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MUSIC: Mark Knopfler, MEN Arena, Saturday May 17

14/ 5/2008

IT'S ONE thing to defeat a great big monster, but it’s another thing to defeat a monster which you created yourself.

That, in a nutshell, seems to be the task undertaken by guitar legend Mark Knopfler. Back in the early eighties, Knopfler reigned supreme with the stadium rock monster that was Dire Straits.

Selling well over 100 million records, they were an all-conquering stadium rock beast and typical of the decade where bombast, bluster and money-making were very much the order of the day.

In the past decade though, Knopfler has consciously gone about dismantling that rock monster.

Well aware of how Dire Straits were becoming a cash cow and their reputation as the definitive eighties yuppie soundtrack, Knopfler is determined to enter his midlife in more understated fashion.

His many solo albums and musical collaborations (most notably with country legend Emmylou Harris) have drawn a line under the Dire Straits bloated rock monster, and re-focussed Knopfler as a quiet, unassuming rock elder statesman.

Yet what will never change about Knopfler is his trademark guitar theatrics.

His solo concerts might focus largely on his recent bluesy, rootsy work (with a few Dire Straits numbers thrown in), but Knopfler’s status as a true British guitar legend is still evident.

At 58, he might now possess the looks and glamour of a truck delivery driver, but when he fires up the legendary opening riff to ‘Money For Nothing’, Knopfler is still something of a guitar rock giant, no matter how unassuming he tries to be.