of a superior sonic quality to the vast majority of pretty much anything else you’ll hear. Real Live Roadrunning, a DVD/CD set recorded on Mark and Emmylou Harris’ collaborative 2006 tour, remains by some margin the best mixed live recording I have ever heard. And Guy has played a central role in all of these projects. When you join the immense songwriting talents of the likes of Mark Knopfler with the vast technical know-how and good ears of the likes of Guy Fletcher, you have quite the formidable combination.
Having worked with such a master of the songwriting craft over so many years, it stands to reason that at least some of that mastery will have rubbed off on Guy. It was in 2008 that he set out on his own creative endeavours with the release of his debut solo album Inamorata. Listening to that album, it seemed clear to me that Mark’s songwriting mannerisms had indeed influenced him to some extent. But he also has a style and an approach to writing songs that is all his own and as with all the most talented musicians, that style has been honed and developed over time. Stone, an EP of outtakes and remixes, followed in 2009. A second album, Natural Selection, was released in 2010 and, as a body of work, the songs on this album held together arguably better than the first. High Roads, his third album, surfaced in 2016. The latest Mark Knopfler project at that time had been the beautifully produced Tracker, and I get the impression that the careful, thoughtful construction and delicate nature of the arrangements on that album had a significant impact on High Roads. As good as his previous albums had been, Guy took things to another level at this point. With beautiful songs such as ‘Margaret Set’, ‘Another Gale Blows’, ‘April Light’ and ‘Modern Game’, it makes for a more than pleasant and compelling listening experience.
Obviously, you can hear a development occurring over the course of those three albums – each one managing to better the previous work in one aspect or another. Then in 2020, like all of us, Guy found himself with some unexpected time on his hands. The result is his fourth album, Anomaly. And this record, released in April 2022, is a whole other kettle of fish to anything he has recorded previously. It’s difficult to know exactly where to start when evaluating Anomaly. There is a lot to unpack here. But that’s okay. I like a challenge, and it’s a great excuse to place this fascinating collection of songs in my CD player once again.
Where the previous albums were (for want of a better word) more organic, or perhaps ‘rootsier’ in stylistic terms, Anomaly takes us down a considerably more electronic and unexpectedly experimental route, with layer upon layer of sumptuous synthesisers, samples and effects piled on top of one another. It begins innocently enough with a track entitled ‘Shagpile Bed’, a song centred around Guy’s experience of sleeping underneath the console at DJM studios in New Oxford Street early on in his musical journey. The lyrics paint the scene quite vividly, and indeed you will also find references to various aspects of each song’s story in the artwork of this album – a veritable cacophony of colourful imagery customised to every song. The Troggs recorded at DJM – a nod to the band can therefore be found in the artwork.
It’s a strong opener, but with the second song, entitled ‘Last Night of the Riviera’, the more experimental, almost eccentric theme that characterises this album begins to reveal itself. Featuring appearances by fellow Mark Knopfler bandmates Jim Cox on piano and Ian ‘Ianto’ Thomas on drums (who features behind the kit on most of the album) as well as vocalist Sarah Ozelle, just about everything unimaginable has been thrown at this recording. Sound samples of archaic computer games, speech from a Cold War era American civil defence broadcast…it is a work of sonic intrigue that pervades Anomaly. The array of synth sounds are another element that feature heavily across the album. They give such atmosphere to so many of the songs, and in places almost a feeling of euphoria. The first half of ‘Airtime’ is one such example. And, being a sucker for a good synth pad myself, I find the outro of the title track a particular pleasure to listen to.
