The Galician group, Brothers in Band, regarded as one of the world’s best tribute bands of the British rock group Dire Straits, will be performing at the Festival Jardins de Terramar on Sunday 7 August.
Since Brothers in Band started in 2007, it has consistently toured both Spain and Europe (particularly Germany, France, Portugal, Holland and Luxembourg) with three different stage shows: ‘The Very Best of Dire Straits’, ‘On Every Street, 30th Anniversary’ and ‘Alchemy Dire Straits Re-Live’.
In Sitges in August the band will be performing ‘The Very Best of Dire Straits’, where for more than two hours they play the highlights of the original band’s career, reviving classic songs such as Down to the Waterline, Money for Nothing, Sultans of Swing, Telegraph Road, Romeo & Juliet, Tunnel of Love and Lady Writer, among many others.
Dire Straits was a British rock band originally formed in London in 1977 by Mark Knopfler (lead vocals and lead guitar), his brother David Knopfler, as well as John Illsley and Pick Withers. With different band members, they were active from 1977 to 1988 and again from 1990 to 1995, recording five studio albums and becoming one of the world’s most commercially successful bands, with total worldwide album sales of more than 120 million. Since the group disbanded, Mark Knopfler has gone on to enjoy a very successful solo career.
Italian-born professional musician Angelo Fumarola, aged 46, is the lead vocalist and guitarist for Brothers in Band, having joined the band in 2019. In total, there are eight other band members.
Talking to Sitges in English, Fumarola said he was excited to be coming to Sitges with the band for the Terramar Festival, saying that he first had the pleasure of seeing Dire Straits live on stage in 1992.
‘I was 16 years old, already learning and playing the guitar myself, and it was at the Cava De Tirreni stadium in Salerno (Italy), and it was something spectacular and unforgettable,’ he said.
Thirty years later the Brothers in Band group recreate the show that Fumarola witnessed in their ‘On Every Street, 30th Anniversary’ show.
‘As a child, and before discovering Dire Straits, I listened, and still do, to a lot of blues and country music,’ said Fumarola, ‘but it was the interraction between Knopfler’s voice, along with his lead guitar phrasing sounding like another “singing voice” that impressed me forever.’
With the Brothers in Band tribute group, Fumarola explained that the staging, scenery and lighting are a fundamental part of their shows, and with the music they take the ‘maxmum care to recreate the atmposphere and all the emotions of the original compositions’.
‘For me it doesn’t consist of “getting into a role” and I don’t wear an impersonator’s costume or anything like that,’ said Fumarola. ‘It’s something that goes further, because the music of Dire Straits and Mark Knopfler is part of the soundtrack of my life. I’ve been listening and playing their music since I was 13 years old. I grew up as a musician with them and it feels very natural to pay them tribute. They are the songs I love.’
He said that his favourite song to play with the band is always Tunnel of Love. ‘It is for me the perfect combination of emotions, lyrics, musical composition, use of dynamics and guitar performance,’ he said. ‘It is unique.’
In addition to the ‘The Very Best of Dire Straits’ show that Brothers in Band will be bringing to Sitges in August, they also take two other shows on tour:
The On Every Street Tribute Tour recreates what became the last Dire Straits tour of 21 countries and 220 concerts in four stages between August 1991 and October 1992 throughout Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand.
The other tour they offer is Alchemy Dire Straits Re-Live – an ambitious and meticulous production that recreates the live show that Dire Straits recorded at the Hammersmith Odeon in London in July 1983.
Click here for tickets to the Festival Jardins de Terramar. Click here for the Brothers in Band website.
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