In the evening of  September 6/7, Mark Knopfler and his band played a surprise performance at the Range Rover event at the Royal Ballet School in Richmond Park, where Land Rover revealed the All-New Range Rover, the fourth generation of the world’s most capable and luxurious SUV. The audience consisted of  leaders from business, film, television and sport. Many of these were long-standing Range Rover owners and enthusiasts keen to get the first view of the All-New Range Rover.

The dramatic reveal culminated in a surprise  performance by  Mark Knopfler with his band. They played seven songs: Walk of Life, Sailing to Philadelphia, Romeo and Juliet, Sultans of Swing, Money for Nothing, Brothers in Arms, Local Hero, So Far Away. With the exception of Sailing to Philadelphia, the set included only Dire Straits hits, and not a single track from Mark’s new album Privateering. The band consisted of   MK, Guy Fletcher, Glenn Worf, Richard Bennett, Ian Thomas, and Nigel Hitchcock on saxophone (Edit/Update: Nigel Hitchcock played sax on Walk of Life, Sailing to Philadelphia, Romeo and Juliet, and Local Hero, no sax break in Sultans).

At the moment there is the following video of the event on youtube. You can see a few snippets of Mark’s performance starting at 1:56.

Two pictures can be found here. You can download these in high resolution, don’t miss to open the first one which shows Mark playing his signature Strat in an astonishing quality (the thumbnail does not show the guitar at all).

The band is probably rehearsing for the coming US tour with Bob Dylan, so they might have taken the opportunity to play there. It is not clear at the moment why they Played almost only Dire Straits songs, and none from Privateering. Maybe Land Rover asked for these, or the DS hits seemed better for a random audience that is not necessarily into Mark’s current music.