Certainly, Anomaly has many a quirky moment. It has uplifting moments too. The rousing chorus of ‘Some Place Else’, a song about the pitfalls of being in a struggling band, is a memorable stand-out that will repeat over and over in your head after the first listen. There is a touch of nostalgia on tracks such as ‘Shagpile Bed’ and ‘Seems Like Yesterday’ – which, I might add, wins my coveted prize for Lyric of the Year: “Jeans that never seemed to fit / Polypropylene was shit”. But there are also the more poignant moments, most notably on ‘Unlucky Number’, a song dedicated to Mark Knopfler’s British Grove studio manager David Stewart, who was so cruelly taken from us during the height of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. Being so integral to the very existence of British Grove, his loss must have been a huge shock to all concerned and the song is a touching tribute.
Anomaly is an album that constantly takes the listener in unexpected directions. Upon my first listen, I remember musing to myself: “What’s this? Huh? Now where’s he going?!” It is unpredictable to say the least. I would love to have been a fly on the wall when Guy was constructing these songs. It would have been fascinating to witness these songs coming together and to see how on Earth he came up with all these weird and wonderful ideas. It is a fabulous album. It is extremely innovative and consistently maintains the listener’s interest. I like music that challenges the ear and even now, several months since its release, I still find something new each time I give it a spin. To come up with such a brilliant collage of sound as this requires a quite astounding level of technical knowledge and creative imagination. Who knows where he may possibly go next. While his day job, as it were, steadfastly remains being an indispensable part of Mark Knopfler’s output, Guy has become a top-class recording artist in his own right, and I for one will certainly be intrigued to hear whatever he comes up with going forward.
Copies of Guy Fletcher’s Anomaly are available in various formats from his website, as well as a 12” art book in lieu of a vinyl edition. And if you ask him nicely, he may even sign it for you! http://www.guyfletcher.co.uk
I have never really been into musicals. My tastes in music, in all honesty, are relatively narrow. I like straight-ahead pop-rock music without the frills – without all the dancing and the over-expressiveness. Musicals, as a rule, just aren’t my style. And I’m always a little dubious when classic TV series’ or movies are adapted into musicals. I always think “How can that possibly work?” Only Fools and Horses, the classic and timeless BBC sitcom that ran for over twenty remarkable years became a musical in 2019. I was baffled. How could you possibly convert a sitcom held so dear to the hearts of millions upon millions of viewers over so many years into a musical? “Leave it alone”, I said. “Some things are best left in the past”, I said. Well, I think it’s fair to say I had to eat humble pie on that one. It is still running to rave reviews in London’s West End as I type this piece in October 2022.
Some might have had similar feelings when, in 2019, it was announced that the 1983 Bill Forsyth movie Local Hero was being adapted into a musical. It is a much-loved film and a favourite of many. It is a rather unusual film in many ways. It’s not an action movie. It’s not a thriller. Not a lot really happens in it. And yet it has a strangely compelling, off-beat charm about it. The story essentially revolves around Knox Oil and Gas executive “Mac” MacIntyre (Peter Riegert) being sent from the hustle and bustle of Knox’s Houston headquarters to the quaint Scottish village of Furness, in an attempt to negotiate the purchase of the entire area for conversion into a huge refinery. There, he discovers a curious, eccentric community and gradually falls in love with the place and its people. It is a quiet, gentile and rather touching film interspersed with tasteful humour. How could a film of such a nature possibly translate into musical form?
A notable aspect of the original film is its soundtrack. It was written by one Mark Knopfler – Dire Straits songwriter, vocalist and guitarist extraordinaire. Mark has accumulated a number of soundtrack credits down the years, but Local Hero was his first and ironically, remains perhaps his most well known. He recorded it shortly after completing work on Dire Straits’ 1982 album Love Over Gold – so this is relatively early on. Indeed, it was before Dire Straits had reached the absolute peak of their success with 1985’s colossus Brothers in Arms. But a mere four or five years into fronting the band, Mark was already keen to branch out by involving himself in a variety of different projects, hence his name was put forward to write and record the music for Local Hero. What he came up with was a soundtrack that brought real atmosphere and feel to the movie. The iconic and timeless melody of the main theme is equally as effective in its quiet form, ‘Wild Theme’ – which pops up at numerous points across the movie perfectly complimenting the beautiful setting – as it is in its all-out, full-ensemble rock form entitled ‘Going Home’, which plays over the end credits.
