Just thought others might like to get my take on last nights gig. First off, the tickets said 7.30pm, but ticket times are only a rough guide aren't they? I strolled to the arena by 7.40 expecting to have time to find my seat, etc. or sit through some lame support act, but no, as I walked in to te foyer, I heard the opening chords of "why aye man", and had to wait for several minutes at the back of the hall before being shown to my seat, 11th row, centre stage. Pretty good I thought, apart from the large bloke sitting in front of me and the annoying woman who talked loudly for the entire evening, If you want to talk why pay £30 for a ticket? go to a pub instead, silly woman! The band were all on form, sounding really good, although Mark's voice did sound a little strained at times. He was seated with a cup of tea beside him for the songs 'song for Sonny Liston' through to 'All that matters'. The sound was fantastic, apart from, as I said, Marks voice sounded a little strained and got lost in the mix a little once or twice, and also the end of Speedway at Nazareth, was a little loud, and Mark and Richard seemed to be competing as to who could get the most awful noise out of their guitars. It was interesting to me, as a Knopfler fan of 20 years to hear many of the songs in a more stripped down way, using the 4-6 piece band, especially some of the DS songs had new life which was sucked out of them by the over-bloated mega-group that DS came to be in its final days. Also from a guitar point of view, it was nice to see Mark using a lot of his new signatue Strat, but not exclusively as he used a Les Paul and a couple of Danelectros, along with (of course) the famous National. Thank God that bloody Pensa Suhr has gone, great though it was, it made nearly all of the last Dire Straits songs sound the same. The evening was almost marred by a muppet during 'so far away' , getting on stage and trying to get to MK, but being herded off before he could get close. I did wait a little while at the rear exit for any signs of the band, but gave up after 10-15 minutes since on Guy Fletcher's site, he says they make repid exits to get to the airport. All in all a great night, and we were all on our way home by 10.20. So be careful of that early start if your going to any of his future gigs. Hope this is of use to somebody, Simon