Emmylou Harris and Mark Knopfler

I recently bought a copy of the new album recorded by Emmylou Harris and Mark Knopfler, really out of shear curiorisity. Of course I’m familiar with Knopfler, Brothers in Arms having been one of the first albums I ever bought (and curiously one of the few albums I’ve ever owned in three formats – vinyl, cassette and CD).
But Emmylou Harris I knew less about. In fact I think I learnt significantly more than I ever knew about her following a BBC Four documentary a couple of months ago.
I loved the album, and when tickets came up for this, I was quite excited. I haven’t been to Wembley for ages – so it was quite fascinating to see how Wembley Arena has been significantly refurbished. It’s still a shed, but around the edges, at least, it’s much improved. Out the front, as touts struggled to offload tickets to a concert which wasn’t a complete sellout, there’s one of those computer controlled fountain displays with dancing lights. And towering above everything is the new stadium, way behind schedule, and its fantastic arch. It actually looks quite close to finished up close – as good as Ashburton Grove looks, but there is obviously a way to go.
Inside the crowd was very well behaved – well apart from the fools behind me who made me wonder why they’d bothered getting their tickets and coming at all. Knopfler and Harris launched into some of the stronger songs from their album before each performing a few songs particular to them. As I say, I’m not really familiar with Emmylou’s back catalogue, but I think we all recognised Romeo and Juliet.
It’s a great band they’ve got, full of superb musicians, and I loved every minute of it. There were a couple of encores and the night ended with a wonderful duet of them singing the Dire Straits song, Why Worry (You can find a version on Youtube.)


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