The Come Together ensemble are in splendid form to recreate the classic Dire Strait’s Making Movies album. There was a celebratory air of the Last Waltz around the show. They could well be elevated to The Kiwi Band status. Eight superlative musicians this evening with three guest singers.
Dire Straits broke to the surface in 1977 with debut smash hit Sultans of Swing. Amidst the furore of Punk and it’s Dadaist upheaval, this song was also on iconic DJ Barry Jenkin’s heavy rotation list. It slotted right in with the Pistols, Clash, Stranglers and Boomtown Rats.
The band had roots in pub rock, and their drummer was a session musician veteran of several English bands. The truth is that many of the key Punk bands had similar roots, so they had an Oedipal relationship to the music they were supposedly burying.
Sultans of Swing sounded like JJ Cale and Clapton mellowed out and throwing out bits of Flamenco, Jazz and countrified Blues, as the singer channels a hybrid Dylan/ Springsteen languid vocal.
Jon Toogood lays into this with a cheeky invite to the sold-out crowd to get up and dance. Not easy in this venue but they oblige.
Prior to this we have heard the Making Movies (1980) album in its entirety. A multi-million seller which cemented Dire Straits place in Rock’n’roll history.
The album starts with two of the best Mark Knopfler songs, Tunnel of Love and Romeo and Juliet. Self-consciously literary but they worked brilliantly when matched with the distinctive guitar sound perfectly recreated by Brett Adams and musical director Jol Mulholland.
The rest of the Band. Mike Hall bass, Michael Barker and Alistair Deverick drums and percussion, Matthias Jordan keyboards, Finn Scholes trumpet and more, and Nick Atkinson saxophone.
Toogood livens up the vocal approach on Tunnel, and Arahi gives a quieter Folkie interpretation of Romeo and Juliet. Adams plays what looks like a resonator hybrid guitar over it.
Expresso Love and the ensemble bring out the elements which echo the E Street Band of the Seventies, and the style that the Waddy Wachtel-led band used to play behind Warren Zevon.
One of the best tunes exemplifying the trademark twin guitar sound of the Straits comes from the version of Hand in Hand, where Milan Borich makes his vocal entrance. The sky is crying/ The streets are full of tears. Borrows from Elmore James, another clue as to the source material of the guitar sound.
Borich camps it up Village People style on Les Boys. Decked out in leather, and the glad to be gay theme could both be a tribute and a parody.
That ends the album, but there are more classics and deep cut favourites to follow the first half.
The distinctive guitar sound gives the appearance of being mere variations of the same song. That is a hallmark of a few privileged bands, like AC-DC or the Smiths. From that over-arching atmosphere comes the variations which reward and maintain repeated listening. Motown did a similar thing over many hits by using the same house band and they immortalized this in the Four Top’s It’s the Same Old Song.
How does this fare for classic Rock’n’roll in the glorious present time. Khruangin from Texas are one band carrying on this tradition. One of the best shows of last year.
This ensemble’s version of the Memphis Horns are Scholes and Atkinson. They take it out on Your Latest Trick with its older Pop Jazz style. Arahi balance this with Folk-inspired vocals.
So Far Away from Me could will fit into the Stones’ Exile on Main Street with it’s casual, sloppy but tight Country Rock approach.
Two standouts close to the end. Brothers in Arms is trenchantly cynical about the motivations of the Falkland war. Destruction and fire as the battle raged. A little is borrowed from The Band Played Waltzing Matilda. The signature guitar twang is the elevating principle.
Telegraph Road begins with Spaghetti Western theme tones as the stage is bathed in red light. Arahi takes the singers spot as it builds into a fifteen-minute epic, touching on gospel with some beautiful piano fills.
Money for Nothing and they give a nod to Prog Rock, and end with Atkinson honking a mean saxophone on Going Home – Theme from Local Hero.
Come Together recreated Dire Straits perfectly, and again adding a little polish and re-mastering of their own.
Rev Orange Peel
Photographs by Leonie Moreland