And it is the same man who, some 35 years later, stepped in to write a batch of all-new songs for the Local Hero musical. Whatever my prejudices towards musicals might have been, knowing the sheer quality of the work Mark has produced, particularly over the course of his solo career, was enough – I was absolutely invested right from the first announcement in 2018. What I didn’t know was how his songs would find their place in the context of a musical. He has written hundreds, possibly thousands of songs over his long career, but this is not something Mark had attempted before. Mark himself has alluded to not being a particular fan of musicals. But I felt sure he would come up with the goods. And boy, did he come up with the goods.
The Local Hero musical premiered at the The Lyceum in Edinburgh during Spring 2019 to highly enthusiastic reviews. A further run was also announced for London’s Old Vic, initially for 2019 before being pushed back to 2020 due to scheduling issues. Then the entire run was postponed due to Covid restrictions and, disappointingly, was ultimately shelved altogether, throwing the future of the Local Hero musical into some level of doubt. I was delighted, however, when it was later announced that the production would be hosted by Chichester Festival Theatre in their intimate Minerva Theatre during the Autumn of 2022. This incarnation of the production has a new director in Daniel Evans and an entirely different cast to the previous Edinburgh run. But those lucky enough to see those early performances north of the border needn’t be concerned – because the cast, musicians and crew involved in this Chichester run have absolutely nailed it in every respect.
The Minerva Theatre itself is a small 310 capacity venue. Such is its diminutive size and design that regardless of where you are seated, you are guaranteed an excellent view of proceedings. For the matinee performance I witnessed on Friday 21st October I was seated in the second row, stage left. From there the cast are virtually within touching distance. Not that I would have attempted such a thing, obviously. But you certainly feel that you are very much in the midst of the action. The set design for Local Hero is quite minimalist but more than adequate. Given its understated nature, Local Hero doesn’t require an expensive, over-the-top production design – the story and the music speak for themselves. What stage design there is, however, is very cleverly utilised. Subtle lighting on the curved stage wall beautifully represents the Northern Lights, and early in the first half it is the cast themselves who remove some of the flooring to reveal the sandy beach of Furness. And, of course, no Local Hero set could possibly be complete without the iconic red telephone box which is there in all its glory.
The show itself begins quietly in Furness with background music that will be familiar from the original movie. Shortly thereafter, we are transported to Houston, Texas and the Knox headquarters where we hear the first number, ‘A Barrel of Oil’. Immediately, you can hear the characteristics of Mark Knopfler’s music – and though the nature of the music is clearly unique to him, any lingering doubts as to how his style of writing might translate to the musical stage are immediately allayed. While ‘A Barrel of Oil’ is perhaps best described as a rock song, the following number, ‘Houston, We Have a Problem’ is a quiet and reflective song performed by Mac as he ‘flies’ to Furness, having been sent by company director Happer (Jay Villiers). The gentle humour of these opening scenes remains a consistent feature throughout the entire show absolutely delightful. And I should also highlight Gabriel Ebert’s magnificent performance as Mac – he is outstanding throughout and perfectly cast in the role.
We then find ourselves back in Furness where Mac meets Gordon, a character ably handled by Paul Higgins. Mac’s assistant Danny and marine scientist Marina (played by Peter Capaldi and Jenny Seagrove in the original movie) do not feature in this adaptation. Instead, Gordon’s partner Stella is perhaps a kind of symbiosis of both her own original character and Marina. Stella is played brilliantly by Lillie Flynn and you cannot help but fall in love with her portrayal of the character. She also sings her solo number ‘Rocks and Water’ – possibly my favourite song of this show – absolutely beautifully. It is difficult to step into the shoes of such a legendary actor as Fulton Mackay but Hilton McRae is also excellent in his role as beachcomber Ben. Indeed, the entire show is perfectly cast and they all seem to gel together superbly well. The chemistry between all of them is quite something to behold.
