I recently got an old Dutch magazine called JOEPIE from February 1979 with a two-page story about Dire Straits. It features two pictures that show the band on stage at the Hope & Anchor pub. Dire Straits played there several times in late 1977: on September 10 (in the evening after  they played the Clapham Common gig in the afternoon of that same day), on November 4, 11, and 18, and on December 9 (when Eastbound Train was recorded, released as a b-side of the Sultans of Swing single).

It is not possible to tell from which of these gigs the pictures are but I am almost sure that it is not from the one in September (David’s hair is shorter than on the pictures we have from the Clapham Common gig earlier on the same day).

The first picture can also be found in the Dire Straits book by Michael Oldfield (which also features some more pictures of the same gig). It shows Mark with his 1961 Stratocaster, before the guitar was refinished to red. The guitar had a natural wood finish (possibly sealed with clear laquer). By the way, I know that this is the 1961 Strat because of a typical mark in the pickguard at the upper end of the middle pickup. The body does not have a strong attractive grain, like ash bodies normally have. It looks very much like alder which was the standard body wood at that time. Note that David’s guitar also had a natural finish, I strongly assume that both Strats were  refinished one year later, about summer 1978, Mark’s to red, David’s to black.

Here is the second picture that shows almost the whole guitar at higher resolution:

 

Of the few pictures that show the guitar in the original condition  this is possibly the best we have. Unfortunately the quality is rather poor so we cannot see too many details of the guitar.In the lower right corner of the picture we probably see a part of an amp. I assume that this is David’s amp, the knobs look like Fender or Music Man. With the help of some imagination we might see a part of Mark’s Vibrolux amp between Mark and David, there might be the plug of the guitar cable and a few knobs (the Vibrolux has dark brown knobs without a silver center plate), but this might be illusion as well (any other amp than the Vibrolux would be real surprise at this period).

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• Early Dire Straits radio interview from 1978
• Dire Straits – Where do you think you’re going – spontaneous cover on acoustic guitar
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I added a backing track for the long live version of Sultans of Swing to our online shop. Check it out and listen to sound samples here. It is 12:05 min long and includes the piano solo but is without saxophone. I hope to make a youtube cover over this backing track within the near future.

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• Dire Straits at the Hope & Anchor pub 1977 – new picture
• Dire Straits Water of Love guitar tutorial

In this blog post you will find another guitar tutorial video, this time not about a certain aspect of Mark Knopfler’s guitar playing but one that explains how to play a particular song again, similar to the ones I did about Down to the Waterline some time ago. As Down to the Waterline is the first song of Dire Straits’ first album, I thought why not go on with the second song, Water of Love (there might be another on on Setting me up – the third song -  in the future). Again my intention is not simply to demonstrate you which notes to play but also to explain what might be interesting or special about particular licks, or how things go together etc. And my intention is neither to show a particular version with 100% accuracy but a mix of licks he played on different versions, or the scales he used to build his licks.

I do not refer to the studio version but to live versions from 1978-79.The studio version was played on two different guitars, a National Tricone and a standard acoustic guitar, and Mark did not play his usual mix of rhythm and lead as he did on stage. Live Mark played the black Fender Telecaster Thinline (the f holes were closed by his friend Steve Phillips), which was tuned to open A)low to high: a – e- a- e- c# -e), capo’ed at the 5th fret to open D  (while the National was probably open G, capo’ed at the 7th fret).

The chords of Water of Love are like this:

Solo

D – D – C – C – G – G – Am – C
D – D – C – C – G – G – D – D

Verse

D- D – D – D – D – D – D – D
Am – Am – Am – Am – D – D – D – D

Chorus

Am – Am – G – D
Am – Am – G – D

So, here is the video. You will find links to two different live version from 1978 in the video itself (at 1:17)

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Related articles

• Dire Straits at the Hope & Anchor pub 1977 – new picture
• What are Mark Knopfler’s vintage guitars worth?
• Sultans of Swing – backing track for long live version available
• Video Clip of Dire Straits – Lady Writer – Pinkpop Festival 1979
• Comparing different guitars
• Early Dire Straits radio interview from 1978

That’s the nice thing about internet: I just released the other blog post about a little snippet of In the Gallery which I found on Youtube the other day where I stated that no other video clips (except of a snippet of Lady Writer in bad quality) exist from the Pinkpop Festival in 1979, when a reader of this blog – Brunno Nunes – added a comment with a link to this video: Lady Writer, the complete song,  in great quality. I really have never seen this one before, so I thought it might be worth another blog post.

It also includes a few backstage scenes from before the gig, and from the end of the set. Also, due to the various camera positions, you get a glance of the backstage line, and even on the floor where Mark’s effects were place, normally well hidden behind those monitor speakers (e.g. at 0:49 or 4:49). We can see the Morley vloule pedal and, left from it, the MXR analog delay. There seems to be a third little box about a feet left from the MXR. Of course the picture quality is not good enough to see any details, but nevertheless. I oberserved something similar in the Rockpalast videos, see this blog post.

Mark added a second Music Man amp (HD -130 212) just a few weeks ago (I guess about March ’79). One month later (July ’79) this second amp got speakers with an aluminium dust cap, but here it seems to be the “normal” paper ones (whhich definitely makes a change of tone). David played his Peavey Deuce amp with an Ampeg speaker cabinet, like he did that whole year. There are a lot of other amps on stage, a little bit behind the Straits’ amps which should have nothing to do with them, remember this was a festival with many bands.

"Buy me a beer" - donate for the site via PayPal. Or buy a backing track in my online shop :)

Related articles

• Dire Straits at the Hope & Anchor pub 1977 – new picture
• Sultans of Swing – backing track for long live version available
• Dire Straits Water of Love guitar tutorial
• Video snippet of Dire Straits – In the Gallery – Pinkpop Festival 1979
• Early Dire Straits radio interview from 1978
• Dire Straits – Where do you think you’re going – spontaneous cover on acoustic guitar

Here you can hear a very early radio interviews with Mark and David Knopfler of Dire Straits from summer 1978. Mark talks about how they recorded their first demo, how they got their record contract, about London, and about plans for the second album. I got it on an old analog tape many years ago.

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"Buy me a beer" - donate for the site via PayPal. Or buy a backing track in my online shop :)

Related articles

• Dire Straits at the Hope & Anchor pub 1977 – new picture
• Sultans of Swing – backing track for long live version available
• Dire Straits Water of Love guitar tutorial
• Video Clip of Dire Straits – Lady Writer – Pinkpop Festival 1979
• Dire Straits – Where do you think you’re going – spontaneous cover on acoustic guitar
• Brett Whiteley – Alchemy – The picture on the Alchemy cover

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