In that sense, I have a lot of respect for David Knopfler who, as far I as know, never joined these bands and kept making his own solo albums, even if with less financial gain.
Yeah but DK used to perform Dire Straits songs at his own gigs and a couple of other covers as well.
He did "Six Blade Knife"
"Wild West End"
"Whats The Matter Babe"
"Bernadette"
"Once Upon A Time In The West"
"Where Do You Think You"re Going"
And he would talk about MK. My view on tribute bands is if they make people happy then thats fine as long as the composer gets some back pay out of it. But to cover a "Dire Straits" song is never really going to sound good because MKs voice and guitar playing was 85% to 90% of the track. If you took him out of the mix you have a huge gaping hole.
Nothing wrong with David performing the DS material, just like John who played a lot of DS stuff and even guested in some of the tribute bands as far as I'm concerned. They were a part of the band, so why not include some DS songs in their gigs? But the core of their work is still solo stuff.
I also want to remind people that nobody here wants to offend anyone. I, for one, always wished Alan and other talented MK-related people doing more than just copying Mark's music. And my Vince Gill rant was about that — choices. You can be an ex-member playing some DS music in your solo gigs, you can be a sought-after session player like Chris or Vince and even guest in a tribute band, the other thing is to organise and lead the damn thing.
