@@oksceez Good Reaction and great to see you get into this English Band but 7 pauses is far too many as we can always hear your interesting thoughts at the end without breaking up the flow and rhythm as the song builds and builds and NEVER pause a guitar solo...lol Good Luck,My Friend...
A truly legendary band with the legendary rock guitarist Mark Knopfler ! Nobody does it like Mark !!! " You say I'm the greatest - bound for glory "` when he wrote these words of the song Setting me up, he was being prophetic, and he's still doing it at 70 plus years young ! Dire straits will be immortal, and I was priveledged to be in at the beginning in the early seventies.
That's a pretty close race my friend. This whole album is fantastic. I saw them do both in my hometown in '86 for the Brother's in Arms tour, and it was still a close race which one was better.
When you're so talented you can produce that performance whilst having the time of your lives. My soul leaves my body and dances with me when that guitar solo plays.
They knew this was going to be a huge performance for them. It was sold out and it was going to be filmed and recorded. So they really put out their best
I love when mark turns round to look at Terry the drummer turns back laughing as if to say "let him get on with it he's in his zone" great British band.
Swing refers to a style of music used by Jazz groups and Big Bands. This song refers to Mark seeing a local Jazz band in a Public House (Bar) who were not very good and next to nobody watching them. They called themselves "The Sultans of Swing" Mark said they weren't the Sultans (master) of anything.
The sound of 70s 80s UK this was one of the best concerts I've ever been to.Totally immersive musical and lyrical extravaganza,for me it's up there with Bruce Springsteen 85 born in the USA tour at Wembley Stadium. And Pink Floyd 94 Pulse tour at Earls Court
Imagine being there! The atmosphere must have been electric!! Great video mate, love these reaction videos to these great, great bands. Try ‘stairway to heaven’ or ‘comfortably numb’ live. All fabulous 👍🇬🇧
The studio version of this is one of the best songs for cruising. Including road tripping. It's nice that you enjoyed it so much. What I love about this clip is how much fun they're having. Making a living like that wouldn't suck.🤑🤑🤑🤑 Shout out to the production crew. The filmography of this LIVE concert is incredible.🤩🤩
story of stepping out of the rain & into a dive. The band playing there was called the sultans of swing, but they played everything but swing, including creole. Dire Straits is just mocking them in this song.
He wrote this about a time in London he took shelter in a pub from the rain and a crap band called the Sultans of Swing were playing to an almost empty pub
Alchemy live is one of the best live performances ever and rates up there with the Allman's life at Filmore East(One Way Out, Whipping Post, Stormy Monday, In Memory of Elizabeth Reed). Epic stuff by Dire Straits.
I love dire Straits, but why does everyone rave so much about this version? Clearly, it's not the best version. Any version that supersedes this version is and always will be better. There are at least 4 versions of the exact same song that are performed much later in their career and make this version look amateurish. Anyone that thinks this is the best version, doesn't know much about the band at all. Watch the Sydney 86 version and then tell me that Alchemy is better. Not possible. The later in their career that it is performed, the tighter, more refined, longer and so much better it is, naturally. No idea some people.
Mark wrote this song about a band he saw in a pub in London. They were semi professional ordinary blokes just having a whale of a time regardless of who was listening
I'll always prefer the studio version. Hearing that recording on the radio in 1978 is what hooked me on Fire Straits. It was like "step aside disco, buh bye punk. We got some real music around now."
A sultan was an Arab ruler or head of state. Swing refers to swing music that was very popular in the 40’s and 50’s. So the Sultans of Swing is the name of the band playing old style jazz and swing music in a bar on the south side of London and the inspiration for this song.
Everyone on point just everything you could wish for in this performance It was never off the jukebox in all the bars this song in the late 70’s put Knopfler’s guitar playing sound right up there with the best of them .
One of the most entertaining frontman from back in the day was Van Halen’s David Lee Roth. He was hilarious in “Hot for Teacher” video Motley Crue “Girls Girls Girls” Bad Company “Feel like making love” are some good old rock tunes too.
In the song he songs about being in south London and hearing music in a club and going inside, then he tells you about all these different guys in the band, one can only afford an old guitar but when he gets on the stage he’s GOOD, one has a day job and doesn’t care if he never “makes the scene”, etc, this fictional band is called “The Sultans Of Swing”. He refers to “Dixie double four time”, that’s a reference to Dixieland Jazz, a style of Jazz from New Orleans and double four time is the way it’s played (as in a four/four beat). So in the song the singer/narrator is stumbling across an amazing band in London that calls themselves The Sultans Of Swing, they play Dixieland Jazz, and he tells you a little about the various members of the band.
The "Sultans of Swing" weren't an amazing band at all, they were a shit band and this entire song is a piss take about how bad they were. Don't take the lyrics literally, get it from the man himself. It has absolutely nothing to do with a quality bunch of musicians playing good music in a pub, and they aren't a fictional band, they're a band that he saw live and they were terrible. You couldn't be more wrong with your analysis of the lyrics.
So many alleged "fans" have absolutely no idea what the song is about and know nothing about dire straits, right down to calling this the best version of this song. Any true fan would know what the lyrics are about and also there are several better versions than the Alchemy version recorded much later in their career.
