Dire Straits played for the first time in France on the stage at the Théâtre de l’Empire (Empire Theatre), back on November 5th, 1978 in Paris.
They had a concert for the program called at the time “Chorus” in a led by Patrice Blanc-Francard. Dire Straits has played four of their songs from the first album “Eastbound Train,” “Water of Love,” “Lions,” and “Sultans of Swing.”
The concert was interpreted with a short interview with the leader of the group Mark Knopfler as well as the other members David Knopfler, Pick Withers, and John Illsley. Patrice Blanc-Francard asked him a couple of interesting questions, and if you want to watch the full concert and interview just click play on the video below.
The interesting fact is that Theatre de l’Empire was a Parisian performance hall (something like Royal Albert Hall in the UK), located in Paris, France. This theatre was a Parisian Temple of the spectacle, as well as music hall, theatre, circus, cinema and finally television studios and event hall. The life of the theatre ended on February 13, 2005, unfortunately following a fire.
At the time when Dire Straits had their debut performance at the theatre, the French: Institut National de l’audiovisuel or shortly INA (National Audiovisual Institute) of the all-French radio and television audiovisual archives were there.
Luckily, because of INA, today we have more than 100,000 online archives of historical programs, music shows, and concerts like this one, in a length of more than 20,000 hours.
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