Dire Straits was launched with Dire Straits' "Money for Nothing". After the "Brothers in Arms" tour ended Mark Knopfler took a break from Dire Straits and during 1987 he concentrated on solo projects and film soundtracks. Dire Straits regrouped in 1988 for the Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute concert staged on 11 June 1988 at Wembley Stadium, in which they were the headline act. They were joined for their set by Eric Clapton who performed his hit "Wonderful Tonight" with the group and played rhythm guitar on the other songs performed by the band, while guitarist Jack Sonni was absent. Soon afterwards,
Communiqué (Dire Straits album) gold in 1979. "Communiqué" was remastered and released with the rest of the Dire Straits catalogue in 1996 for most of the world outside the United States and on 19 September 2000 in the United States. The album cover was designed by Phonogram's advertising agency Grant Advertising UK. It won album cover of the year in the NME awards in 1979. In a 1979 review for the "Birmingham Daily Post", Jonathan Daümler-Ford called it a "competent record", but wrote that "the songs sound like pale imitations, or the cuts which were not good enough for "Dire Straits"". In his retrospective