Do we really want another tour?

[rmarques821]

Mark's choice of songs is a bit odd in my opinion.
Why hasn't Are We In Trouble Now never been performed since like 2002? One of Mark's best solos in my view.
The Long Highway is another example. He could play it with an acoustic just like the Timothy White version in 1992.
Before Gas and TV, You and Your Friend (wouldn't it be fantastic with the LP?), So Far From The Clyde, Back On The Dance Floor, One Song at a Time (!!), Don't Suck Me In, Ride Across The River (good for the folkies and sax)
Yet he keeps playing the same songs (Paraguay, Speedway, Corned Beef City (please go away already!)

Anyway, I still respect his choices and I will still buy a ticket to see him.

[quizzaciously]

Mark's choice of songs is a bit odd in my opinion.
Why hasn't Are We In Trouble Now never been performed since like 2002? One of Mark's best solos in my view.
The Long Highway is another example. He could play it with an acoustic just like the Timothy White version in 1992.
Before Gas and TV, You and Your Friend (wouldn't it be fantastic with the LP?), So Far From The Clyde, Back On The Dance Floor, One Song at a Time (!!), Don't Suck Me In, Ride Across The River (good for the folkies and sax)
Yet he keeps playing the same songs (Paraguay, Speedway, Corned Beef City (please go away already!)

Anyway, I still respect his choices and I will still buy a ticket to see him.

Oh man, Are We In Trouble Now... Not only it's one of the best solos ever, he actually used this song as an example of "when I don't have more words to sing, maybe the guitar has" and it's quite astonishing such a gem got so little stage time. Pretty easy song to play, too, soloing and backing-wise, and it's country!

You and Your Friend is one of my favourite Mark's songs all the way from my first listen, certainly a monster live song to play. And it's a simple blues song!

So yes, choice of songs is questionable to say the least. Given the time 1 song takes in the setlist, given the small number of songs... Better to spice it up.

[straitsway75]

The point of view expressed by DMG is understandable, considering it almost objective not just an opinion.
I'll explain.
I have reason to think that whoever writes here is a true Mark music fan, that Mark is the absolute favorite artist, for me it is so.
Is a objective fact that Mark is in a very compromised physical phase that that does not give him the chance to expressing as he would like, he said it and made it clear to all of us at all this year's concerts.
I don't know how many of you have seen Phil Collins recently, extremely respectable and really sorry for him, but I would never want to see Mark in those conditions, he doesn't deserve it.
Mark now suffers, this is the truth.
It would be too selfish for us to ask him again to try again in a couple of years or so, to let Guy tell us that “this is the best concert of all time”?
This is not something magical that you still feel or not.  It is objective to say that some tracks are fillers and that his solos are reduced to the bone by now.
I can only say thanks to Mark for everything, and the regret of seeing him at his age in these conditions while other artists at his age can still have fun, it makes me very sad. but life is also this and it must be accepted both for good things and for bad things, it applies to everyone and also to Mark.
Then if he decides in the future to do a dozen evenings here and there, so be it, but don't tell me that you would be satisfied with a set list like the current one, I wouldn't believe it. If you have to do a small series of concerts for  your fans and also to have fun you will have to play 'the right songs… I like Postcards live but stop now, same think for Beef city, Bonaparte, Latest Trick…..I would like ear things like Water of love & Rudiger and so on (the list is really huge).
Now in a few hours there will be the last concert of this tour and for those who will have the good fortune to attend I believe that for them it will be a memorable date…. applause, tears and emotions …and the great music of Mark Knopfler 

[quizzaciously]

I thought about it today again and I still don't get it. Why Mark said "goodbye" in the beginning of the tour so only to end it with "I'll play till I'm dead" thing?

It's such a strange move, stranger than his setlist choices to me. It's plain being uncertain and as if he doesn't know about his own plans.

From what he insists and Guy insists the plan now is to record a new album and to embark on yet another big tour...

[Jules]

I thought about it today again and I still don't get it. Why Mark said "goodbye" in the beginning of the tour so only to end it with "I'll play till I'm dead" thing?

It's such a strange move, stranger than his setlist choices to me. It's plain being uncertain and as if he doesn't know about his own plans.

From what he insists and Guy insists the plan now is to record a new album and to embark on yet another big tour...

