Just after 6pm on July 13, 1985, Dire Straits took to the stage at Wembley Stadium as part of Live Aid, playing to a global TV audience that reached a mind-frying 1.9 billion. In their slot between U2 ...

At 10.10pm on October 9, 1992, Mark Knopfler bid goodnight to 40,000 people and walked off stage in Zaragoza, Spain. It was the last time he did so as the singer, guitarist and undisputed leader of ...

Dire Straits was a band not meant to exist. It began as a troupe of men in their late 20s led by Mark Knopfler, a Geordie who sang folk and blues when the rest of music was young and loud. It was ...

Close your eyes and you could well have imagined that Mark Knopler and the rest of Dire Straits were up there on the Festival Drayton Centre stage, writes John Hargreaves.