Terence Reis, an ex-Kearsney boy, is set to become a Sultan of Swing when he fronts Dire Straits on May 22nd for a special concert at London’s Royal Albert Hall.
Alan Clark, Phil Palmer & Chris White from Dire Straits will reunite for the first time in twenty years for a one-off charity event in aid of The Lord’s Taverners – “giving young people a sporting chance”.
Fronting the band will be Terence Reis, who has been asked to fill the rather sizeable shoes of Mark Knopfler, who is unavailable on this date.
Durban-born Terence spent his early years in Mozambique with his Portuguese father and English mother. Since his local high school only taught in the Portuguese language, Terence, like many children of ex-pats, was sent to boarding school in South Africa.
Whilst at Kearsney College, the final pieces of his interest in music clicked into place, but Terence’s passion for music started long before that.
“I can’t, in all honesty, remember a time that I wasn’t into music,” says Terence. “I remember clambering up into my mum’s car, my legs sticking out straight in front of me, so I must have been incredibly young, and turning up the volume on car radio tuned to the local rock and pop station. To this day I have clear memories from my childhood that are bookmarked by songs.”
At Kearsney, some of his peers shared his interest in music, and he was introduced to the seminal rock albums of the time and some hugely influential guitar players, from BB King, Paul Koshoff and Alan Silson to Brian May, Mark Knopfler, David Gilmour, Keith Richards, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Lindsay Buckingham and Jeff Beck.
His earliest memories of the guitar and guitar players were the local, finger-picking street musicians – a style that he still favours, and one employed by people like Johnny Clegg. From very early on, people commented that Terence produced a sound like Mark Knopfler, irrespective of what kind of guitar he played, and consequently he was often asked to play Dire Straits covers.
When he got the call about the Dire Straits gig, Terence thought it was a prank. It was the day after his birthday, and the proposition did sound rather unlikely. It was only when they got together in London for rehearsals in February that the enormity of the whole thing started to really weigh on Terence.
It must be rather daunting to be standing in the wings of the Royal Albert Hall with thousands of Dire Straits fans in the audience, knowing you have to go and play the work of one of the finest guitar players in the world.
Whether this gig will lead to others rather depends on whether the fans endorse it as a viable proposition. Irrespective of how well the band plays on the night, it is public demand that will fuel further outings.
So if you want to see Dire Straits in this country, get onto Big Concert’s Facebook page and petition for them!