Mark Knopfler is my white whale

I’ve been to all sorts of concerts In my lifetime. In the last 15 years I’ve seen everyone from the Rolling Stones to Shania Twain to even Julio Iglesias. My all time favorite concert is the Stones, and I don’t think anything will top that. But there is one-act that has eluded me time and time again, and that’s the Sultan of swing himself, Mr. Mark Knopfler.

I’ve wanted to see Mark Knopfler live, ever since I first heard Dire Straits in the mid 1980’s. What bugs me the most is I’ve had plenty of chances to see him, but failed every time. In 1988 I hoped to see him at Greatwoods in Mansfield MA, but my douche bag uncle and aunt said I couldn’t go. Did I mention he was playing with Eric Clapton? Grr. I haven’t spoken to that uncle in five years, and my aunt in seven, serves them right.

It was over 10 years before I had another chance at catching Mark Knopfler live. In 1999, While John and I were in art school, I did my best to get tickets. But the show sold out before I had a chance to get tickets. I was pissed, but that sort of thing happens.

Then in 2003 I was as giddy as a dog in a hubcap factory when a Knopfler North American tour was announced. What’s more, I even had the tickets in my hand. I should have known better, because in March of that year Mark Knopfler crashed his motorcycle, broke his collarbone and bunch of ribs and his tour went POOF!

Most people would have given up by now, but not me.  A co-worker made my day in June 2006 when she told me she had tickets to the Mark Knopfler  and Emmylou Harris show, and wanted me to go. And then I saw the date on the ticket. The show was  on the day John, Laneit, and I traveled to Albany New York. There would be no concert for me. On the bright side, it was in Albany I met my future wife and we also met NYPinTA. That was also the day we learned John doesn’t know how to clean car windows.

Two years later that same co-worker, knowing my past, made sure she got a pair of tickets for a friend and me. I was positive this was it, at long last I would see Mark Knopfler live! When the tickets, arrived I was crushed. Whoever booked the show thought it would be funny to have it on July 19, 2008, the day AFTER I moved to South Carolina.

Sigh, Captain Ahab, I feel your pain.