I should also point out how good the band is. With all the action happening on stage and the band tucked away upstairs, they are all too often overlooked but I was mightily impressed with their performance. The lead guitarist (there are two guitarists so please forgive me for not knowing which guitarist played which parts!) was distinctly Knopfler-esque, almost to an extent that you could believe Mark himself was up there playing along. From opening number ‘A Barrel of Oil’ to the iconic closing number ‘Going Home’, their performance was flawless and, combined with the superb on-stage performances, was enough to bring a tear to the eye as the show came to a conclusion. The overall sound in the theatre is clear and impressive – particularly as Happer’s helicopter arrives in the latter stages. At one point, with the beat of the rotor blades and sand flying everywhere I thought an actual chopper might come crashing through the theatre roof.
Not being a musical theatre fan, I was unsure of what to expect. I wasn’t even sure of the etiquette, even down to knowing when to applaud and when not to. But I thoroughly enjoyed my experience, helped not least because the Minerva is a wonderful, intimate venue. The musical itself is just about perfect. I have difficulty in faulting it in any way. The cast performances are all brilliant without exception, it is superbly choreographed and Mark Knopfler has created a batch of songs that accompany the story beautifully. His stamp is all over these songs. You can hear it in his melodies and his chord progressions and I can well imagine Mark himself performing them. Yet, though he has never written for a musical before, the songs seem to have translated very naturally to a theatre context. I hope that, at some point, we will be able to hear an album of this material, be it performed by Mark and his band or the cast themselves.
I really do have nothing but praise for Local Hero. It is gentle, funny, engrossing, at times touching, and though there are a few subtle deviations from the original story, it is a wonderful tribute to a much-loved classic film. It deserves every accolade it gets and one would hope that it can at some point be staged at other locations to bring it to a wider audience. I would happily sit through it multiple times and, if you can find yourself some tickets, I cannot recommend it highly enough. It is a delight.
Scientifically, music consists of a combination of sound waves, vibrations and silences which are arranged in such a manner that they make some logical sense to the human ear. Well, that’s the dispassionate way of looking at it. But the following piece is not a study in science. That’d be really boring, and I’m not a scientist anyway. What on Earth is it about these combinations of sound waves, vibrations and silences that touches our hearts in so many different and often profound ways? That’s what I’m asking here, looking at it from different perspectives of my own personal experience – as a lifelong listener and music fan, and as a musician.
Music in its own right is (at least in contemporary society) a form of entertainment. We consume it and we use it in all manner of situations. We hear it on the radio at work, we put it on in the background when we’re doing the housework or perhaps when we have friends over, we hear it in shopping malls, pubs and restaurants, and if you are so inclined to visit such places, we hear it at night clubs or discos. So, it can help to pass the time during our everyday lives or it can provide atmosphere in a social setting. But this is looking at it on a merely superficial level. Music has the power to do far more than simply entertain us.
I’m sure we are all well aware of the impact The Beatles had. They were beyond immensely successful. These four regular guys from Liverpool – Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr – quite literally changed the world. I won’t attempt to fathom exactly how they achieved what they did, because this article will go on forever. There was just something different about them that set them apart. The combination of their talents and their personalities fed into the music that they created together, which made for something that vast swathes of people found immensely exciting. As time went on and their success accumulated, they began experimenting and pushing forward creatively. There was an aura about them that no other band or artist had at the time or has achieved since. Such is the power of their music that it is imprinted on our psyche, and has stood the test of time through multiple generations. People will most likely still be listening to and playing their songs a hundred years from now.
