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2006/06/03

Show #7 : 03/06/2006, Verona @ Arena  


Venue: Arena  [ Website ]

Address: Piazza Bra, 1, 37121 Verona VR

Capacity: 15000

Reviews 10

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isy  
le 10/06/2006
Great show in a magic place. I'm one of the blessed who could listen to Romeo and Juliet in Verona! Great band as usual, with a brilliant Richard Bennett sharing guitar parts with Mark and a surprisingly good Guy Fletcher on vocals with Emmylou Harris (and he did play keyboards, piano, Hammond, guitar... and tennis too!) Nothing wrong with this show in my opinion, the only thing was the hole of the Opera Orchestra keeping fans too far from stage. But anyway, it's been great! Emmylou was thrilled and moved by singing inside the Arena, and to me she did sing better live than on the album. I got shivers and tears in my eyes so many times! Thank you Mark, thank you Emmylou, and thanks to the band!
Kolbe Gabor  
le 10/06/2006
Great job, nice venue, fine show. No regret to drive all night from Budapest to see MK, EH and the band. Thanx God to be there, and to enjoy Romeo and Juliet in Verona. Gábor, Klári, Anna, Gyuri
Giorgio Mauri  
le 07/06/2006
After one year of break the sultan is back, although this time to promote a special project, which has driven a dedicated setlist, mainly focused on the duet album and thus lacking the old classics. This evening's tracks: 1. Right Now: an unexpected opener. Right pace, well performed, although missing the orchestrality of previous classics Mark used to open concerts (Why aye man, Calling Elvis, Ride across the river, Once upon a time in the west). All in all a "smaller scale" opener, consistent with this particular setlist. 2. Red Staggerwing: a country rock that amused the crowd admiring Richard having fun with his steel guitar. 3. Michelangelo (EH): personally i do not know Emmylou's solo tracks, this is the one i preferred. 4. I Dug Up A Diamond: my favourite track of the last album, it really didn't let me down live! Really deep, given shivers, both Mark's warm singing and vibrant closing solo were marvellous. 5. Born To Run: this was the only song written neither by Mark, nor by Emmylou, but by a common friend of them whose name i do not remember. 6. Red Dirt Girl (EH) 7. Done With Bonaparte: I was surprised by how the crowd has grown fond of this song, clapping hands during the main refrain. Always nice to see the band introduction (we've learned that Guy plays also tennis!) and all the guys playing guitars together. 8. Romeo & Juliet: a very, very special execution in Romeo and Juliet's hometown. The only DS track of the first part. 9. Song For Sonny Liston: as the crowd was beating the feet on the ground waiting for sultans, Mark sat down and turned on the song for sonny. As I remember this is the very first tour where Mark does not play sultans. Very similar version to the SL tour. 10. Belle Starr: nice voice duets in this live version between the two stars. 11. This Is Us: to me this is the song that best earned in the live version. Really robust, rocking, closed with a really marvellous piano outro by Guy. Great version. 12. Boulder To Birmingham (EH) 13. All The Roadrunning: very good execution, this song transmits very deep feelings and was gorgeous live. 14. Speedway At Nazareth: this recent classic never disappoints. It is a milestone of the setlist, the powerful growing final solo exciting as ever, Emmylou also partecipated in shaking the centuries-old walls of the Arena di Verona. --- break --- 15. If This Is Goodbye: this very sweet track opened the second part and closed the section dedicated to the duet album. Perfect vocals. 16. So Far Away: It is touching how this song is earning in these years the deserved honors it was denied at the DS times. What an impact it always has on the crowd. And I love it more every single time I hear it live. 17. Our Shangri-La: the gift of the evening. How many people complained cause this song was not performed during its tour? Here it is, in deluxe version thanks to Emmylou contribution. Looks like she also improved Mark's voice performance. 18. Why Worry: the unexpected closer! A very unusual version of a song that, as far as i remember, has not been played for years and years. Performed on a different tune than the original version, featured Emmylou as first voice and Mark singing the second one. A pinch of nostalgia for old time fans in this last track. Summarizing, the quality level of the performance was excellent as usual. Emmylou's voice was astonishing and even Mark did very well. The setlist might have disappointed some people, but i think it makes sense to dedicate this tour to songs that Mark will not be likely to play alone any more in the future. There will be other times for Sultans, Telegraph, Money and all the other classics, for this night I really enjoyed these ones.
