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Category: Dire Straits Experience

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It’s always an absolute pleasure to tour France. Fantastic audiences, amazing venues and the best of crews made up of our guys and the French team. From the 2nd October for nearly three weeks we played 14 shows. Immediately after we made our way to Madrid for a one-off gig in the Plaza De Toros , the breath taking bull fighting ring, steeped in tradition if not a little controversial. But what an audience, an absolute packed auditorium, with the passion you’d expect from Spanish fans. Muchas Gracias 

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Hat’s off to Mr David Holloway, the founder of the YouTube site - ‘The Keyboard Chronicles’.  His tireless efforts interviewing keyboard players from all over the globe is fast making this the ‘go-to’ resource for professional 1st hand advice and experience, hopefully with a few laughs along the way. 

I was delighted and honoured to be invited to chat with him about many things including my career in music, pop artists I’ve worked with over the years and even talk about keyboard development with Roland and Yamaha and the challenges that the retail industry faces nowadays.

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Wow - I cant believe it’s been February since my last post. Suffice to say I’ve been very busy and very grateful for it.

Since March I've been to Slovakia, Czech, Austria and Sweden with the Dire Straits  Exeprience. We had a tour of the Netherlands in May and various trips to France in June, July and August plus a tour of Germany. 

I'm currently sitting in a hotel room in Sydney writing this post as we are now touring New Zealand and Australia with a little stop off at Tahiti on the way home for a gig. We’ll barely have enough time to unpack our bags and then we leave for France for 3 and half weeks in November. Even December sees two final pre Christmas gigs, one in Helsinki, the other in Madrid. 

So that’s my excuse for the lack of posts to my website - apologies. 

It’s been a great year for work and I try never to take it for granted. 

Who knows what 2025 will bring....

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Well here we are in 2024 and I’m feeling very guilty about neglecting my ‘Latest News’ page for the last few months. So here’s a summary of the Dire Straits Experience travels.

The band continued with various shows in Europe including an 18 date tour in the Netherlands and France in November. Sadly our Israel tour scheduled for mid October was postponed due to horrific conflict situation out there.

Already 2024 is looking busy kicking off with shows in Finland and Zagreb this month. March includes Czech, Austria. Slovakia and Sweden.  

I’m glad to say the popularity of the band continues to grow. Audiences are ever more enthusiastic and varied in age ranges. We’re often so surprised to see younger people at our gigs mouthing the words to these classic songs. A testament to the long lasting quality of Mr Knopfler’s genius.

For more details of the band’s movements this year - click on the link below

Tour Dates

 

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It has been awhile since my last update but I’m glad to say this is not because of a lack work. On the contrary, life is definitely getting busier again, especially with the gigs I’m pleased to say.

From May onwards The Dire Straits Experience have continued to see their schedule get fuller. There was a short trip to France with 3 shows in Rouen, Caen and Angers. We visited Madeira in June. I took a two week holiday break from mid July only to return in August with more gigs in Majorca, Switzerland and Germany. The big tour is coming up in September  with 14 shows in France starting in Provence and finishing in Toulouse. 

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I’m glad to say some normality has finally returned to gigging life, albeit slowly and cautiously.

The Dire Straits Experience have at last been busy. March included a two week tour of France with no less than 11 shows, all with fantastic audiences, food and hospitality. After a brief 3 day respite back home we then had a gig in Prague followed by two in Austria , again fabulous audiences. And just last weekend we performed at the Magma Art Venue in Tenerife.  Coming up is this month is the Azores, Finland and Germany. So it’s good to be back and seeing living breathing audiences, even if wearing face masks. Here’s to the promise of a good and busy year in 2022. 

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Welcome back after what feels like a very surreal and enforced sabbatical. I’m pleased to say that glimmers of normality appear to be returning.

A few weeks ago I experienced my first proper gig in over 18 months at a beautiful setting at the Festival in Vilar les Dombes just north of Lyon. The Dire Straits Experience visited France on a tour bus, some 13 of us (musicians and crew). 

Whilst the gig was an absolute pleasure and the French audience was amazing , the journey across the English channel was somewhat challenging. Sadly the combination of Covid travel restrictions and more annoyingly , the Post Brexit restrictions , make this kind of journey very troublesome . But nonetheless  we made it. A relief after having no less than 6 gigs since June cancelled due to the aforementioned troubles We hope to be visiting Israel in October for a four date tour that was postponed in August. Fingers crossed this will go ahead. Watch this space !