I was not born in the 1960s. But I do consider myself fortunate to at least be living within the same time frame as Sir Paul McCartney, who of course was one half of the Beatles’ principle songwriting partnership with John Lennon. Paul became a hero of mine at a very early stage, by which time he was well into his solo career. The phenomenon that The Beatles became allowed Paul to have quite a vibrant career beyond the break-up of the band which endures to this day – over fifty years later. When he tours, he plays huge venues all over the world bringing tens of thousands of people together in the same place. And that brings me to an important point I want to make here – never underestimate the capacity of music to bring people together. As I said earlier, the music Paul has been involved in writing and performing over the decades is firmly embedded in our psyche and, having been fortunate enough to see Paul live myself (with a guest appearance by Ringo Starr no less, which brought the house down), I can attest to the experience of 20,000 people, young, old, tall, short, fat and thin all rocking out and singing along to those songs. All is right with the world during these precious moments in time. It doesn’t matter what background you have, where you come from or what your political persuasion might be, music is a universal language that speaks to every one of us and there is no better demonstration of that than the shared experience of people coming together to celebrate it at a live performance.
Speaking of Paul McCartney brings me to my next point. Can you remember the first album you listened to all the way through? Mine was Dad’s copy of Paul’s All the Best, which was a compilation containing all his most widely recognised songs recorded over the course of his post-Beatles career. I don’t know how old I was when I first heard it but I must have been very small. Perhaps three or four. Obviously I would not have been old enough to fully appreciate his artistry at this point, but I must have recognised that Paul’s music had a special quality about it. All of the classics on that album including the likes of ‘Band On the Run’, ‘Jet’, ‘C Moon’, ‘Maybe I’m Amazed’, ‘Pipes of Peace’, ‘Let ‘Em In’, ‘Mull of Kintyre’ et al. firmly embedded themselves on my consciousness. Hearing them now always takes me back to being a small boy, just beginning my voyage of musical discovery.
The original copy of Paul McCartney’s All the Best compilation that started it all for me – this is the first album I remember listening to all the way through
Just a few more years down the road, I discovered Sting’s music. Which, once again, was all Dad’s fault. We had just bought our first CD player, and one of the first CDs he brought into the house was Sting’s Fields of Gold compilation. I well remember us making a copy of the first half of that album onto a cassette which we played in the car. Of course, the song that lends its name to this compilation is deservedly one of Sting’s biggest hits and remains one of the first songs people are likely to think of when considering his solo work. It is a beautiful song with an utterly timeless quality, as is the case with other songs from this period of Sting’s career such as ’When We Dance’, which was a brand new song at the time. To this day, hearing these songs instantly transports me right back the mid-1990s. Every aspect of the arrangements, down to minuscule inflections within Sting’s vocal performances, somehow resurrects the feelings I had when I first heard them all those years ago and brings back memories of simpler times, sitting in the back seat of our car on holidays, looking out at the view while enjoying the music coming out of the speakers. I get similar feelings when listening to certain songs by Enya, another artist we used to listen to a lot back then. A song may have been one thing when the original artist wrote and recorded it, but when it goes out into the world and other people listen to it, that song can become a ‘marker’ in time that evokes memories of where they were in life at the point in time when they first heard it. There are many songs, and indeed whole albums that particularly stand out for me and never fail to take me back to certain events or periods throughout my life both as a young person and an adult whenever I hear them. And I’m sure, dear reader, it’ll be a similar case for you.
Those of you who know me or follow me on social media will most likely be aware that I am the world’s biggest Mark Knopfler fan. I cannot complete this article without mentioning him. I listen to lots of different artists across numerous genres, but Mark’s music has a special place in my heart. His technical ability and unique style as a guitarist is of course renowned. His touch and quality of tone is second to none. He will always be recognised primarily as the voice and guitar of Dire Straits – a band that, from rather humble beginnings, went on to become essentially the biggest band on the planet with the release of the Brothers in Arms album in 1985. But what attracts me most to Mark’s work is his incredible talent as a songwriter. Into his solo career, he has become more prolific a writer than ever and as brilliant as his achievements with Dire Straits may have been, the quality of the music he has produced over the course of his ten solo albums (and counting) has been quite extraordinary.