daniele  
le 06/06/2006
great show and good sound quality, even if the volume was too low... made a couple of photos with glenn...looking for audio or video of it! Daniele, Laura, Alessandro, Celeste, Samuele, Sara
jurij  
le 05/06/2006
great concert!!! i'm making a multicam of it, can you please me finding other video/audio sources? Jurij
Jan Placho  
le 05/06/2006
Very, very beautiful venue. And of course a very, very good concert! In this way you can describe the gig. Tom and I travelled from Vienna to Verona by train. We arrived at the beautiful city at around 8 a.m. and after a breakfast, we did some sightseeing (dome, cathedral, castello, Juliet’s house and the arena of course). Around 2 p.m. we went back to the railway station to pick up our friends from Bavaria, Flo, Nadine and Alex. After this, we checked in at our hotel and went for some lunch. Around 5 p.m. we went into a typical Italian café for some beer and cappuccino and enjoyed the time sitting there because we were very lucky with the weather. In Vienna it was raining cats and dogs and in Verona it was quite sunny with convenient temperatures of 21°C. After a couple of time … guess who we saw! Glenn was walking from the band’s hotel to the venue. We said “Hello”, had some small talk with him and took pictures. Then after some minutes, Guy and Danny were coming. It was a real pleasure to meet the guys before the gig. They were very relaxed and cool. Tom was talking to Danny: “Let’s sonnyliston tonight!”, and Danny answered: “Yeah, man!” After an hour, we also saw Paul Crockford, the manager. Matt Rollings was the last band member we met outside the venue. Again, very cool and friendly. We wished him good luck for the show and went in front of the arena again. – Thank you very much for the nice small talk, guys! The time passed quickly and we went into the arena and were searching for our seats. We had ours in row 18 in the middle. We were taking some pictures of the arena inside and of the stage of course. These lighting rings were very impressive. We also saw Richard checking his guitars of something like that and we called him and were waving our hands. And he did the same to us. Very nice! At 21:30 the gig started with “Right Now”. I think there were some problems with the sound of Mark’s guitar because you couldn’t really hear his Dan Electro during this song. “Red Staggerwing was the second song. Very countryish song with fiddle and steel guitar and Mark on a Gretch. Followed by a solo song of Emmylou Harris: “Michelangelo”. Song number 4 was one of our favourites from the new album: “I Dug Up A Diamond” with a great guitar duet of Mark and Richard during the final part of the song. “Born To Run” and “Red Dirt Girl” were the next songs, Emmy sang. After this, Mark introduced the band and they played the usual song after that: “Done With Bonaparte”. Then they had to play a song, that was typical for the city and the story of Verona: “Romeo & Juliet”. “Song For Sonny Liston” was the next song. Again in a trio. One of my favourites from the Shangri-La-album, with a great blues solo. The next song was “Belle Starr”. This version was much better than on the album in my opinion. Followed by “This Is Us”. A great tune! Every musician did a great job on the song. It was magical. “Boulder To Birmingham” was next. An older song of Emmylou. Followed by the title track of the album: “All The Roadrunning”. Beautiful song and very well played. “Speedway At Nazareth” was the last song in the regular programme. I think that was one of my favourites of the show that night. Beautiful backing vocals of Emmy, great fiddle of Stuart Duncan. And of course rocking guitars of Mark and Richard. Just like on the last tour, it was very loud and very good! Then we wanted an encore of course. We wanted to run to the stage as you usually can do during the encores, but the securities were very rude and didn’t let us going down. That was the only bad thing of the concert. Anyway, “If This Is Goodbye” followed. Beautiful vocals of both. Then “So Far Away” came. Would have been a great song to dance in front of the stage but that was impossible because of the aggressive security. The next song was “Our Shangri-La”. A beautiful ballad. The closing song was “Why Worry”. Only Emmy, Guy and Mark on stage. A perfect song for a duet. It was really awesome to hear this old Dire Straits song in a duet. After the concert, we went outside for some beer and some food in a restaurant and were exchanging thoughts and opinions. We went back to our hotel at around 2 a.m. and of course we were very tired then as we had a great day. We woke up at 9 a.m. and went for some breakfast then. We had a croissant, an espresso and a fresh juice. At lunchtime, Tom and I said “Goodbye” to our Bavarian friends because our train went at 2 p.m. and their at 5 p.m. so they had some time left for sightseeing. BUT THE STORY WASN’T OVER! At least for Flo, Nadine and Alex. They went up to the castello and … guess who they saw: Matt Rollings again! He was sightseeing too with his girlfriend and was very surprised that someone recognised him after the gig during his sightseeing. They had some small talk again and took pictures. Tom and I had a convenient journey home and we arrived back in Vienna at 10 p.m. For me it was a great adventure again and, you see sometimes the concert is not only the sweet cherry in the middle of the cake. There can also be two or three or more, if you know what I mean… I’m really looking forward to the next album and the next tour… Keep on knopflering! CheerZZZ!
