September 3, 2019 - Nashville
Mark Knopfler Concert - Ryman Auditorium
Mark Knopfler is my favorite musical artist so Lynnette surprised me for my birthday with some tickets to the Mark Knopfler tour. The concert would be in Nashville, at the famous Ryman Auditorium.
The concert was in the evening, of course, but we toured the Ryman in the afternoon and enjoyed that..
The Ryman is a historic 2,362-seat live-performance venue and museum located in the downtown core of Nashville. It first opened in 1892 as the Union Gospel Tabernacle and has been renovated many times.
The Grand Ole Opry was first broadcast from the Ryman on June 5, 1943, and it performed there every week for nearly 31 years thereafter. Every show sold out, and hundreds of fans were often turned away. During its tenure at Ryman Auditorium, the Opry hosted the major country music stars of the day and became world famous. Melding its then-current usage with the building's origins as a house of worship, the Ryman got the nickname "The Mother Church of Country Music", which it holds to this day.
Eventually a new venue (also called the Grand Ole Opry House) was built on the outskirts of Nashville. The Grand Ole Opry debuted there on March 16, 1974. The last Opry show at the Ryman occurred the previous evening, on Friday, March 15. The final shows downtown were emotional. Sarah Cannon, performing as Minnie Pearl, broke character and cried on stage. In an effort to maintain continuity with the Opry's storied past, a large circle was cut from the floor of the Ryman stage and inlaid into the center of the new Opry stage.
Then the Ryman was mostly vacant and deteriorating for nearly 20 years. But in 1993, renovations were begun to develop it as a world-class concert hall, which it now is. Starting in 1998 the Opry began using the Ryman again occasionally as a backup.
Won't be long now!
Mark Knopfler, born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1949, was the lead guitarist, singer and songwriter of the rock band Dire Straits from 1977 to 1995. Like everyone else who knows his music probably, I first heard him with the Dire Straights breakout song Sultans of Swing. In college at the time, I liked the song -- the guitar work specifically -- and I liked the band, but no more than any other artist or band.
Mid-way through my first squadron tour in Maine, Dire Straights released their fifth album Brothers in Arms in 1985. It was an international blockbuster that sold more than 30 million copies worldwide. I bought one of them. It was one of those rare albums where every song was a hit. My roommate on deployment, Johnny Bray, played the song Romeo and Juliet a lot so I got to know that.
In September 1988 Mark Knopfler announced the official dissolution of Dire Straits, saying that he "needed a rest". But in early 1991 Knopfler, John Illsley and manager Ed Bicknell decided to reform Dire Straits. On Every Street was released in late 1991. Stationed in Hawaii at the time, I bought the CD and although it didn't do as well as Brothers In Arms, I thought it was great. On Every Street was the album that made me a Mark Knopfler aficionado.
Soon after Mark Knopfler quietly dissolved Dire Straits and launched his career as a solo artist. I have most of his solo albums -- Sailing to Philadelphia, The Ragpicker's Dreams, Shangri-La, Kill to Get Crimson, Get Lucky, All the Roadrunning (with Emmylou Harris), Down The Road Wherever. My favorite songs are You Don't Know When You're Born, Romeo and Juliet, Boom, Like That. Silvertown Blues.
But I never saw him play, and never really thought I ever would. Lynnette saw he was doing a USA tour and jumped on it. Great present!
It seemed like Knopfler used a different guitar for every song. And he played them like the master he is.
The Ryman's accoustics were superb, of course, and the audience was perfectly behaved -- everyone was there to enjoy world-class music.
