Brothers in Band, the group that dared to pay the best tribute to rock legends Dire Straits

Emulating a famous band and going beyond homage is a major challenge. There are countless clone bands; just take a look at YouTube, for example; some are very good, others respectable, and then there are those that seem to betray that concept. Brothers in Band can be placed in the first group.

This musical proposal, under the leadership of the Italian guitarist and singer Angelo Fumarola , makes a musical reverence to Dire Straits , which had the talented king of the six strings and vocalist Mark Knopfler.

But Fumarola's work goes beyond vocal imitation or the recreation of his idol's intricate riffs; he allowed himself to be overshadowed by rock and blues at age 15 and has taken it so seriously that his project has been able to travel the world. This Sunday, June 15, Brothers in Band will perform in Bogotá. The date is at the Teatro Cassia (104th Street, No. 17-22), at 8 p.m. Tickets can be purchased at Tuboleta.com

“We frequently tour Europe, in Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, and we were in the United Kingdom for the first time in May, and now in Colombia,” Angelo Fumarola tells EL TIEMPO.

He says that the whole adventure and responsibility of playing the material of a band that made history is born from an unconditional love for rock that ends up tying together a perfect balance between technique and feeling.

“On stage, I deliver the same emotion I felt as a teenager, locked in my room playing and practicing. The beautiful thing is that playing the music Dire Straits created is actually pure love.”

He's been racking up "musical miles" for years, believing that the more he plays, the more he learns, despite having a pinpoint knowledge of Dire Straits. His favorite song is Tunnel of Love, a cathartic ode to love and its confusions, which the British band released on their 1980 album, Making Movies. "It's the best song Mark has ever written; listening to it, you find moments of passion, emotion, sadness—a masterpiece with a magnificent guitar solo. I saw Alchemy live in the early '90s and destroyed the VCR from replaying, rewinding, and enjoying it so much," he reveals, although he actually discovered Mark Knopfler with his country project, The Notting Hillbillies. "With Dire Straits, I was impacted by Once Upon a Time in the West," which was also on that ailing VCR. "That was probably the moment Dire Straits changed my life."

Brothers in Band is a retelling of hits like Money for Nothing, Walk of Life, and Sultans of Swing; but the bonus track for their Colombian concert could be discovering or revisiting Telegraph Road, The Bug, and Romeo and Juliet, among other great songs.

“Thanks to the recitals, I've been able to meet a lot of people. Many of them are teenagers who come to the concerts and love the sound of the guitar riffs or are practicing the instrument too. That's good because we have a lot of technology and computers, and I think we could bring those guitars back into music,” he concludes.