Dear everyone,

Ok, this is the one you´ve been waiting for! We now have the first section of the Dire Straits tour all confirmed, and later in this newsletter, you will find full ticket booking details for the European shows, and a priority ticket booking form for the UK shows. Before you rush to fill in the form, though, please read the rest of the newsletter, because much of it it´s about procedure, and it will make my life a lot easier if you all order correctly!

First of all though –here is the rest of the news. I´d be grateful if you keep all the information to yourself till the end of the month when we make the official announcement of album and tour plans via the press.

SINGLE

The first single will be “Calling Elvis” and will be released on August 12th (Mark´s birthday) –probably in all territories. I say “probably” because apart from the UK and Eire, the various record companies in each country have not even heard it yet! Also, some countries may release it slightly later because of holidays. It is an edit of the album track of the same name, and at time of writing, the B-side hasn´t yet been decided.

ALBUM

The album is entitled “On Every Street” and is released worldwide on September 10th, on Polygram Records everywhere except the USA where it is on Warner Bros. It will be available on cd and cassette everywhere, although a few countries may not issue it on vinyl LP depending on local record company policy. It will contain at least 10 songs, although the final decision on track-listing hasn’t been made yet. The main line-up of musicians on the album is as follows: Mark Knopfler (guitars/vocals), John Illsley (bass), Guy Fletcher (keyboards/vocals), Alan Clark (keyboards), Paul Franklin (pedal steel guitar/dobro), Chris White (sax), Danny Cummings (percussion), Jeff Pocaro and Manu Katche (drums), and Vince Gill (backing vocals). The album was recorded at Air Studios in London, and was produced by Dire Straits, engineered by Chuck Ainlay, and mixed by Neil Dorfsman.

VIDEOS

During the summer, the band will be making a video to accompany the first single, in fact work has already started on it. They will probably make a couple more videos for future singles too, since they won´t have much time to do them once they´re on tour.

PROMOTION

The band are not intending to do any pop-type TV shows around this tour. They don´t want to appear on “Top of the Pops” type programmes! A few of the shows during the course of the tour may be transmitted live as TV/Radio simulcasts, but we haven´t made any firm decision yet. As far as press is concerned, the band will be doing only a very selective amount. There will be a photo session done during the summer –we cannot organise one prior to that since the band members won´t all be together in one place until tour rehearsals start. Therefore I will not have any photos of the new band line-up till late summer –I will give you details in a future newsletter.

MERCHANDISE

We are having a complete new range of merchandise designed, and this will be available on the tour, plus probably via mail order once the tour has started. Many of the designs will be based on the album artwork, which is still being finalised, so I can´t give you any details yet, except to say that we´re starting completely afresh, with new logo, etc.

THE TOURING BAND

The touring band will consist of nine musicians, as follows: Mark, John, Guy, Alan, Paul, Chris and Danny, plus Phil Palmer on second guitar and Chris Whitten on drums. Show rehearsals are taking place from the middle of June till the tour starts, but as yet I have absolutely no idea what songs they will be playing on the tour –since they do not know themselves yet!

THE FIRST SECTION OF THE TOUR

CONTRIES VISITED

Eire, UK, Germany, Holland, Belgium, France, Switzerland. Full dates, venue details, and ticket prices later in this newsletter. In some of these countries, you will find there are only one or two dates, but of course, we are re-visiting most of them again next year!

THE SHOW

There will be no support group at any of the shows on this first section, and Dire Straits will be playing a set of between two and a half hours and two hours 50 minutes. I would imagine the band will go on stage at approximately 8 pm. But the exact time will of course be printed on the tickets.

CAMERAS ETC.

As those of you who have been on the Info. Service mailing list for a long time will be aware, Dire Straits and Damage Management have no objection whatsoever to fans bringing cameras to shows, or for that matter tape recorders.

However, for some reason most bands do not like members of the audience taking photos, and certainly not filming. (This is supposedly because they are worried about bootleg recordings, although in our experience, bootleg recordings don´t present a problem because they do not detract from album sales in any way. We think that people buy bootlegs IN ADDITION to the official albums, and not INSTEAD of them). Anyway, because of this, many venues have a general “no cameras, no recording” policy. In our contracts with the various local promoters, there will be a clause stating that we do NOT object to members of the audience taping or filming the shows or taking photographs with or without flash. So, although we cannot be held responsible if some obscure venue rule or bye-law somewhere means you are not permitted to take your camera in, we don´t foresee there should be any problems.