Pini Luca  
le 05/06/2006
The show was great, and the Arena was a wonderful setting for this performance. To my surprise (the concert had to start at 9 pm, it began at 9:30 pm instead),I noticed that it was a little short if compared to the previous dates and i was a bit disappointed not to hear Donkey town in this magic atmosphere, but also a little glad to have missed the boring "all that matters". The audience seemed to appreciate more Emmylou than Mark himself. There were still many DS fans (just think of the standing ovation for Cummings, "ex Dire Straits percussionist - as Mark said introducing the band) , and at the end of the show they were quite upset... But according to me Mark did the right thing, as he had to sing together with Emmylou and promote the new album. On the whole, a great show but i felt the feeling of "something incomplete", as it happened last year in Shangri-La Tour. The topic moments of the show were Right Now, Michelangelo (masterpiece), I dug up a diamond, Speedway at nazareth, Why worry. All the roadrunning was very boring and at first i took it for "Lily of the west" (they seem the same song!). To sum up: Solo guitar arrangements are disappearing in Mark production, his vocals are improving. What and how will be the next album?
Anna Cavaliere  
le 04/06/2006
Le concert de Verona a été sensationnel! L'amphitéatre Arena était plein d'une foule héthérogène et enthousiasmé de voir et d'écouter deux si grands artistes. Ils ont donné un spectacle bien digne d'un Sir Mark pour le raffinement de son art et Emmylou était charmante et très bien accordée avec son partenaire. Les autres artists (Richard, Guy, Glenn, Matt, Danny et Stuart) étaient au maximum et ça on le remarquait. Toutes les chansons ont obtenu des applaudissement enthousiastes, mais quand ils ont joué Speedway of Nazareth on a eu une ovation interminable. Le seul regret (pour beaucoup de fans) est de n'avoir pas vu Mark à la fin du spectacle: quand Emmylou est sortie de l'Arena MK et son groupe étaient disparu dans la nuit(comme un beau reve, trop bref et inoubliable). Anna Cavaliere
Mr Peculiar  
le 04/06/2006
Grande serata quella di ieri a Verona; l'Arena è davvero un luogo magnifico nel quale assistere ad un concerto. Personalmente non apprezzo molto Emmylou ed il suo genere, mentre sono un grande fan di Mark; per questo i pezzi che ho apprezzato maggiormente sono stati quelli eseguiti interamente da lui (nonostante mi sembra di averlo trovato leggermente "arrugginito", soprattutto in un tentativo non troppo riuscito nell'assolo di Song For Sonny Liston...). Avrei preferito ascoltare più pezzi dei DS o di Mark, ma credo comunque sia stato giusto proporre anche pezzi di Emmylou (giustamente: era un concerto di Mark Knopfler & Emmylou Harris, non solo di Mark Knopfler...) nonostante (credo...) la folla fosse composta maggiormente da fan dei Dire Straits... Mi spiace che, a differenza di tutte le date precedenti di questo tour, non sia stata eseguita All that matters, uno dei brani che più preferisco della carriera solista di MK. Vabbè, nonostante questo commento non completamente positivo, gande Mark Knopfler! A presto...
Rolf Burkhard  
le 04/06/2006
The show in Verona was great, the Arena is one of the best venues to see a concert! But, after have seen the shows in Zurich and Verona, I think (personal opinion) that Zurich was the better show: two tracks were not played in Verona, and also Mark than Emmy talked more with the audience in Zurich that in Verona. It's possible that the late, inusual, showtime (21:30h) in Verona have influenced the track list and the end of the concert?? Also with two missed tracks: a great show, fantastic Mark and fantastic Emmy, I think that this tour is one of the best things that Mark did in the last years!! Per Luca Pini: curate la "vostra" Arena: è il posto più bello che ci sia al mondo per assistere ad un concerto!! Come scritto sopra, penso che se il concerto fosse iniziato alle ore 21, sarebbe durato di più. Ho avuto l'impressione che ci fosse un orario limite da rispettare per terminare, anche se non conosco le disposizione del comune di Verona. Rolf Burkhard Switzerland