Hastings date for Dire Straits legend as he mixes music with memories

That strange thing has been to be right at the heart of a band that sold more than 120 million albums worldwide and became a global phenomenon.

With their unmistakable sound, poetic song writing and genre-defining musicianship, Dire Straits conquered stages the world over, nowhere more so than with the ground-breaking 1985 release of Brothers in Arms, which turns 40 this year.

John looks back on it all in John Illsley: The Life and Times of Dire Straits which plays Winchester Theatre Royal on October 24; Hove’s The Old Market on October 29; The Lens Studio, Portsmouth on October 30; and Hastings’ White Rock Theatre on November 29.

In an intimate evening of music and conversation, John will reflect on the band's meteoric rise, the madness of worldwide fame and the enduring power of their music. Live on stage, John will be joined in conversation by his long-time friend and former Dire Straits co-manager Paul Cummins, offering a relaxed Q&A format. The evening also features live performances of Dire Straits classics.

“The real beginning was in late 76 when I had just finished a degree at Goldsmiths College doing sociology,” John recalls, “and actually being in the band sometimes I did feel a bit like a social worker! I met Mark pretty much when I was finishing my finals and we began playing music together. The nucleus of the band was late 76 and by 77 we agreed that we had started to sound pretty good. David had joined us.

“To be honest I had played in a lot of bands before and so had Mark but this was the first time that he was really seriously writing songs. He found that he was able to produce some interesting lyrics and music at the same time as he had met me. The two things came together at the same time. He was a lecturer at a college in Essex and I was a penniless student and really we were just playing together for fun before it turned into something more serious. One of the songs Sultans of Swing was played on the radio in early 77, and this was a radio station that a lot of record company executives listened to on their day off from misbehaving! They were playing new music and Sultans was on there to our amazement, and to our amazement lots of record companies were suddenly interested. We got quite a lot of attention. It was quite difficult to deal with. It was a bit intense. It did feel sudden even though we'd been playing all the pubs and clubs around London for £20 here or £50 there or pretty much for a pint of beer and a fiver but actually Mark and I were a bit older and we are able to go to the meetings and figure out what we wanted to do. We ended up with Phonogram which was the best situation for us. They offered us a five-album deal and a bit of money upfront to make a record. They said that they would be overjoyed if we sold 5,000 copies of our first album. The first album has now sold 15 million copies! It sold pretty quickly, and America picked up on it and once America picks up on something its spreads backwards over the world.

“There are so many memories and anecdotes from then that I just remember as I am telling them. Every evening is slightly different (on the current tour). We have a format but inevitably we go off piste. And for me it's a very interesting way of approaching what makes a successful rock ‘n’ roll band. There are lots of surprises that you would never predict that come out of a lot of situations, and you just can't believe that you've gone from the 15-year-old who doesn't know one E string from the other to playing in front of 80 to 90,000 people.”

Inevitably by the end it did start to become a bit too much. They would be leapfrogging, in other words the next stage would be being built as they were playing the current stage.

“I remember we were in Rotterdam and we did two or three evenings and it was to 80,000 people a night and I can remember walking across the car park with my tour manager and I said why are we walking through a truck park to get to the show. He said this is not a truck park. He said these are all your lorries. There were 47 of them and they were all ours. It really did get to that scale. 47 articulated trucks and 147 crew.

“I think if we had carried on at that scale then maybe we really would have gone a little bit astray!”