Nah, The Black Keys ceased to be cool around Brothers and El Camino and have since been surrounded by a steady steam of embarrassing stuff which keeps accumulating. Pulling a stadium tour because of ticket sales, the Michelle Branch slap, the faux feud with Jack White, the opposition to streaming right up until not being on it started to cost them money.
You’re at the start of a run of “not cool” which, to be fair, we probably all are at this point in our lives.
Suzanne Vega at the Bridgewater Manchester next week… oh yeah, you’re probably right 
but i’m sure I’ll enjoy it with all other over 60s!
What does ‘Cool’ have to do with the music we choose to listen to?
Isn’t all our music ‘cool’?
That reminded me that I must get me Des O’Connor Greatest Hits Out.
Suzanne Vega for me too next week Glasgow .
I doubt any of us care about it at all but, FWIW, Gary started it yer honour. @Farthings-cat 
.
Certainly cooler than watching TV.
Was on a pub crawl many years ago, with a music mate. Called into the Hope and Anchor in Islington, tickets at the door pub. Just so very different to music at that time, yes the first is special, but i have and play them all, warts and all……still looking for the perfect album.
Brave thread Lindsay
I have seen Dire Straits in Paris Bercy in 1985. Not bad, but nothing that impacted strongly my memory. Curiosity I found no live album of them to really enjoy. I prefer their studio albums, the two first ones.
One year before i went at the same place to see Miles Davis with John Scofield. What a concert ! Incredible. I was quite in trance.
If I’d thought that……..!
I would never of bracketed Supertramp and ABBA together, it’s kinda like Lou Reed and Rick Ashley imo. 
… but but but… Rick Astley has done entire sets of Smiths and also covered Foo Fighters: "Everlong’, AC/DC: “Highway to Hell” and "You Shook Me All Night Long”, Chris Stapleton: “Either Way”, Sting: “Fragile” (thus losing cool, points accrued elsewhere), Bill Withers: "Ain’t No Sunshine”, Olivia Rodrigo: "Drivers License” and The Temptations: “My Girl” .
Matter of time before he does “Heroin”.
Yes but a monkey in a suit is still a monkey
‘Heroin - Never Gonna Give You Up’ ?
Fairly confident he’s a human being.
I’m fairly confident I was joking
My copy is never far from the LP12….
..
I like all the DS albums and my favourite would differ depending on the day of the week you ask me. That said, Sultans & Money for Nothing are definitely my favourite tracks. Or possibly Telegraph Road/Private Investigations……
I never saw them live but did see Knopfler at the NEC about 2006, rescheduled 18 months or so after his bad motorcycle accident.
Didn’t expect much when he sauntered on stage with a bunch of old men, none of whom looked remotely like a musician but went on to prove the old adage, ‘don’t judge a book by the cover’.
They were sensational &, when leaving the show I heard several people saying that when they saw DS, they didn’t sound as good as this. The set was 50/50 DS material and MK’s solo output.
The only worry was that MK was so laid back he looked as if he was about to fall asleep at any moment. I have struggled, & pretty much comprehensively failed, to play guitar since 1989. Watching MK that night I just don’t know how he’s was doing it. Sounding like two or three guitars at once at times, yet his hands hardly seemed to be moving. Amazing guitarist & doing it all whilst virtually asleep!
My two penn’orth:
For me ‘Dire Straits’ was a shining beacon of decent tunery in a period of some pretty awful punk/post punk dross. Sultans was just a breath of fresh air; good humoured, fabulous riffery and dead catchy. The first album had so many moods, but all punctuated by phenomenal Strat work that brought on yet another different and very welcome illustration of what could be done with that amazing guitar. Nicely captured in the studio too.
The second album started well musically, but dropped away on side 2 and wasn’t as cool, nor as well recorded.
Making movies had some great tracks, but again wasn’t as cool and downright strangely produced.
Love over Gold was the start of Stadium Rock orientation. Some fine moments of riffery, but for me hasn’t withstood the test of time.
Brothers: Full on ‘touring in large venues’ fare. A blueprint for U2, Coldplay etc. Admirable, but how often do you really want to revisit and expect to be genuinely moved?
On Every Street: More ‘ will sound great live’ writing, but strangely, for me works better than anything since the first album and along with DS1, the album I play most. On Vinyl. Sounds superb! Even the ‘no brainer’ Calling Elvis and Hevy Fuel are well worth it when you hear the drumming on vinyl.( Lots of Internet trawling has never fully revealed to me who played on what; Jeff Porcaro and Vinnie Coliauta I know, but who on what?)
Best news of all: Mark’s best work has been post DS. Check out Sailing to Philadelphia, Shangri-La, Tracker and Privateering in particular if you don’t already know them. Incredible and very natural production and spine-tingling music.
