Mark Knopfler and Dire Straits: Tracing the Evolution of Their Live Setlists

[Chris W]

Just as an aside....
I agree with some of the Youtube comments. The numbers seem off and anyway it isn't an indication of the most important, valued songs in Mark's heart. For examples, the On Every Street tour played hundreds of shows (300 pus) and songs we were directly promoting (like Calling Elvis, On Every Street) were played at every show, racking up big performance numbers.
We alternated Tunnel Of Love and Telegraph Road, almost never playing both in the same show (never?), and I think we all viewed the songs as fantastic and they both went down great with the audience. So if we only played Telegraph Road half the times we played Calling Elvis, it doesn't mean that Elvis was more cherished by mark. It just means a set list is like a tasting menu. Songs are chosen to flow from beginning of the show to end, and one song compliments another.

[cannibals]

Chris can i ask you (if you know) why MK stopped playing TOL at some point during the OES tour?
In the beginning it was indeed on and off with TR but at a certain point TOL was dropped and sadly it never came back.....Do you have any memory why?
 

[Chris W]

No, only that we never played the two songs in the same set. So after we swapped them in and out for a while maybe Mark settled on just keeping Telegraph Road in. Maybe he thought it went down better, or he enjoyed playing it more.

[Darling Pretty]

Pity that he didn't wrote Corned Beef City at 1977

This is the song that caused my breakup you with Mark.

Being a long time fan I did a long journey to witness the Privatering Tour as early as possible and I caught him in Turino, 5th or something show of the tour.

I was there on my seat and during that song I suddenly wondered why I was doing this and get him performing that kind of stuff?

Something had changed in me and it was a very bad feeling.

There are much worse songs than CBC I would think. But I understand exactly what you mean. I had the same during Hamburg 2015. I sat there and had the feeling of literally wasting my time. Years later I bought a ticket for Hannover 2019 just out of reflex and pre-sale panic but couldn't be bothered to go. I just let it go, did not even try to sell it. That's when we "divorced". We got close again last year when the DS Live Box was released. 

LE

The Privateering and Tracker tour were a major downgrade compared to the great Get Lucky tour. I didn't feel the energy I had felt in 2010, the setlist choices were very questionable and even the concert audios for download sound terrible. In fact, during the Tracker tour I felt like I was watching the same show of 2013 with the addition of Broken Bones (of all Tracker songs, bloody hell).
DTRW tour I thought it was okay considering it was his last and his health/playing issues. At least he changed the setlist around and I got to hear SIlvertown Blues live, which is something I never thought would happen.

+1
Exactly my thoughts. Cannot add more to this.
That's why I also began to search new bands and musicians in 2014 and found Joe Bonamassa and many more.

[dmg]

Chris can i ask you (if you know) why MK stopped playing TOL at some point during the OES tour?
In the beginning it was indeed on and off with TR but at a certain point TOL was dropped and sadly it never came back.....Do you have any memory why?
 

To be fair, we know TOL was performed on the 2nd October in Barcelona which is only about a week from the last date of the tour.  I think it's become a bit of a myth that it was dropped during the tour.  It was actually dropped completely since he went solo (as was PI) and perhaps this is where the myth comes from.

[wayaman]

Chris can i ask you (if you know) why MK stopped playing TOL at some point during the OES tour?
In the beginning it was indeed on and off with TR but at a certain point TOL was dropped and sadly it never came back.....Do you have any memory why?
 

To be fair, we know TOL was performed on the 2nd October in Barcelona which is only about a week from the last date of the tour.  I think it's become a bit of a myth that it was dropped during the tour.  It was actually dropped completely since he went solo (as was PI) and perhaps this is where the myth comes from.

Yes, Tunnel was in the set during the tour, although TR was the one most played, many nights Tunnel was played instead. It was in Barcelona, during one of the last DS ever shows the last time it was played.

During the MK solo career, was dropped permanently.

[Robson]

I remember a theory that Mark stopped play TOL for personal reasons.

[Love Expresso]

I remember a theory that Mark stopped play TOL for personal reasons.

Tunnel Of Love was known to be his dad's favourite song of him,  and Erwin Knopfler passed away in May 1993, so it would have made sense as a personal reason to not play it anymore afterwards.

To me it was always only a bonus when he played Dire Straits songs during his solo career. The frustration came not so much out of what he selected but from it always being the same most of the time. I never expected him to play Private Investigatons or Tunnel Of Love with the 96's. Once Upon A Time In The West was a nice surprise and fitted perfectly to the band, although the Alchemy era version stays unbeaten. Water Of Love from 1996 was a true gem. Portobello Belle as rehearsed in Munich 2001 would have been nice, too.

LE

[Chris W]

There are inaccuracies on the set list.com webpage, so not only am I not surprised we played Tunnel In Barcelona, but I'm sure overall we played some of the songs more often than they are stated on setlist.com.
I doubt we would have played Tunnel once during an entire European leg of the tour (maybe?), but it's likely we played it more than once over those final months.

[Love Expresso]

I attended Bremen Sept 26 1991 and Munich Oct 11 1991 and both times Tunnel was played.

I check On Every Bootleg more often than setlist sites as it is most accurate, listened to and made by a "die hard" fan. And it is more or less complete. Jeroen got highest praises from Ed ref. correctness. There you can see that Tunnel and Telegraph Road changed pretty regularly from the beginning of the tour.

LE

[wayaman]

There are inaccuracies on the set list.com webpage, so not only am I not surprised we played Tunnel In Barcelona, but I'm sure overall we played some of the songs more often than they are stated on setlist.com.
I doubt we would have played Tunnel once during an entire European leg of the tour (maybe?), but it's likely we played it more than once over those final months.

Most (I guess not all) of that sets in setlist.fm comes from audio and video recordings, so most of them are accurate, and I say most because sometimes these recordings are not properly labelled but just a few.

[wayaman]

I attended Bremen Sept 26 1991 and Munich Oct 11 1991 and both times Tunnel was played.

I check On Every Bootleg more often than setlist sites as it is most accurate, listened to and made by a "die hard" fan. And it is more or less complete. Jeroen got highest praises from Ed ref. correctness. There you can see that Tunnel and Telegraph Road changed pretty regularly from the beginning of the tour.

LE

Yes, Jeroen site is the bible in that terms.

Also is true that Tunnel was less played during the last European leg but also got played a lot, not as much as TR.

[Chris W]

For example on Set List.com they have 'Calling Elvis' performed fewer times than we played shows. Maybe some of the videos or audio don't start from the beginning of the show, or end before the last encore?

[wayaman]

For example on Set List.com they have 'Calling Elvis' performed fewer times than we played shows. Maybe some of the videos or audio don't start from the beginning of the show, or end before the last encore?

We don't know the setlists of concerts we don't have audio or video recordings. Maybe there are some that people put by memory despite we don't have recordings but we don't have all set lists...

We wish we could have all of them, of course but only the band members and crew might have the papers with them and the dates.

[Love Expresso]

There is no doubt that every OES concert started with Calling Elvis, followed by Walk Of Life. So Chris is right of course that there can't be a difference between the number of shows and numbers of these songs being played. Same goes for Romeo, Private Investigatons, Sultans and On Every Street as title track.

LE