Knopfler in Toronto

Last night's concert at the Molson Amphitheatre was great. I really felt we got more entertainment than our tickets had cost. And that's a rare thing nowadays.

We'd spent the day in various activities, spending more money than I'd really planned on (of course), and generally enjoying having a day out. Victor made out like a bandit on stuff: books, clothes, a CD, and probably more that I'm not remembering now. I guess I was doing the stereotypical "divorced dad on visitation day" thing: showering the kid with merchandise to attempt to compensate for the lack of physical presence (although in my case it's been working long hours, rather than being divorced, thank goodness).

About the only "exciting" thing that happened during the day was getting rear-ended at the corner of the Queensway and Colborne Lodge on our way to Ontario Place. No real damage, thank goodness: the woman in the car behind us had handed her son a cookie, her foot slipped off the brake pedal, and she nudged the back of my CR/V. We were that far west due to the ongoing construction along Queen Street (replacing long stretches of streetcar trackage, by the look of things).

The venue was pretty good, although it was very distracting having people getting up and down all through the concert (we must have had to stand up 50 times to let people in and out of our row of seats). I took a photo of the stage before many folks had arrived, because it was unlikely that I'd get anything useful after the show started. Unfortunately, the guy who sat directly in front of me was tall, and wore a basball cap . . . and kept sweeping his head from left to right so that I couldn't see the stage. The couple directly behind us won complimentary seat upgrades from Bell Cellular, so they departed for the Bell VIP box and Victor and I climbed back a row, which gave us just enough clearance to see the stage over top of baseballcapguy's head.

The opening act was Jackie Green (photo linked from Guy Fletcher's tour diary), a young singer/songwriter who did a pretty good job playing his own repertoire on guitar or keyboard accompanied by harmonica. It wasn't quite my cup of tea, but it was pleasant listening. Jackie did a half-hour's worth of playing before the crew came back on to set up for Mark and the band.

The main performance was great, with a killer rendition of "Sultans of Swing" getting the crowd howling for more. I loved the live versions of "Sailing to Philadelphia", "Speedway at Nazareth", "Song for Sonny Liston", and "Boom Like That". Older material included "Telegraph Road", "Romeo and Juliet", "Money for Nothing", and "Brothers in Arms".

As I expected, my during-the-show photos are just smears of light.

Update: Guy Fletcher updated his diary entry for last night's concert.