The Hindu Business Line : The quiet man of rock and roll

He's got gravel in his voice. His spatulate fingers fly over the guitar frets. He's got communication skills that most CEOs would die for. But are those reasons enough for around 20,000 people to gather at Bangalore's Palace Grounds on March 7 for a magical Mark Knopfler concert? Brought to town by DNA Networks' T. Venkat Varadhan, it had the city swinging.

Mark who? The quip from a nattily suited young executive in the Rs 2,500 enclosure nearly results in a lynching. Why are you here, you villager, groans his neighbour in a fluorescent floral shirt, brandishing his mobile phone. A pretty Manipuri belle in hot pink cut-offs, teetering on stiletto heels, sticks her tongue out at the offender. Standing all around them are Dire Straits fans, packed shoulder to shoulder, cosy as only music buffs can be. Collectively addicted to Knopfler, the face and driving force behind the 1977-launched British band, its lead guitarist and lyricist/vocalist.

Every murmur dies out once the five-time Grammy winner appears on the 3,000 sq ft stage, highlighted by powerful crossbeams of ceiling-suspended `flying lights'. But he is no longer the Knopfler of the headband-held locks. He's a more sober variant at 55, his white shirttails hanging out over groomed blue jeans. He's jowlier, paunchier, balder, and with great glasses on.

But who cares about his looks? Once he launches into the opening chords of `Why, Aye Man,' his sheer talent reaches out. The audience sings along as one. Raised arms wave from side to side, amidst fluttering scarves. Cameras on mobile phones capture the magic. Heads sway in time. Hands clap in rhythm.

Requests rend the air. "How about Sultans of Swing?" "Hey, Mark, give us Walk of Life. Please, please, please, I could die after that," sings a local crooner to her onstage idol, her arms outstretched from our second row of standees. "Money for Nothing, yaar! That's your best hit ever," yells a 30-plus ponytailed fan, clad in a black Iron Maiden T-shirt.

Knopfler moves into popular songs, with an entirely individual lyrical phrasing. His fingers pick, tease and coax, pluck and sing. Knopfler in action hints at the blues, echoes country melodies, brings alive jazz dives. The 1970s-1980s mood of the Dire Straits is all-pervasive. His new back-up band is in great sync — Glenn Worf (bass), Richard Bennett (guitar), Guy Fletcher (piano), Chad Cromwell (drums) and Matt Rollings (organ/accordion).

He often changes guitars in performance. We keep him company on his sometimes pentatonic, five-note bluesy journey. Old times roll as this sultan swings with his red-and-white Stratocaster.

Memories coast down the musical backstreets... Does Knopfler onstage faintly resemble the Glasgow-born guy who was a rock critic, taught English, and was a rookie reporter for the Yorkshire Evening Post? Or the teenager who longed for an expensive, elusive hot-pink Fender Strat? Did he spend hours imitating his musical icons, including Jimi Hendrix, Scotty Moore and Django Reinhart? Was it the band's first drummer, Pick Withers, whose friend named them `Dire Straits' in the mid-1970s because they were so broke? Knopfler today has played with a galaxy of greats, including Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Sting, James Taylor, and Tina Turner.

Vitally alive, Knopfler's smoky voice spins out `Romeo and Juliet' with infinite tenderness, or the more recent `Sailing to Philadelphia' with beguiling drive. What sets this quiet man of rock and roll apart? His songs. His words. His narrative connections into the everyday. We agree on that.

That's what makes his stories connect with us. For isn't `Sultans of Swing' about a fledgling music band? Wasn't `Money for Nothing' jotted down in an electrical appliances store? Isn't a soldier dying in a battlefield at the core of `Brothers in Arms'? As for `Boom like That,' doesn't it take off on Ray Krock, who founded McDonald's?

The concert momentum picks up against an LCD cloth that creates a starry backdrop. As Knopfler refuels with cold tea onstage, we surge to his musical travelogue. From `What it is' to `Wild West End,' from `Prairie Wedding' to `Song for Sonny Liston,' from `Done with Bonaparte' to `Donegan's Gone,' his spoken-word growl rings true.

Knopfler's flitting fingers on the classic Fender tantalise us on the blow-up screen. He haunts us with drawn-out blues chords, lilting solos, cadenced patter, even as he perches on a stool for a few numbers.

"Knopfler must be dead tired, after playing live at Mumbai," observes a DJ behind me. "But he's such a pro. He's still electrifying, isn't he?"

As the final notes of Knopfler's 1982 instrumental movie track, `Local Hero,' slide into the night, we wake to a realisation. That his music still defies categorisation. Was that a Celtic lilt coming our way? Or a bluegrass banjo-like sound? Is it rock? Is it blues? Is it modified jazz? Is it rooted in folk notes?

But at the end of a superb show, who cares about labels?

Knopfler has travelled wild spaces away from the Newcastle-on-Tyne boy inspired by his uncle's harmonica and boogie-woogie piano. His avowed fans today include cricket top leaguer Sachin Tendulkar. And Abhishek Burman, 55, who flew down from Kolkata to visit his IT-centric son — and listen to Knopfler live.

"I rushed here from Goa for this concert," says American Katya Miller, 22, who's backpacking around India with a friend. "I'd never get a chance like this at home."

Ranvir and Shaila, both youthful BPO professionals, do not feel Knopfler belongs to another generation. "He's totally today. A really cool dude, " stresses Ranvir. "It doesn't matter that he's my dad's age."

As ardent listeners, we remain grateful that Dire Straits steered clear of the punk strains raging around them in 1977. That Knopfler remains true to his solo evolution since 1996, as witnessed by his 2004 second album, `Shangri-la.' That the University of Newcastle conferred an honorary music degree on him in May 1993. And that he came to us in Bangalore, dazzling us with his virtuosity, on the recovery path from a serious motorcycle crash in 2003 that made him cancel a tour. That's the Mark of the man.

Picture by Bhagya Prakash K.

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