Mark Knopfler/Emmylou Harris concert

Last summer, Ted’s boss had 8 tickets to see Mark Knopfler at the Greek Theater in Berkeley, and then something came up, and he couldn’t use them. He knew how much Ted loved Mark Knopfler, so he very generously gave him the tickets. No $$, just tickets. NICE! So, we rounded up the family, and we all went. It was such a great concert, with SO MUCH energy, so much fun, wonderful wonderful. We had a great time. You all know how I feel about Dire Straits, and this was a great concert, because he played a lot of the old Dire Straits material for it.

Friday was the last venue on the Mark Knopfler/Emmylou Harris tour. Ted’s same kind boss had tickets, and invited us to join him and his wife and another couple for the concert. I was hesitant, because the only song I’ve really heard on the radio, This Is Us, doesn’t really hook me. It’s a sweet sentiment…I like the lyrics. I like the tune. I like Mark Knopfler’s voice. I just don’t think it blends very well with Harris’ voice. And maybe that’s part of the charm…that like a married couple, like they portray in the song, their voices don’t necessarily meld and come together, they each retain their own strengths and timbres. I really try to take that charm and turn it into actually enjoying the song, but so far, I haven’t been able to. Just don’t like her voice, and not with his.

So I wasn’t too thrilled with the idea of going to the concert, because I don’t really care for the song, and I was afriad it would be too ‘country’ for my taste. But then I thought, “open your mind, J. You really like Mark Knopfler, you LOVE your husband, and here’s a chance to go out and have a nice evening. Maybe you’ll be a convert.” So we went.

Have you ever gone to a concert, and come out with a great desire to find out MORE about the artists, find out their back story, buy all of their albums? I was late on the Police bandwagon, but I hopped on back in ’83 after seeing their Synchronicity tour. I kind of thought, maybe something like that will happen this time. Did it? Not so much. The concert had its high points, as Ted mentioned in his review, but overall I came out of it feeling glad that we had been gifted the tickets, and that we hadn’t paid $200 for ourselves to go. I won’t go into an in depth review, because Ted did such a great job already, but I will say, I was mostly bored, and the highlights were definately when Knopfler performed old Dire Straits songs. We had been joking, fearfully, that they would probably make a duet out of Romeo and Juliet, and that it was going to suck. Thankfully, they didn’t, he sang that song on his own, and as always, the bittersweet sadness and beauty of the song brought me to tears. As Ted says, making me cry is about as difficult as shooting fish in a barrel, but this song gets me. I just wish that there had been more moments that equaled it at the concert. My score? 4/10. Muh.