Mark’s songs are unerringly thoughtful and insightful, and in numerous cases exquisitely beautiful. So much so that in some cases, I find myself becoming emotional when listening to them. Pathetic as that may seem to some, I’m not ashamed to admit it. Sometimes it’s down to the sheer beauty of the music or the sentiment of the song in question. The crewman reuniting with his daughter in ‘Dream of the Drowned Submariner’ for instance. Or in ‘Remembrance Day’, the names of the village cricket team that become a roll call of fallen soldiers during the First World War. Other times it is because I find I can relate to the imagery or the wonderful characters that he writes about in his lyrics. The man in ‘Silver Eagle’ for instance, riding through his old flame’s home town late at night, wondering if she’s thinking of him. Or the two friends in ‘Wherever I Go’, whose bond remains unbreakable no matter how far apart they may be or how long it may have been since they last saw one another. The power of a song can be quite profound. As listeners, we can attach our own significances and interpretations to songs and relate them to our own lives. And the music can also be a great comfort to us when times are hard, either in our personal lives or because of external factors. I have certainly found myself gravitating to Mark’s music when I’ve been down. It may not cure the problem, but it can certainly make things seem easier.
As a musician and a songwriter of sorts myself, I have learned a great deal from Mark amongst other musical heroes of mine. One of the most important things I have learned is that there is nothing you cannot write a song about. If you allow yourself to be receptive to whatever might be happening in the world around you, inspiration can strike anywhere at any time and from any source. Whether it’s something you’ve read in a book or a newspaper, something you’ve seen on TV or even an overheard conversation, literally anything is fair game. If the subject in question resonates with you in one way or another, there’s potential for a song there. Mark saw a sign advertising shoes at a market one day and out popped a charming little song entitled ‘Quality Shoe’. Sting wrote a song in which he has a highly intellectual conversation with his dog about such diverse subjects as politics and nuclear fission. As for me, I saw a lady simply stepping off a bus with her shopping bags one evening as I was driving home from a day out. That was all I needed. I wondered what her day had been like before it coincided with my drive home, and out popped a little folk waltz entitled ‘Ordinary Day’. Poor woman. Her life probably isn’t anything like how I have depicted it in the song.
Inspiration also comes from within. If you are a creative person, there is no getting away from the fact that something of you will invariably find its way into your art, whatever form it may take. Sometimes it’ll be quite subtle, and sometimes it can be very much at the forefront of what you are writing. To recount from my own experience of a few years ago, I had a friend who had come to mean a great deal to me, but to cut a long story short, I only realised just how much she meant to me when she announced she was leaving town. I knew I would probably never see her again. So there I was sat in my room with my trusty old acoustic guitar just aimlessly picking away and all of a sudden, I hit upon a set of chords and a hook. Obviously the music was quite melancholy in nature and reflective of the way I was feeling at that point in time. Lyrics followed shortly thereafter and the song came together remarkably quickly by my standards. I was operating very much on autopilot – my feelings were somehow manifesting themselves before me in the form of words and music. It remains possibly the most cohesive song I have ever written. There is a perceived irony that the best art results from trauma and personal angst. I’m not sure I’m entirely prepared to believe that. I have no desire to spend the rest of my life angst ridden for the sake of creativity. You can be happy and write songs. But perhaps there is at least some level truth in it. And it does go to show that a guitar or whatever instrument you play can often be your closest confidante.
With my confidante – a 1976 Martin D-35
So, what can we conclude from my inane meanderings above? What, indeed, is it about those sound waves, vibrations and silences that means so much to us? The truth is that I don’t actually have a precise answer. Nobody does. I have completely wasted your time and mine trying to answer this question. But as humans, we are fortunate enough to possess an ability to have a perception of pitch, tone and sonic texture. When that is associated with our memories, our feelings and all the things that mean the most to us, it finds a place in our hearts. And there is one thing I can say for certain. However you might use music, on whatever level, be it as a listener or a musician, it will always be your best friend through thick and thin.
