Mark Knopfler

Dolby Theatre

Los Angeles, CA

September 19

The dignified rock star is a relatively new persona among those fortunate to have a career long and successful enough to wear it.For Mark Knopfler, at his freshly-minted age of 66, it’s not a suit to put on or rebel against.In Los Angeles, he performs deservedly at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, on the same stage Oscar awards are given out, billed rather properly as An Evening With that wonderfully winds its way through some new cuts, some historical artifacts (as he puts it), and some exceptionally versatile musicianship.Dignified, surely, but also muscular, cerebral, and poetic, and like his jeans and loose grey shirt, a genuinely comfortable fit.

The looping, steady-rock opener “Broken Bones,” from his new studio album Tracker, gives Knopfler and his mates time to acknowledge the welcoming standing ovation and adjust the dials which have the Scotsman’s vocals rather low in mix.By “Corned Beef City” he’s settled in, as is his band of seven, with guitarist Richard Bennet’s bottleneck sliding and grinding against Jim Cox’s barrelhouse piano.“Privateering” follows, flashing to life out of sedate acoustic interludes, into the idyllic “Father and Son” and oncoming “Hill Farmer’s Blues.”

Bennet’s slide returns on the wafting “Skydiver,” before Knopfler brings out longtime pal Nigel Hitchcock on saxophone and reaches into to his Dire Straits collection for the cocktail jazz of “Your Latest Trick.”To that, he adds a delicately pleasing “Romeo and Juliet” and galloping classic “Sultans of Swing,” performed as a quartet, in a mid-set barrage of Straits treasures that require the calming “Haul Away” as a leveling respite.Formal intros precede a shuffling “Postcards for Paraguay,” with Knopfler gushing in praise of this group that, he says, can do it all.

Then, an expanded “Marbletown,” with Cox and multi-instrumentalist John McCusker (here stomping on tireless violin) displaying their expertise, before “Speedway at Nazareth” lets Knopfler reiterate his virtuosity of rock guitar on a marvelous outgoing solo.The prog-rock ascensions of “Telegraph Road” close out the show, before an encore of “So Far Away,” with slightly flipped melody, dips into the setting sun of “Our Shangri-La.”Refusing to let it end, the beckoning crowd spurs one more out of Knopfler and his cohorts; a final Highlands-tinged toast of “Going Home: Theme from Local Hero.”

Watching Mark Knopfler and his band as they stand and play without artifice or affect, it’s not the fame or fashion they personify, it’s the labor.As a songwriter, Knopfler once borrowed the blue-collar critique of the rock life on the ubiquitous hit “Money for Nothing,” quoting appliance installers bellyaching that playing the guitar ain’t working.With album after album, tour after tour, Mark Knopfler and his brothers in arms have validated the hard work of performing music for a living, with an unassuming, rewarding, and respected mastery of their craft.