That’s the Way You Do It

“You play the guitar on MTV, that ain’t working. That’s the way you do it,” sang Mark Knopfler in Money for Nothing. But the personal experience of the frontman of Dire Straits was rather different – although the group’s first hit single Sultans of Swing soared to the top of the charts, the musicians had to wait a long time to be paid by their label. The difficult early days didn’t put off the British band: their fifth album Brothers in Arms sold over thirty million copies, and the title single is widely regarded as one of the best songs of all time. Great commercial success, over 50 years on the stage, and Knopfler still isn’t bored. “When I come into the studio and I see a couple of guitars in the corner, I get the same buzz that I had when I was a kid,” he said recently. And as if to confirm, he has written compositions for a musical adaptation of Local Hero and recorded an album Down the Road Wherever. On 10 July, the British guitar virtuoso comes to Tauron Arena Kraków bringing a selection of his latest tracks and audience favourite hits from his solo career and his time with Dire Straits. (Bartosz Suchecki, ”Karnet”)