Lyricist Bernie Taupin has cited The Big Picture as his least favourite of the albums he has made with Elton John, describing its production as “abysmally cold and technical”. And the critical reception was not a lot better. Many people seem to feel that the album is somewhat anonymous and run-of-the-mill. Which is a shame, because this now relatively obscure album features some outstanding material. Indeed, I believe it to be among Elton’s finest work.
Released in September 1997, The Big Picture was (to date) the last of Elton’s albums to be produced by his long-term collaborator Chris Thomas, who had previously produced such albums as the hugely successful Too Low for Zero (1983), Sleeping With the Past (1989) and The One (1992). A common thread running through these records is that they had a very polished sound. This may, in fact, be one reason why The Big Picture was not particularly well received – the more rootsy and piano-orientated albums that Elton has recorded over the years since have generally been seen as much stronger efforts. But The Big Picture undeniably has a beautifully atmospheric soundscape throughout which compliments some wonderful songwriting, and it sounds as good as ever on the recently released 180g vinyl edition, which celebrates its 20th anniversary.
The Big Picture is perhaps not the most upbeat of albums, but the lush textures and keyboard-laden arrangements featured make for compelling listening – and none more so than on the opening track ‘Long Way from Happiness’, which sets the mood for the album beautifully. ‘Live Like Horses’, with its uplifting chorus and hopeful lyric, was originally recorded with Luciano Pavarotti and was re-recorded as a solo version for the album. This is followed by ‘The End Will Come’, with its brilliant, climactic ending fitting its subject matter perfectly. ‘If the River Can Bend’ is one of the more upbeat tracks on the album, helped in no small way by a superb contribution from the East London Gospel Choir. This then gives way to the soft, contemplative ‘Love’s Got a Lot to Answer For’.
There were, in fact, two sizeable hits on The Big Picture. Arguably the biggest of these was the classic ‘Something About the Way You Look Tonight’, which found itself being released as a double A-side single with the heartbreaking version of ‘Candle in the Wind’, re-recorded with alternative lyrics in tribute to the late Diana, Princess of Wales. ‘Recover Your Soul’ later became a UK Top 20 in April 1998.
The title track and ‘January’ are also highlights – both superbly arranged and produced. The penultimate track, ‘I Can’t Steer My Heart Clear of You’, is possibly one of the finest songs on the album. Both sonically and lyrically, it is incredibly effective and, in the mind’s eye, it effortlessly conjures up the storms and rough seas alluded to in its lyrics. ‘Wicked Dreams’ closes the album and once again the nature of its lyrics is reflected perfectly by the music.
Now, I will admit to being a little biased here. I was eleven when The Big Picture was released. I was in the process of ‘discovering’ music at that time and I have a lot of memories associated with it. But there is genuinely much to love about The Big Picture and honestly, having enjoyed listening to it for twenty years, I have difficulty faulting it. It is a mystery to me that such a strong, well written and well produced album has been largely dismissed.
The general perception amongst the public tends to be that an artist was at his/her best when they were at their most successful. But artists of Elton’s calibre will always evolve as musicians and continually better themselves whether they are at the peak of their commercial powers or not. There is no question that the music from Elton’s most iconic period in the 1970s and ’80s does overshadow his later efforts in terms of exposure. However, I believe there is something special about this period of his work, and The Big Picture in particular. His voice was as strong and clear as ever at this point, and Elton and Bernie Taupin’s material was combining to great effect with the abilities of producer Chris Thomas. It is a beautifully lush, atmospheric album which has a certain, unique ambiance and feel about it. And like a lot of great albums, it will take the listener on an emotional journey from the first track to the last. It is, quite simply, wonderful.
Mike's Musical Musings 