It's the speculation we had since the very beguining of the tour... at the firsts concerts it looked like something was wrong with him, like having any health issue or whatever, that maybe made him feel like he really should retire. Apparently he's been feeling better and changed the speech, from "this is a goodbye" to "I should retire but I love this so I'll do it until I fell over"

[hunter]

I think working on the musical, the new album and planning and preparing the tour has been a lot to handle. Maybe too much to handle. He is starting to feel his age, so maybe he was beginning to have doubts about whether he could do this much longer.. What we saw at the beginning of the tour was a tired and overweight man, not quite prepared for a long tour. There may even have been / be health problems. As the tour rolled on, he has been resting, been able to focus on the show only, loosened up his fingers, lost weight, and then he realises that he is not "done" yet. There's still more gas in the tank.


I'm certain he has one or maybe two more tours in him, maybe even big tours, provided that he takes good care of himself and schedules things more realistically.

[Jules]

And before he started to work in the musical, he had some time off since he finished the Tracker tour.

If there is going to be any new record with a small tour or series of concerts, I think that it depends on the Local Hero Musical. The London run would be on june 2020 and they want to record a cast album for it, depending on his involvement in the London run and the cast record, he would focus on that or in a new record.

Or maybe he does like with last years, working in both at the same time, as the musical, unless they choose new actors, is more or less ready, they only need some rehearsals to remember the play.

[qjamesfloyd]

After touring and playing live for so many years, I can understand him wanting to keep touring, maybe at the start of the tour he was thinking abut ending it because of health reasons, not because he is fed up touring, he has said many times, he enjoys all aspects of his working life: writing songs, recording the album, and playing live, so to give up one would be hard or strange to him. I am sure he also loves the adulation of the adoring audience at the live shows, who wouldn't? But also, isn't he entitled to just changed his mind?

[Dutchessy]

100% yes! I want another tour. I really enjoyed the shows i attended.

[dmg]

After touring and playing live for so many years, I can understand him wanting to keep touring, maybe at the start of the tour he was thinking abut ending it because of health reasons, not because he is fed up touring, he has said many times, he enjoys all aspects of his working life: writing songs, recording the album, and playing live, so to give up one would be hard or strange to him. I am sure he also loves the adulation of the adoring audience at the live shows, who wouldn't? But also, isn't he entitled to just changed his mind?

I would agree more with this.  Life on the road must be nice with the adoring audiences and playing music with old friends.  However, once he's stopped touring for a couple of years it may be difficult to start even thinking about it again. He was in bad shape at the start (for whatever reason) of this tour and thought it would be the last so who knows if he will want to be bothered next time.  For a start he will need to be in better shape before he even feels like touring I reckon.

[straitsway75]

Then if he decides in the future to do a dozen evenings here and there, so be it, but don't tell me that you would be satisfied with a set list like the current one, I wouldn't believe it. If you have to do a small series of concerts for  your fans and also to have fun you will have to play 'the right songs… I like Postcards live but stop now, same think for Beef city, Bonaparte, Latest Trick…..I would like ear things like Water of love & Rudiger and so on (the list is really huge).

Wow, that is the most arrogant thing I have read in a while. How can you claim that I am will not be satisfied with his stunning, beatiful songs that can move me to tears. I would absolutely love it! I would smile and have the best time I loved to hear Postcards and the others, 5 times.
Another thing I don't understand from people here, is the overwhelming desire to mock Guy at every possible occation, saying that he thinks every show is the best. Does he now? Don't think so.

arrogant no please, we are talkin about music.
If for you  is ok a set list like this, that for many fans is boring, I am happy for you
Guy, FOR ME, is only a great keydoard player stop....
if you had to ask which of Mark's tours you prefer, you would answer this or stuff like Shangri la tour,when his presence on the guitar was more tangible....I was referring to this
 

[hunter]

Guy's response that whatever they are doing currently is the "best" may be true, for him, but very likely he's just being loyal to his employer. Guy knows he is supremely lucky to be in his position. Without this, he'd probably be out there with Chris White and Alan Clark and the rest of them.

[hunter]

Aha, so since he is just the keyboard player, he is worthless to you  The song as a whole is what matter to me, not the amount of guitarsolos.

Say what?

[dmg]

Guy's response that whatever they are doing currently is the "best" may be true, for him, but very likely he's just being loyal to his employer. Guy knows he is supremely lucky to be in his position. Without this, he'd probably be out there with Chris White and Alan Clark and the rest of them.

Guy will be alongside them now because Back on the Dancefloor was never played on the tour and he said he'd "I'll leave the band" if it wasn't played. 

[vr46mk]

Guy's response that whatever they are doing currently is the "best" may be true, for him, but very likely he's just being loyal to his employer. Guy knows he is supremely lucky to be in his position. Without this, he'd probably be out there with Chris White and Alan Clark and the rest of them.

Guy will be alongside them now because Back on the Dancefloor was never played on the tour and he said he'd "I'll leave the band" if it wasn't played.

Yes correct. Do you think he will stick to that?