Dire Straits' saxophonist: Even now I get a shiver when we play 'Brothers in Arms'

After joining Dire Straits to record the mega-hit 1985 album Brothers in Arms, Chris White was in rehearsal when he first heard its "amazing" title track - one of his favourites alongside 'Telegraph Road' and 'Private Investigations'.

Over four decades later, 'Brothers in Arms' anti-war message still silences mixed-age crowds watching tribute band The Dire Straits Experience, the 70-year-old says.

"I'm seeing people totally connected with the thing. Some people in tears, couples hugging. That very often happens. It's a big emotional moment, I think. Even now, I get a shiver when we play 'Brothers in Arms'", White tells Saturday Morning.

The 13th of July 1985 - when over a billion people tuned in to watch Dire Straits and other bands perform at Wembley Stadium for the charity concert Live Aid - also happened to be Chris White's 30th birthday.

"It was just amazing. There were musicians from all over the world there, people who weren't playing, but who just wanted to be there to experience it… It was a real privilege to be part of that."

After their Live Aid set, Dire Straits walked across the carpark to play nearby Wembley Arena, White says, where they were in the middle of a run of shows, that same night.

"It was a hell of a birthday."

On his first-ever visit with Dire Straits in 1986, when thousands of Kiwis watched them perform hits like 'Money For Nothing' and 'Walk of Life', the saxophonist absolutely loved Aotearoa.

White says he learned a lot playing with Dire Straits' original songwriter, guitarist and frontman Mark Knopfler - an "easy to be with" and "generous" musician who officially stopped playing with the band in 1992.

With Knopfler out front, no two Dire Straits gigs were ever the same.

"Mark would start playing in a different direction on something, and I'd chase him, and things like that would happen."

When South African singer Terence Reis signed on with The Dire Straits Experience, White made his expectations clear.

"I said to him, 'This has to be as good as Dire Straits or it's not worth doing'."

Rather than trying to reproduce note for note the original band's music, The Dire Straits Experience offers something more like a "celebration", White says.

"We allow ourselves the freedom to just respond to the night, respond to the audience, the venue.

"It is different every night. Things do change. And that keeps it alive for us on stage, because we're never quite sure what's going to happen on some things and I think it keeps it alive for the audience.

"The audience gets to have the experience of what it would have been like to come and see Dire Straits live back in the '80s or early '90s."