WHEN TO EXPECT YOUR TICKETS

If you are ordering tickets for UK shows, please be advised that during May, I will be spending most of my time processing the orders, so probably will not actually be sending the tickets out to you until the end of the month or during June. However, if you want immediate confirmation that your order has reached us, please enclose a stamped addressed postcard marked “receipt”, and we´ll return it to you as soon as your order arrives. If you have any queries, you can call me on 071 229 2992, but please only phone if it´s important –we will be very very busy as I´m sure you can imagine. If you are ordering tickets for overseas shows, please direct any queries to the relevant address/phone number listed on the “Overseas Booking Information” page in this newsletter.

THE REST OF THE TOUR IN GENERAL

Apart from the first section, we still haven´t confirmed any of the dates yet. However, below is a very rough outline of what we´re intending to do for Section 2 of the tour (Australia/New Zealand) for which tickets will go on sale on September 10th (the day the album comes out). The Australian dates start at the very end of October, and run through to the second week of December. Cities on the list are Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide and Hobart, although we are still moving a few things around! The New Zealand dates (Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland) follow on after that until just before Christmas. I will probably do a newsletter just for fans in Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand and Far Eastern countries during the summer with full details. Tickets are likely to be 40 Australian dollars and 42 NZ dollars.

As mentioned in the last newsletter, we are still intending to do the USA and Canada during February and March 1992. Then there are further European dates from April 1992 to August 1992 (during which time the intention is to include the following countries: France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Holland, UK, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland). The tour returns to the USA from August 24th to November 14th 1992, and South America is tentatively set for December 1992. the dates in all of the above places are still being set up, but I should hopefully be able to give you a complete list by the time I do the next newsletter (July/August). If you have any country not listed above, maybe we´ll get to you in 1993 (you think i´m joking??!!)

Assuming we make it to the end of tour, it will be the biggest ever undertaken by any musical artist of any description. At present, it looks like there will be approximately 250-275 shows in all, with a total audience of over 7 million people. So, it is in fact a bigger tour than the Live In ´85/´86 one, although there are longer breaks between the various sections than last time (yes, we do learn from experience!!!).

CHRIS WHITE´S ALBUM

At long last, I can actually tell you something! “Shadowdance” is now available in Germany, Austria and Switzerland on the Bellaphon label. It´s also out in all Scandinavian countries on Polygram, and in Spain and Portugal on Sanni Records. I still don´t have any catalogue numbers, but as you now know the artist, the album title and the record label, you should be able to find it all right. As yet, it isn´t released anywhere else, as no record deals have been signed for other territories. The album will, however, be sold on the merchandise stalls at the Dire Straits concerts.

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That´s about it for now, except to say please be patient for your tickets! There´s only one person (me!) dealing with it, and I still haven´t all my other work to fit in as well!!! Incidentally, you will notice on the UK ticket booking form I have asked for your age… this is just so I can update my files –it´s useful to us when considering suitable items of merchandise, etc. You don´t HAVE to fill it in if you don´t want to though –I´m not employed by the Census Office! See you at the shows…

Best wishes for now

P.S. I don´t normally do personal “hellos” and i´m not intending to make a habit of it, but Ken, Dave, Janie and the rest of the Birmingham contingent (who pounced on me at one of the Rod Stewart gigs at Birmingham NEC) threatened me with all sorts of things if I didn´t give them a mention –so… hi all of you! And just so you know, I was partially deaf for a week after experiencing your vocal performance on “Sailing”, but I have now recovered…

PPS. Thanks to all of you for your birthday cards etc.. and specially Carolyn for the lovely plant –very much appreciated! Everyone tells me “you are only as old as you feel” so that makes me about 18. Of course, once I get started on the tickets, that may change!

DATES FOR THE FIRST SECTION OF THE TOUR ARE AS FOLLOWS

DAY/DATE VENUE CITY TICKET PRICE

Oct 29-Nov 5	The Point Dublin	20,75 punts
Sat 24 Aug	The Point Dublin	20,75 punts
Sun 25 Aug	The Point Dublin	20,75 punts
Mon 26 Aug	The Point Dublin	20,75 punts
Tues 27 Aug	The Point Dublin	20,75 punts
Fri 30 Aug	The Arena Sheffield	20,00 pounds
Sat 31 Aug	The Arena Sheffield	20,00 pounds
Sun 1 Sep	The Arena Sheffield	20,00 pounds
Mon 2 Sep	The Arena Sheffield	20,00 pounds
Tues 3 Sep	The Arena Sheffield	20,00 pounds
Thu 5 Sep	NEC Birmingham	20,00 pounds
Fri 6 Sep	NEC Birmingham	20,00 pounds
Sat 7 Sep	NEC Birmingham	20,00 pounds
Sun 8 Sep	NEC Birmingham	20,00 pounds
Mon 9 Sep	NEC Birmingham	20,00 pounds
Wed 11 Sep	SEC Glasgow	20,00 pounds
Thu 12 Sep	SEC Glasgow	20,00 pounds
Fri 13 Sep	SEC Glasgow	20,00 pounds
Sat 14 Sep	SEC Glasgow	20,00 pounds
Mon 16 Sep	Wembley Arena London	20,00 pounds
Tues 17 Sep	Wembley Arena London	20,00 pounds
Wed 18 Sep	Wembley Arena London	20,00 pounds
Thu 19 Sep	Wembley Arena London	20,00 pounds
Fri 20 Sep	Wembley Arena London	20,00 pounds
Mon 23 Sep	Westfalenhalle Dortmund	45 DM
Tues 24 Sep	Westfalenhalle Dortmund	45 DM
Wed 25 Sep	Westfalenhalle Dortmund	45 DM
Thu 26 Sep	Stadthalle Bremen	45 DM
Fri 27 Sep	Stadthalle Bremen	45 DM
Sat 28 Sep	Ahoy Rotterdam	50 G
Sun 29 Sep	Ahoy Rotterdam	50 G
Mon 30 Sep	Ahoy Rotterdam	50 G
Tues 1 Oct	Forest National Brussels	980 B. Fr.
Wed 2 Oct	Forest National Brussels	980 B. Fr.
Thu 3 Oct	Omnisports Bercy Paris	170 F. Fr.
Fri 4 Oct	Omnisports Bercy Paris	170 F. Fr.
Sat 5 Oct	Omnisports Bercy Paris	170 F. Fr.
Mon 7 Oct	Festhalle Frankfurt	45 DM
Tues 8 Oct	Festhalle Frankfurt	45 DM
Wed 9 Oct	Festhalle Frankfurt	45 DM
Fri 11 Oct	Olympiahalle Munich	50 DM
Sat 12 Oct	Olympiahalle Munich	50 DM
Mon 14 Oct	Hallenstadion Zurich	36 S. Fr.

Please note that at venues where there are tow or more different prices, I have quoted the top price -i.e. the price for the best tickets, which i asumme is what all of you will want

VERY IMPORTANT

TICKETS FOR ALL OF SHOWS GO ON SALE TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC ON MAY 31st YOU MUST THEREFORES PLACE YOUR TICKET ORDER BEFORE THAT DATE TO BE SURE OF GETTING YOUR TICKETS.

TICKET SALE DATES

As explained on the previous page, tickets for the whole of this first section go on sale to the general public on May 31st. For overseas shows, DSIS ticket orders MUST be in before that date –since all tickets will then be released for sale to the public. For the UK shows, we have already reserved allocations of tickets for DSIS members from the various box offices. However, since I am –to a certain extent –guessing at the numbers required for each night, please try and get you orders in as soon as possible so I have a more accurate figure by the end of the month. We cannot guarantee to fulfil ticket orders received after May 31st. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, MAKE SURE THAT INFORMATION CONCERNING THE TOUR DATES NOT GET INTO THE WRONG HANDS. If news of dates leaks out to the press before we make the official announcement, DSIS will not in future be able to offer priority tickets to members.